ARC II: THE ERA OF EXPANSION AND THE ANNIHILATION OF THE GREYJOYS
Chapter 10: Metallurgy and Runic Steel
POV: Greatjon Umber (288 AC)
The horn mug slammed against the rustic oak table with the force of a warhammer, causing half of the Winterfell ale to slosh over and soak my thick beard. I swallowed the bitter liquid in one gulp, feeling the heat burn the back of my throat and slide down like lava into my stomach. I let out a burp that echoed through the stone walls of the chamber and wiped the back of my massive hand across my lips, releasing a thunderous laugh that made the nearby servants take a step back.
— Hahahahaha! By the Old Gods, the best way to cure a hellish hangover is always with another hangover!
My head still throbbed slightly, a painful tribute to the absurd amount of mead and Dornish wine we had consumed the previous night. Yesterday's feast had been no ordinary celebration; it was the official farewell of little Princess Rhaenys Targaryen. She would soon depart to spend a few years with her maternal family in the arid, sun-drenched lands of Dorne. If it were up to me, that girl would never leave the North; the cold here builds strong bones and ruthless minds, and there is no safer place in the entire world for Elia Martell's children than beneath the grey skies of the Winter Throne. However, the southern relatives of the princess-dowager had managed, through persistent letters and diplomatic appeals, to convince Elia that the girl needed to know her Dornish roots.
I couldn't help a prickle of deep suspicion whenever I thought about the intentions of those Dornishmen. During Elia's wedding feast to Lord Willam Dustin three years ago, I had closely watched the emissaries from Sunspear. Behind their fake smiles and cordial toasts, the eyes of those southerners gleamed with vile, calculating intent, like serpents scenting an opportunity to use the legitimate rights of Rhaenys and little Aegon to drag the North back into the rat's nest they called southern politics. But if there was any consolation in the middle of that spiderweb, it was that their love for their family seemed genuine. They truly cared about the physical safety of the little ones, even if their minds were constantly engineering dynastic plots.
I brushed aside political thoughts—something that always gave me more of a headache than the worst of wines—and stood up, donning my heavy boiled leather doublet lined with bear fur. I stepped out into the fortified corridor and soon found old Rickard Karstark waiting for me. The Lord of Karhold wore his usual grim expression, his grey hair falling like icicles around a face marked by deep wrinkles.
As I walked side by side with him toward the castle's subterranean complex, I couldn't help but notice the faint runic lines glowing subtly beneath the skin of his wrists and neck. Our young and mystical King, Arawyn Stark, had performed a true miracle in recent years. He had created a simplified, stable version of his ancient runes—a base magic that could be carved into the flesh of any loyal Northerner to aid them in their daily duties, regardless of lineage or craft. There were runes for farmers to endure the exhaustion of the harvest, runes for builders to move stone blocks without breaking their backs, and, of course, our own.
I looked down at my own hands, which looked more like massive slabs of raw meat. Even before Arawyn's ascension, I was already considered one of the tallest, broadest, and most brutal men in all of Westeros, a force of nature capable of shattering bones with mere hugs. Now? I had completely surpassed any conceivable human limit. I felt the muscles of my back tighten beneath the leather; with the runic vigor flowing through my veins, I knew, with absolute and arrogant certainty, that I could crush the skull of Gregor Clegane, the infamous Mountain, using only one of my hands.
— Too thoughtful for an Umber, Jon — Karstark commented, his rasping voice breaking the silence of the corridors.
— I was just remembering the sparring match I had a few moons ago with the protectors of young Aemon — I replied, grinning from the corner of my mouth as I recalled the combat.
Young Aemon was the legitimate fruit of the secret marriage between Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. In the North, no one dared call him a bastard; he was a prince of noble blood, kept under the strict care of Winterfell. And his personal guardians and mentors-at-arms were none other than Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, and Ser Barristan Selmy, Barristan the Bold. Recently, I had challenged the Dornish knight to a wrestling match and exhibition combat in the courtyard, with old Barristan watching from the sidelines, shouting critiques with a sharp, discerning eye. I had almost bested Arthur in pure brute force; my runic hands had nearly pinned him down in the mud.
But the problem was that neither Arthur Dayne nor Barristan Selmy were the same men who had once served in King's Landing. The Throne of Winter had granted both legendary Kingsguard knights their own unique combat runes. Unlike Rickard and me, whose inscriptions also aided in the management of our territories and general endurance, the runes carved into Dayne and Selmy were designed with a single, terrifying purpose: the absolute art of physical death. If Arthur had been considered practically a wizard wielding the sword Dawn before, and Barristan a living legend of flawless martial precision, they had now ascended to a transcendental, almost divine level. Their movements were silver and steel blurs of pure speed and lethality, two men defying the laws of time itself on the battlefield.
The deafening sound of colossal hammers striking metal and the roar of superheated flames interrupted my musings. We had arrived at the Great Foundry of the Realm, a masterpiece of runic engineering that King Arawyn had ordered built in the thermal depths of Winterfell, tapping into the hot springs that coursed through the earth's entrails.
