Why?
The Karstark sunburst sheared through the neck of a Winterfell spearman before Robb’s brain could even give thought to the word ‘traitor’.
Robb’s boot slipped on a mound of wet intestines, the king falling to a knee atop the freezing muck. It was only fortune that had him hold the shield high, yet it was no fortune that saved his shield arm from the blow that should have splintered his limb to powder.
Nay, that was all strength. He thrust upwards, ash wood shattering apart against the strength of the Old Gods, his attacker’s jaw doing the same against the rim; the man thrown backward off his feet and into the screaming crush of the melee.
Robb Stark scrambled back up to his feet, lungs dragging in the rain in time to see that the dead man falling into the bloody mud wore the white sun of the Karhold.
Same as so many others.
Too many.
Why?
The vanguard. Lord Rickard’s men were to clear the choke point, the vanguard for the march north on Winterfell; spears pointed at the Ironborn. Yet, those same spears…
The narrow gorge threw the noise of battle back at him, thick rain only making matters much worse. Why are they aimed south? Why were they facing the Umber lines?
Why? The questions could barely hold, too much demanding his attention; battle and betrayal both. A field of slaughter was not the place to ponder; anything greater than how and where to swing his blade slipping away from him under the roar of horses screaming in the gorge, the wet tear of flesh through gambesons, and the chaos of the Northern host eating itself alive.
“Hold the line!”The roar left his throat as wolf-blood tore free in a rough breath-driven growl. His blade swung out, a one-handed arc cleaving apart a Karstark spearman’s chainmail, ribs, and spine. "With me!”
"Push 'em!" Dacey spat a mouthful of bloody rain, the spiked mace of the Mormont swinging near-blind into the crush. "Wedge! Form a bloody wedge!"
Hot blood splattered against his cheek as his blade sundered head from body, the fool who’d run to claim his life watering the fields with his own. The choke point. It stood in front of and around them all; the same rocky defile that had been the point of this entire march.
A plan made by all and supported by all, even those who would normally speak against him, all of them intent on catching the Ironborn in a bottleneck.
And yet it had caught them.
"Hold!" Robb bellowed again, stepping into the swing of a Karstark halberd, his left hand shooting out to catch the wooden haft. Wood groaned under his mailed grip, strength boiling through his veins as he pulled it forward, tearing the weapon out of the traitor’s hands.
With another bellow, he drove the pommel of his longsword directly through the visor of the man in front of him.
Bone crunched and blood flowed.“Form up!” His hands grabbed a fleeing Winterfell spearman by the collar of his bloody gambeson, Robb physically hurling the man back toward the collapsing line. “Hold the bloody gap!”
"Karstarks!" A Winterfell sergeant screamed the obvious, words cracking with panic. A spear nearly caught him in the ribs, his sword flashing out quickly enough to claim the life of his attacker. "They're turnin', m’lord!! Lord Karstar—" An arrow from the Dustin flank took him through the open visor of his half-helm. Whatever else he had to say, it went unheard as the man folded into the mud with nothing else but blood on his tongue.
"I said, with me!" Robb Stark had little time to think and even less to mourn as he pivoted on his heel, the colors of the banners too bright against the grey sky. "Form up! Shields out!"
To make matters worse, horsemen of the Rills burst from the treeline to their left, trampling those who fought without, while — to the right — Karstark infantry poured down the scree, the rock face only serving to hamper his own men.
A grey-white blur the size of a destrier and at least half again as fast met the Dustin cavalry line with speed and strength in equal measure, his Grey Wind a nightmare of muscle and snapping jaws. A warhorse knew no more as the beast hit it broadside, teeth on par with knives crushing the animal's spine in a snap loud enough to carry. The rider was only so lucky to escape death as the man flew into the mud, but fortune was a fickle thing as Grey Wind’s jaws claimed his head before the traitor could rise again.
