The future of the North?
They stared at the mountainous piles of food, then turned their eyes back to the black, dead-silent ocean of walking corpses outside the walls.
The future?
The future was resting squarely in the palm of the man standing right in front of them.
Greatjon Umber's Adam's apple bobbed. His throat felt like it was packed with burning sand.
He wanted to say something. He wanted to spit out his gratitude, to put his absolute awe into words.
But right now, any words he could muster felt completely hollow.
With a heavy thud, the giant dropped to one knee on the freezing cobblestones.
The man known for his raw, unbreakable savagery—the titan of Last Hearth—laid his massive, six-foot greatsword flat across his thighs and bowed his proud head.
"Lord Lynn..."
"You've given my people a way to survive the Long Night."
"I, Jon Umber, pledge everything I have to you."
"My House, my soldiers, my very life—they are yours to command."
His gritty vow snapped the rest of the lords out of their trance.
Right now, Lynn already had the Riverlands and the Vale in a chokehold. Ned was actively pushing him into the North's inner circle.
It was only a matter of time before he owned the North, too.
Wyman Manderly dropped to one knee with a speed that completely defied his massive, fat frame.
He wasn't as aggressively emotional as the Greatjon, but a rabid, feverish light burned in his eyes.
"White Harbor will always be your most loyal safe haven, my King."
Lord Hornwood went down next. Then Rodrik Flint. Then the Karstark envoys...
One after another.
Every single bannerman in the Winterfell courtyard—no matter how high their rank or how vast their lands—dropped to their knees.
They faced the young man and offered up their most submissive respect and fanatical loyalty.
Sure, they had sworn fealty to the Starks before.
But this was a whole different ballgame.
They were swearing their lives to a leader who commanded death itself, who could conjure food out of thin air, and who could actually drag them through the Long Night alive.
Lynn stared down at the men groveling at his boots.
"Good."
"Get up."
"Northmen don't need to spend their lives on their knees."
The lords scrambled to their feet, looking like they'd just been pardoned from death row.
"This food is just the down payment," Lynn's voice cut through the bitter air.
"From here on out, every commoner gets double rations."
"But the Long Night is a hell of a grind. Food alone isn't going to cut it."
"Our keeps need to be fortified. The roads need to be rebuilt. And we need a massive stockpile of weapons to deal with whatever is coming in the dark."
The lords traded nervous looks. The high of the free food was already crashing into a wall of brutal reality.
Lynn was dead right.
But every single one of those projects required a mountain of manual labor.
Winter was already here. The peasantry was barely surviving the sub-zero freeze; dragging them out to break rocks was a death sentence.
"I know exactly what you're sweating over," Lynn said, reading the room flawlessly.
He turned and pointed toward the silent, rotting army standing outside the walls.
"I've got all the manpower we need right here."
"They don't get tired. They don't freeze. And they sure as hell don't ask for a paycheck."
The collective breathing in the courtyard essentially flatlined.
The lords tracked his gaze out past the gates.
A completely insane, terrifying idea started clicking in their heads.
"My Lord... are you saying..."
Wyman Manderly tested the waters, his voice shaking.
"Exactly."
Lynn gave a short nod.
"I'm loaning them to you."
You could hear a pin drop in the courtyard.
Loaning them?
He was going to hand over... a horde of flesh-eating monsters?
"No... Lord Lynn, that is way too dangerous!"
Lord Hornwood was the first to panic, his face bleeding out its color.
"If we let them inside our walls and they... if they go rogue..."
"They don't go rogue."
Lynn shut him down cold.
"They don't have a mind of their own to lose."
"My will is their will."
"As long as I'm breathing, they are the most obedient slaves you'll ever own."
Lynn's voice carried an absolute, ironclad certainty.
The lords went dead silent.
The memory of what had just happened hit them like a physical blow.
The guy had literally snapped his fingers, and a zombie horde capable of wiping Westeros off the map had stopped dead in its tracks.
A flick of his wrist, and they had dropped to their knees like beaten dogs.
That wasn't just control.
That was absolute, total domination.
Wyman Manderly's eyes lit up.
