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The sky over Oldtown was covered by dozens of thick columns of smoke. Blood and corpses filled the waters beneath the Hightower. Oldtown, once as beautiful as an oil painting, now looked as if the end of the world had come.
For Imry, the situation truly was the end.
Perhaps knowing that even if he surrendered, his fate would not be good, he and the crew of Sea Stag fought to the last.
Lord Paxter, enraged that a gap in the encirclement had allowed dozens of enemy ships to escape, ordered his soldiers to press the attack with all their strength and kill every enemy still resisting.
The latter part of the Oldtown ambush became a one-sided slaughter and ended quickly. The victors began gathering spoils and clearing the battlefield, reopening Oldtown's sea route as soon as possible.
"A true great victory. Lord Paxter, I did not expect you to support this Renly II with all your strength.
"Were your twin sons not left as hostages in King's Landing?"
After the battle, Ser Baelor boarded the Arbor Queen and approached Lord Paxter, asking the question aloud.
"Heh. Renly II's Hand is my cousin."
"Only because the Queen of Thorns is your aunt? You would ignore the lives of your own twin sons for that?
"Lord Paxter, we are comrades in this battle. We can be a little more honest with each other and deepen the friendship between our houses."
Hearing Paxter's answer, Ser Baelor shook his head, clearly not believing it.
"Honest? Heh. If I told you a certain great lord would protect their safety, would you believe me?
"Then what about House Hightower? You have always lived peacefully in Oldtown. Why support Renly II with all your strength this time?"
"If I told you a certain great lord made my father change his mind, Lord Paxter, would you believe me?"
"Of course I would. It seems our friendship has deepened again."
"Indeed. Ha ha!"
The two victors, speaking in riddles, both smiled at the end, though neither had any smile in his eyes.
As time passed, news that the Royal Fleet had been destroyed by the united Redwyne and Hightower fleet spread throughout the south.
Crash! Bang!
Stannis, camped in the kingswood south of King's Landing with nearly forty thousand men, kept smashing things inside his royal tent.
"Someone!"
After venting his rage, Stannis shouted toward the outside of the tent.
Clatter, clatter, clatter!
Two fully armed guards standing outside the royal tent hurried in, bowed, and saluted him. "Your Grace, what are your orders?"
"Notify Ser Guyard Morrigen and Ser Rolland Storm. Have each of them lead ten thousand men to the north of King's Landing and blockade the Iron Gate, Dragon Gate, Old Gate, and Gate of the Gods.
"I will personally lead men to blockade the other three gates. Remind them that they are only to seal the gates. Without my command, no one is to attack the city on his own."
"Yes, Your Grace!"
The two guards immediately nodded and answered.
Stannis, who knew only that his fleet had been destroyed and did not know Davos had narrowly escaped, gave the order and showed a tired expression. He waved the two guards away. "Go and inform them quickly. Also, have someone come clean this place."
Tap, tap, tap!
Robb knew nothing of the war in southern Westeros. At this moment, he was traveling along the kingsroad and arrived at Moat Cailin.
When he reached Moat Cailin, however, he nearly failed to recognize the abandoned ruin it had once been.
Trogg truly was a capable man who got real work done. When Robb had gone to the Iron Islands, he had ordered Trogg to command two thousand men and hold Moat Cailin.
As a result, apart from the first few days of the war, when House Frey had kept sending men to their deaths, there had been no fighting afterward.
Unable to sit idle, Trogg divided the two thousand northern soldiers into several groups. Each group took turns on guard duty while the others began repairing and rebuilding Moat Cailin.
The three surviving towers had basically been restored. The Drunkard's Tower, which had already been leaning, was reinforced at its southwest corner with more than a dozen thick tree trunks.
Beneath the towers, the wall defending the northern side had also been rebuilt. Though only a few feet high, it counted as a defensive work against attacks from the north.
Leaving aside the mismatched new and old appearance of Moat Cailin, the repair work had been done well. It now possessed the conditions for a long-term garrison.
Moreover, because the North and the Iron Islands were now allies in a united front, Theon had built a small village near the source of the Fever River for convenience while transferring Westerlands smallfolk.
Where there were people, there was opportunity.