"Aye! Come on then, ye bloody bastards!" The Greatjon’s chest-deep rumble was enough to swallow command, the big man wading through a knot of Ryswell spearmen as if the points could only scrape his plate. "I'll rip yer bloody arms off! Trooth, I will!" Even as a spearhead bit into his shoulder, tearing through mail and surcoat in a spray of blood, the lord of Umber only roared back.
"Reckon ye thought I’d break?" The offending spear shaft looked near a toy in his grasp as he yanked the Rills man forward, Umber skull hard enough to shatter the other man’s into a mess of grey and red pulp. "Dinnae know we’re Umbers, do ye!"
"S'pose we'll see if they bleed same as us!" Smalljon snapped from his father’s left, voice a sharper bark; a slingstone against a boulder. Yet, that slingstone brought down the banded stump of a young tree down like a warhammer, a Karstark shield caving in with the man beneath it. "Old Gods stand with us, traitors! Can ye say the same?!"
“The Old Gods know no monsters!” A Karstark soldier aimed to run him through, intent on proving the Smalljon wrong. Yet, the blade only met boiled leather, grazing the tall man’s ribs as the Umber barely flinched.
If anything, the grin on his face spoke for his feelings.
There were not many who would mock the Smalljon, whether for his name or for his age; his stature enough to cow most already. For a man of seven and ten, the Umber stood a height with his father — twice as broad as any normal soul with fists as large as hams — already and had for two namedays past. A man grown he was, by any standard, but a man done growing — he was not.
The Smalljon dropped his tree at his feet, bare hands gripping both arms of the swordsman who would even dare make such a claim as the Old Gods woke in his marrow. Wet branches snapped under a wagon wheel, the sound the only comparison one could make, as Smalljon’s back popped loud enough to reach Robb’s ears over the clash of steel. The leather jerkin ruptured, seams loosening as the shoulders of the Smalljon swelled, muscles engorged with blood and rage.
In three heartbeats, the heir to Last Hearth stood equal with the Mountain, as he held a screaming man by the shoulders.
With a roar, the giant pulled.
Not to be outdone, Grey Wind's jaws clamped down on the shoulder of a panicked Dustin spearman, blood flying free as the entire arm came loose; feral force pulling at Robb as he himself rushed forward.
His blade swung out, claiming the head of a Karstark footman — each strike moving with a quickness enough to blur the eyes as he faced down three men-at-arms; sword turning aside thrusts with an instinct Winterfell had never trained into him.
The blood knew where the steel was.
The blood knew how to move.
And Robb moved.
Even in plate, he knew his speed was more than any man could deal with alone; the space between him and the enemy disappearing as his legs ate distance with the ferocity and pace of a hunting hound. A man had no time to scream as Robb cleaved him clean from collarbone to cock, dark northern steel moving with the force of a millstone dropped from above, The impact shook his arms, but the resistance was nothing.
He could rip these men apart with his bare hands if he dropped the sword.
Still…
Should have waited for Lord Veder. The thought struck his mind, a useless thing now; a wish of wants and worries, not war. Should have had the dragon.
Even if Lord Veder had returned from the South, Robb knew well what his command would have been to the new lord — whether by his own will or the advice of others. The fair-haired sorcerer would never have been allowed to leave Riverrun, not for this charge to reclaim the home of his ancestors
Pride aside, politics had their place. This was a strike up the Neck, supposed to be at least; a battle about loyal Northmen reclaiming the North.
"Stand an' hold, ye winter-born!" A sharp chant cut through the scream of dying horses, rhythm familiar as Dacey’s cadence caught the beat of the falling rain and made it a weapon. “Rage an’ roar with winter’s song!”
The burning in his thighs eased, gash on his cheek no longer stinging as the worst of his fatigue went with it; the pulse of Dacey’s skald-song surging through Umber, Stark and Mormont lines as she fought among them with the voice of the Old Gods.
Ducking a wild swing from a Karstark, a mace swung out from the Lady Mormont, the man’s knee shattering apart as a scream left him. “Try swingin’ that again an’ I’ll take your cock with it, ye traitor shite!” She didn’t even bother to look back as she spun to crush a Ryswell jaw with a backswing, eyes meeting Robb’s over the chaos.