The fat lord's brain kicked into maximum overdrive.
An army that never got tired and didn't care about dying.
No, scratch that—an endless, unstoppable labor force!
They could blast through mountains. They could strip-mine. They could haul heavy stone for walls and lay down miles of paved roads.
They could do anything a living man could do, and a hell of a lot more!
With a workforce like that, he could expand the White Harbor docks by a factor of ten!
He could carve out new trade routes to the deep mainland in a matter of weeks!
And that meant one thing.
Money.
An absolute river of gold.
"I'm in!"
Wyman was the first to pull the trigger, his meaty face flushing red with raw excitement.
"My Lord, your vision is as brilliant as the midday sun!"
"With these... helpers, the North is going to be unstoppable!"
Greatjon Umber finally put the pieces together.
He wasn't a shark like Wyman, but he knew damn well that a massive undead labor force could turn his crumbling Last Hearth into an impenetrable fortress in record time.
"I'm in too!" the giant roared, his voice booming across the yard.
"Any son of a bitch who says no answers to me!"
With the two heaviest hitters in the North backing the play, the rest of the bannermen threw their doubts out the window.
The yard erupted into a chaotic, greedy brainstorming session.
"Half my castle wall is in the dirt! I need a whole crew!"
"I've got an iron mine in the valley I haven't been able to crack for years. This is perfect!"
"If I can get a paved road straight from my hold to White Harbor, my fur trade is going to explode!"
Lynn watched them practically foaming at the mouth, a tight smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.
"Since we're all on the same page, let's talk numbers."
His voice instantly killed the chatter.
Every man in the yard locked onto him, terrified of missing a single word.
"I'll distribute the workforce based on the acreage and population of your respective lands."
Lynn paused, deliberately choosing his words.
"Smaller holds, like Lord Hornwood's, get ten thousand units."
"Mid-sized keeps, like Last Hearth, get fifty thousand."
"And for Winterfell, the capital of the North, I'm leaving a garrison of one hundred thousand."
One hundred thousand!
Ned and Catelyn both sucked in a harsh breath.
A hundred thousand walking corpses permanently stationed inside Winterfell.
That didn't sound like a construction crew. It sounded exactly like a hostile military occupation.
But the rest of the lords were completely blind to it.
Their faces were plastered with unhinged, greedy joy.
Ten thousand! Fifty thousand!
The numbers were astronomically higher than anything they had dared to hope for.
"My officers will handle the direct logistics," Lynn continued.
"All you have to do is point and tell them what needs doing."
"Rebuilding walls, paving roads, mining rock, or even defending your borders against hostiles."
"They will execute your orders to the letter."
Lynn's cold gaze swept over every single face in the crowd.
"But there is a catch."
"They take orders from you, and your direct heirs. Nobody else."
"If anyone tries to monopolize them in secret, or point them at a rival Northern House..."
He let the sentence hang, but the lethal drop in his tone sent a chill down every spine in the yard.
"You have our word, Lord Lynn! We wouldn't dare!"
Wyman Manderly swore instantly.
The rest of the lords rapidly chimed in, tripping over themselves to agree.
"Good."
Lynn gave a slow nod of approval.
"Then it's settled."
"They'll march to your respective gates in three days."
With that, Lynn turned his back on the lords—who were already frantically calculating how to exploit their new undead workforce—and headed straight for the main keep.
Ned Stark marched after him, his boots clicking hard on the stone.
"Lynn."
"Are you seriously going to scatter those things across every House in the North?"
"Is there a problem?" Lynn shot back without breaking stride.
"It's a powder keg," Ned said, his voice tense with real anxiety.
"You're basically planting barrels of wildfire inside every single castle in the North."
"It's only dangerous if someone else holds the match," Lynn replied smoothly. "And I'm holding all of them."
"But why would you even..."
"Lord Stark." Lynn stopped dead and turned to face the older man.
"Don't sweat it. This is exactly how I want the board set up."
"The Game of Thrones is built on backstabbing, treason, and hidden agendas. Just look at the Boltons."
"This way, nobody gets to play any games."