Many wandering merchants temporarily trapped in the North by the war saw the business potential of this transit village and moved in one after another. The village actually began to prosper. Since it was near Moat Cailin, everyone simply called it Cailin Village.
After inspecting all of the changed Moat Cailin, Robb praised Trogg generously and reminded him to look after Cailin Village and help it develop.
Because of the limits of the Fever River's width, Cailin Village could never become a major port like White Harbor. But it could become a convenient route from the North to the Iron Islands and then to the Westerlands.
After resting at Moat Cailin for one night, Robb directly set out for Winterfell.
Trogg's garrison at Moat Cailin did not require him to worry. They had logistics personnel among them, and consumables such as arrows could be made by themselves.
As for grain and other supplies, Robb had already had Theon transport them to Moat Cailin while moving the Westerlands smallfolk. The grain stores were enough for these men to eat for half a year.
A few days later, after traveling in dust and wind all the way, Robb returned to Winterfell, the home he had not seen for several months.
Like Moat Cailin, Winterfell had changed visibly. Because many smallfolk from the Westerlands had moved in, the winter town had more than doubled in size in every direction.
The timber for these new wooden houses had all been cut from the Wolfswood west of Winterfell by the Westerlands smallfolk under Lord Wyman's command.
Lord Wyman had been invited to Winterfell by Robb's letter in advance.
Because Winterfell had received a great amount of spoils and many smallfolk from the Westerlands, Robb had worried that his mother Catelyn would be too busy alone, so he had asked Lord Wyman to come help ahead of time.
Tap, tap, tap!
When Robb rode Bloodwind into the winter town with the two thousand cavalry behind him, many smallfolk had already lined both sides of the road and were watching them closely. The meaning in their eyes, however, was not the same.
The original northern smallfolk looked at Robb with awe and worship. The newly arrived Westerlands smallfolk looked at him with fear and confusion.
When he reached Winterfell's south gate, Catelyn was already waiting quietly with Lord Wyman, Sansa, Rickon, Jory, Dacey, and the others.
"Pay homage to the King of the North, the Riverlands, and the Iron Islands!"
When Robb arrived before them, Catelyn remained standing as she saluted, while everyone else knelt on one knee with solemn ceremony and shouted in unison.
"Pay homage to the King of the North, the Riverlands, and the Iron Islands!"
Seeing the nobles kneel, how could the smallfolk of the winter town dare keep standing? They dropped to their knees in a great wave, and their united voices echoed through all of Winterfell.
"Rise."
Robb swept his gaze around, then spoke in a deep voice in Catelyn's direction. As soon as he finished, he jumped down from Bloodwind and stepped forward to embrace his family one by one.
After exchanging a few words with Lord Wyman and his other subordinates, Robb hurriedly took Bloodwind toward Winterfell's kennels.
The kennels were south of the godswood and not far from the training yard. Before long, Robb arrived at the kennel gate.
Always rather observant, Robb was about to open the gate when he noticed a strange footprint on the path leading from the godswood toward the kennels.
The back half of the print looked like a child's small foot, but the front half had three toes, and the tips were not round. They were tapered like wolf claws.
'Perhaps a child's footprint overlapped with an animal's.'
Robb shook his head. With his mind on the new members of Bloodwind's pack, he opened the kennel gate and walked inside.
Winterfell's kennels were broad. Winterfell had once kept many hunting dogs, but later, without a kennelmaster, the place had gradually fallen into disuse.
Nymeria and Lady's dens were in the middle of the kennels. After Bloodwind came in, Robb closed the gate and walked toward the center.
Awhoo!
As if sensing someone approach, warning growls came from the two separately modified wolf dens inside the kennels.
"Robb, be careful. I do not know why, but they have been unusually aggressive recently. One servant was careless while feeding them, and they tore off one of his arms."
Hearing their growls, Robb remembered Catelyn's warning from earlier.
'Very aggressive? Protecting their pups?'
With Bloodwind beside him, Robb was not worried at all. He quickly stepped forward and directly pushed open the thick wooden door of the nearest den.
The moment the heavy wooden door opened, Lady, clearly larger than before, lunged at Robb without hesitation.
Bloodwind's massive body shot in front of Robb from the side with great speed and knocked Lady away.
Lady's wolf body slammed hard into the open den door, smashing it down, and even took down the neighboring door as well.