"Dacey! On my right!"
Her mouth opened to answer his command but her eyes widened further, mace rising high to point behind him. "The ridge! The ridge!"
The banners of Dustin unfurled out in the rain, hundreds of archers nocking arrows; a bead drawn on the pocket of Bear Island shields over the rear guard.
Over Maege Mormont.
"To the rear!" Robb’s scream sent a Karstark spear aside with his forearm, a blow with his fist sending teeth and blood to the ground. "Break back! With me!"
They didn't have time to run.
Maege Mormont didn’t either, the old woman swinging her morningstar as blood and rain plastered locks of grey to her face. A dozen men of the Karhold dead at her boots, she held her shield high as she swung for more.
Three bodkin arrows punched through heavy ringmail before her next breath; one in the shoulder, two deep in her chest.
She staggered, morningstar dropping into the mud as her gaze dropped to the shafts, hands rising to bat the blood blooming across her surcoat. A Ryswell rider chose that moment to break through the faltering wall, a heavy boar spear leveled and driven squarely into her chest.
"Mother!"
The Lady of Bear Island did not answer Dacey’s call, a coughing roar the only sound from her as she spat blood like the bear she was. The lance punched through her back but that was not enough to stop her as she reached out and pulled the horseman from his saddle, dragging the bastard down into the mud with her as she died.
"M’tha!" Dacey screamed again, the word chewed up by grief and tears as any rhythm she had shattered along with it. The crushing weight of battle rushed back into Robb’s muscles all at once, lungs suddenly burning as if deprived of air.
The oldest daughter of House Mormont threw her shield away as she broke from the hasty wedge. Her mace swung wildly at her side, Dacey seemingly determined to fight through packed infantry to reach the horses trampling the body of her mother.
"No!" Robb’s lunge nearly had him slip on slick earth before his hands found the collar of her gambeson. With another grunt, he ripped her backward with every bit of strength he’d been blessed with, dragging the older girl physically away from Ryswell spears. "You can’t!"
"I'm nae leavin' her!" Dacey thrashed against his grip as she fought for freedom, elbows cracking against his breastplate. “I’ll kill ‘em. Every traitor! Every fuckin’ one o—!”
"She's gone!” The wolf in his chest growled an answer as he shook her hard. The boy bled through the king for a moment as the growl softened, Dacey’s eyes meeting his own wet with tears. “She’s gone, Dacey. You need to ride.”"Robb, I ca—"A kiss to her lips silenced her before he shoved the woman away, putting himself between her and the advancing Karstark line. "To the trees! That is a command, Dacey!"
Dacey stared at him, tears tracking through blood and mud as she finally accepted the order from her king. Her own lips crested his cheek for all of a heartbeat before she finally turned to scramble up the muddy embankment, sprinting for the only gap left in the treeline.
"They're closin' t'flank!" Smalljon bellowed as he brought his maul down, blood flowing free from a dozen shallow cuts now.
"Let 'em close!” Greatjon Umber laughed back at his son, three arrows sticking out of his drium chest and a spear head buried deep in his thigh as he struck out again and again. “I'll take every last one of t'bastards t'see their ancestors!"
The massive lord swung his greatsword, legs cleaved from two Dustin men, before a heavy warhammer met the back of his knee. With a sound like a felled oak, the Greatjon finally dropped.
Five men immediately swarmed him, blades and spearheads driven into the gaps of his plate.
"Faither!"
The young heir of Last Hearth ignored the bolts in his shoulder as his eyes went wide, that same crunch ringing out over the clash of steel as the Smalljon grew further; a height enough to dwarf even the Mountain in the span of a single heartbeat.
Grotesque muscle bulged from the shirtless man’s body, skin red and inflamed as he rose his hands above his head with a roar to deafen any near him.
A crossbow bolt tore through the rain, a spray of red silencing the bellow as the head punched through his eye. Smalljon stood for a moment, a man of might and mass both, before the magics fled him.