The heat inside was oppressive, the air thick with the smell of sulfur, coal, and the static ozone that always accompanied high sorcery. In the center of the main walkway, observing the rivers of molten metal flowing through runic stone channels, stood our King. Arawyn was now fourteen years old. A growth spurt had transformed him into a lean yet imposing youth, whose grey eyes carried the frightening depth of a thousand winters and the mystical glow of the Greensight.
Beside the monarch stood the Master Smith of Winterfell, a man with arms as thick as oak trunks, and a figure who instantly drew my attention: the leader of the rune-forgers. She was a mysterious woman whom the king had brought from Essos a few years ago. She wore dark, fluid robes that could not entirely hide the hypnotic and elegant sway of her hips with every step she took. Her face was perenemente covered by an intricate mask, leaving visible only her enigmatic eyes marked by a striking heterochromia—one eye gleamed a deep sky-blue, while the other displayed the piercing green of autumn leaves. No one in the castle knew her true name or origin; only the King himself knew the secrets of that exotic woman.
Rickard Karstark and I bent our heavy knees before our sovereign.
— My King — we greeted in unison.
Arawyn turned to us, a subtle, sharp smile crossing his young features.
— Rise, my lords. Since my uncle Ned is entirely occupied on the West Coast, coordinating the construction of fortifications and dealing with the fools from the Iron Islands who insist on testing our borders, you, as the generals immediately below him, have the duty to accompany me today. We will finally see the new weapons that will equip our regular army.
The king's words filled me with deep pride. The North no longer possessed an archaic feudal army made up of frightened farmers who dropped their scythes and plows whenever their liege lord summoned the banners. Arawyn had abolished that inefficient system. Now, we had a standing army. Men who did nothing in life but train, march, study combat tactics, and breathe war. Each battalion was trained in a specific style of fighting, tailored to their physical and geographical aptitudes.
We walked over to a massive stone table where several experimental weapons rested, emitting a bluish, gélido glow that seemed to freeze the very air around them.
— Here is where our frost-metal is refined on a large scale — Arawyn explained, gesturing toward the runic crucibles. — I remember when the emissaries from the Iron Bank came here and tried to comprehend our process. They were terrified, the fools, faithfully believing that we used human blood sacrifices to achieve such hardness in the steel.
I let out a thunderous laugh, the sound competing with the hammers of the forge.
— Pompous fools from the South! Do they really think we need murder and innocent blood to perform our magic? They don't understand that our power doesn't come from cruelty, but from our own land, from the ancestral soil of the North!
The King smiled, nodding his head in agreement.
— You are absolutely right, Lord Umber. The secret of frost runic steel does not require human lives; it requires only the correct infusion of a small portion of concentrated Weirwood sap and, obviously, the exact harmony of the elemental anchoring runes.
He then turned to the masked woman from Essos, making a slight gesture with his hand.
— Continue with the technical demonstration, my lady.
The woman took a step forward, her robes rustling with a grace that seemed out of place in that brutal environment of iron and fire. Even without being able to see her features behind the protective mask, her aura of mystery and the fluid beauty of her movements were undeniable. She extended a slender, artistically tattooed hand toward the first section of weapons.
— We have compiled these creations based on the specific functions of each wing of the army and the ergonomic preferences of the soldiers — she said, her voice possessing an exotic, melodic, and whispered accent that seemed to fill the mind of anyone listening. — Here are the blade options, ranging from short combat daggers to the massive two-handed greatswords that the Lords of House Umber so highly favor. All have been forged with frost-metal and have received the combination of two major runes: Vitality Absorption and Keen Edge.
She picked up a longsword whose blade looked as if it were made of translucent ice and darkened steel.
— The Keen Edge rune ensures that the blade never loses its edge and is capable of hacking through ordinary southern steel plates as if they were wet parchment. The true masterpiece, however, lies in the Vitality Absorption. When this weapon wounds an enemy, it extracts a portion of the target's life force and thermal energy, instantly transferring it to the wielder. In short: the more a Northern soldier bleeds his foes, the more he heals his own wounds and recovers his breath. For the divisions utilizing these blades, we recommend light or medium armor equipped with runes of Velocity and Celerity, turning them into ruthless predators that move like icy gales.
Rickard Karstark let out a low whistle, deeply impressed. I merely grinned, imagining the havoc one of those greatswords would wreak on enemy lines.
The woman moved to the next section, where massive, brutal weapons rested: double-headed maces, war picks, and colossal hammers that would make Robert Baratheon's heart leap with envy.
— For the heavy shock troops, we created blunt weapons. They do not possess cutting runes, but they have been enchanted with Thunder Impact and Kinetic Anchoring runes. When one of these hammers strikes an enemy shield or armor, the impact is not limited to the point of contact; it reverberates with a shockwave that crushes the target's internal organs, striking with the force of a lightning bolt. Furthermore, the Kinetic Anchoring causes a portion of the impact generated by the blow to be absorbed and converted into a stability barrier for the wielder. The soldier will not feel the weapon's recoil, and his defense will be amplified with every strike delivered.