A somewhat dazed Lady climbed up from the ground and shook her huge wolf head. Behind her, a giant direwolf about the same size as her stepped silently out of the den.
Grr, grr!
At first, Robb had thought Lady might have attacked because she was guarding her pups. But Nymeria came out of her own den alone, saw Bloodwind, and also gave a warning growl, taking an attacking posture.
This abnormal situation was clearly wrong.
Sensing their strong challenge, Bloodwind slowly breathed a cloud of white mist from his jaws. At the same time, layers of white mist began spreading across his whole body. As the mist gradually covered him, Bloodwind turned from a gray wolf into a white wolf.
Seeing that the wolves were about to become serious, Robb hurried toward the gate, leaving the middle of the kennels to them.
Perhaps feeling Bloodwind's pressure, Nymeria and Lady attacked first. They cooperated intelligently, one on the left and one on the right, pouncing fiercely at Bloodwind at the same time.
Although Nymeria and Lady were only somewhat shorter than Bloodwind, the gap in their fighting ability was far from small.
Bloodwind stood unmoving, his eyes following their movements. Only when they had lunged before him did he suddenly act.
He turned slightly, avoiding Nymeria's attack from the left, while opening his jaws wide and biting down from above toward the back of her neck. At the same time, his powerful hind legs kicked backward and struck Lady squarely in the right side as she pounced.
Snap! Bang!
Lady, struck accurately by Bloodwind, flew out again and slammed heavily into one of the empty rooms on the right side of the kennels.
Where Nymeria and Lady had touched Bloodwind, a layer of white mist clung to them, leaving obvious traces of frostbite.
Whine, whine!
"Enough, Bloodwind!"
Robb saw Bloodwind's jaws slowly closing, saw fresh blood already flowing from the back of Nymeria's neck, and heard her pained cries. He immediately stopped him.
Lady stood again and slowly walked to Bloodwind's side, where he held Nymeria. She lowered her body and tucked her fluffy tail between her legs, expressing submission.
Hearing Robb's command, Bloodwind slowly released his jaws. Nymeria immediately rolled over and lay on her back, exposing her belly and throat to Bloodwind.
This was an even more direct gesture of surrender and appeasement than Lady's.
While they fought, Robb had been watching the blood pact text on Bloodwind's body and guessing in his mind.
The only thing that had changed about Bloodwind was his species. Perhaps because he had undergone a supernatural transformation and become a unique ice direwolf, he was no longer the same as Nymeria and Lady's supernatural direwolf species.
Therefore, they no longer recognized Bloodwind's place as king of the pack and had challenged him.
Of course, this was only Robb's guess, and whether it was right did not matter much. Bloodwind had already used his strength to make them submit to him again.
Whine, whine!
Perhaps sensing that the danger outside had passed, more than a dozen direwolves the size of five-month-old hounds ran out of the two dens whose doors had been destroyed. Most had gray fur and yellow eyes, while a few had black fur and green eyes.
When the pups, much larger than Bloodwind had been back then, came out, they first circled their mothers twice. Then, sniffing Bloodwind's scent, they approached him.
Clearly, Bloodwind treated these harmless little pups far better than he had treated their mothers. He let them burrow beneath him and occasionally lowered his nose to sniff their scent.
Looking at Bloodwind's growing pack, Robb was quite pleased. He took two steps forward, wanting to stroke the pups.
Unexpectedly, the little things bared their teeth at him and made warning growls, just like Nymeria and Lady before he had added blood pact points to them.
'Right. Add points.'
Robb looked straight at Bloodwind and found that a plus sign had appeared on the blood-kin option under Bloodwind's pack data.
He directly distributed the fifty blood pact points he had evenly among Nymeria and Lady's pups.
Great streams of red mist rose from Robb's body. First they sank into Bloodwind, then into Nymeria and Lady, and only afterward did they split and enter the thirteen pups.
After being weakened layer by layer, the red mist that finally entered the pups had less than a quarter of its original thickness.
Just as Robb expected, once the blood pact points were added, the thirteen pups not only stopped rejecting him, but also scrambled to hop around him and seek affection.
Looking at the pups, still adorable and a little foolish, Robb seemed to see their future heroic forms galloping across the battlefield.
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