She looked at me with her blue eye and her green eye before continuing:
— For the wielders of these heavy weapons, we recommend the use of full plate armor equipped with runes of Active Regeneration. Although they do not possess the instantaneous healing of the vitality blades, the immense defensive barrier provided by their strikes will ensure they retain damage long enough for the armor's regeneration to mend any bruising or fatigue.
She moved to the penultimate section, where rows of spears with silver tips and discreet runes were lined up.
— The spears possess the fewest direct offensive enchantments. They have only received runes of Amplified Piercing to ensure they drive through mounts and heavy shields. The true secret of the spearmen will not be in their weapons, but in their runic set armor. When the spearmen march shoulder to shoulder and plant their shields into the ground, the runes on their armor connect magnetically, creating a gravitational force field that transforms them into a literal Living Wall. No cavalry charge in the world, no matter how powerful, will manage to move a single inch of a Northern phalanx.
Finally, she pointed to the long-range weapons: longbows made of treated weirwood and heavy crossbows made of frost-metal and runic gears.
— For the archers, we split the functions. The longbows and shortbows received runes of Absolute Precision, Wind Piercing, and Fire Rate. In the case of shortbows, we reduced a bit of the long-range accuracy to add runes of Kinetic Draw Force. Our archers will not be mere ordinary marksmen; they will transform into true ballistic killing machines, capable of firing arrows that pierce through three armored men in a straight line from hundreds of yards away. The crossbows have similar enchantments, but with a massive focus on stabilization runes and runic sights that ignore light distortion and battlefield mist.
Hearing that entire detailed explanation made the blood boil in my veins with a violent mix of patriotic pride and, for the first time in my life, a subtle glimmer of fear. The amount of destructive power concentrated in that room was enough to bring the entire world to its knees.
At that precise moment, I perfectly understood King Arawyn's genius and prudence in insisting on the creation of a permanent regular army. With weapons of such magnitude in the hands of ordinary men, it was absolutely vital to hammer the most rigid and implacable discipline into the minds of those soldiers from their very first day of training. If we depended on hastily conscripted peasants, the risk of them getting drunk on power and committing uncontrollable atrocities on the battlefield—as we had witnessed so many times with the men of the South during Robert's Rebellion—would be a mathematical certainty. Runic discipline would ensure that the Northern army acted like a surgical blade, cold and controlled, blindly obeying the will of the Winter Throne.
After finishing the technical discussions, Rickard Karstark and I spent long minutes debating with the Master Smith and the masked woman about the logistics of distributing the new weapons to our respective garrisons. All of this had already been meticulously planned in conjunction with the Supreme General of the North, Eddard Stark, who even while far away on the West Coast, maintained absolute control over supply routes via runically encrypted ravens.
As we were about to conclude the audience, I saw the Master Smith walk to the back of the main forge and bring out a dark wooden rack, upon which rested a suit of armor that instantly caused silence to reign in the room.
It was a full suit of plate armor, of a black so deep it seemed to absorb the very light of the flames around it. Its entire length was covered in detailed carvings and complex runic lines of a glowing dark-blue color—mystical inscriptions I had never seen on any other weapon or armor in the realm. The helm, forged in the perfectly sculpted shape of a direwolf's head with bared teeth, made it obvious and unquestionable to whom that masterpiece belonged.
I stepped closer to the armor, my eyes narrowing as I noticed a deeply unusual and disturbing anatomical detail on those pieces.
— My King... — I murmured, pointing to the ends of the armor's arms. — The gauntlets... they don't have grips to comfortably wield an ordinary sword or axe. They end in... claws?
I examined the black metal gauntlets. The fingers of the armor extended into sharp, curved, massive claws of purified frost-metal, measuring at least eight centimeters in length each. That was not protection for the hands; they were weapons in their own right.
I immediately recalled the peculiar and brutal fighting style I had observed Arawyn practicing during his solitary training sessions in the godswood. The young King did not use longswords like Ned Stark, nor warhammers like us Umbers. He had been developing a hand-to-hand combat technique entirely based on feline agility, supernatural strength, and direct laceration.
The memory of a small wrestling sparring match I had with the boy a few moons ago came to my mind like a punch to the stomach. I could still feel the residual ache in my ribs from that day. The purely physical, brute strength of Arawyn's fists, even when he was visibly holding back and containing his power so as not to grievously injure me, had been one of the most terrifying things I had ever faced in all my life as a warrior.
I glanced over at the young King of Winter, who now observed his new black armor with a look of pure predatory satisfaction. I imagined that boy donning that mythological armor on the battlefield, unleashing the full magnitude of his strength amplified by combat runes, moving with transcendental speed, and tearing through enemy armor and flesh with those eight-centimeter claws with the ease of a direwolf hunting sheep.
An involuntary shiver traveled up my spine. I grinned wide, feeling a dark, violent satisfaction dominate my chest. Our enemies in the South and in the Iron Islands could continue with their stupid plots and their wounded pride. When winter finally marched in their direction, the King of the North would not just bring men and steel; he would bring an ancestral, implacable mystical force that would transform Westeros's deepest nightmares into a terrifying, bloody reality.