Those muscles shrank, bones snapping back into their mortal dimensions, and a boy of seven and ten collapsed into the churned and bloody earth.
"No.”Robb’s breath went unheard by all.
"Take the King!" Rickard Karstark’s voice carried over the din, a bloody sword pointed Robb’s way "Take the boy!"
Men carrying heavy longaxes pushed through the dead, advancing on the last patch of muddy ground, with enough among their number to count at least eight and forty.
Robb didn't retreat as the wolf howled loud in his ears, greatsword gripped tight in both hands as it bayed for the blood of traitors. The blade felt like it weighed all of ten stone as he breathed in ragged lungfuls of copper-tasting air but that meant little as he swung it all the same.
He would die here.
And he would take as many of Lord Rickard’s traitors with him as the wolfblood would let him.
He swung again, blade moving so fast he could barely track it — the heads of three Karhold men claimed in a breath. His gauntlet met the face of a traitor as he rushed forward, meat and bone giving way like a rotten melon.
But he was just one sword, cut off from the rest as the battle raged around him.
A mass of fur and teeth proved that false, Grey Wind landing directly in the center of Karstark shields. Oak splintered and men screamed as sharp claws and wolf jaws snapped collarbones and emptied throats.
“Grey Wind!” Robb pushed forward, throwing himself into the hole his direwolf had created. A sword drove itself deep into a man’s side, the king twisting the blade before ripping it free in a shower of blood. “With me!”They ran toward the trees, Dustin horses refusing to close the gap in fear of the monstrous wolf tearing men to pieces in the mud. Yet, Robb was lagging all the same; the battle having him pushed him as near to his limit as he had ever known.
His boot found a patch of slick blood, heel slipping on the entrails of a man that wore his livery as his back met the ground. Robb grunted as he looked up to feel the air parting, a greatsword in the hand of a Karhold man coming down right for him.
His breath stilled as a whine filled the air.
The Karstark greatsword buried itself to the crossguard in Grey Wind’s ribs, the direwolf twisting in the air to throw his body in between Robb and swinging steel.
Robb screamed, his own sword falling as phantom steel shredded his own lungs; the agony blinding enough to eclipse the rain and battle both. The wolf hit the mud with an earth-shaking thud, sword still wedged behind his shoulder blade.
The traitor let go of the hilt, stumbling backward with eyes wide at the size of the beast bleeding out at his feet.
Robb threw himself forward, armed with no weapon — not even a dagger — as his hands met the man by throat and belt. With a roar, he heaved with all his strength hot in his chest; the grown armored man lifted overhead and slammed onto the splintered shaft of a wagon axle.
Wood punched through spine as Robb fell to his knees in the mud next to his friend.
Grey Wind whined again, the sounds wet and bubbling as those golden eyes found Robb. “I have you.” His own voice was choked, hands too slick with wolf’s blood as his hands found the hilt of the greatsword.
The blade came free with a sickening sound, another whine leaving the beast as his massive head slumped into the muck. “I have you, Grey Wind. I promise.”"He's open!” Arrows began to thud into the dirt, closer and closer with each volley as the Karstark lines reformed, Dustin men closing a tighter circle towards them. “Get ‘im!"
Robb shoved his arms under the direwolf's massive chest and hindquarters, nearly the weight of a desttier in his hands.
An impossibility.
No man could lift it.
But Robb Stark was a king.
Robb roared as his boots sank deep into the mud, the leather straps of his armor groaning. The taste of blood was fresh in his mouth again, teeth grinding together as he hoisted the massive wolf straight off the ground, settling the beast over his broad shoulders.
The weight was crushing, enough to snap a spine, but the wolf-blood held.
"Kill ‘im!"
Robb turned and ran, body smashing through the thick underbrush as branches whipped across his face and tore at skin.
He didn’t feel it.
Nothing to feel but the weight of his friend and the fire in his lungs. Legs drove deeper into the mud as he plunged deeper into the dark pines, putting the trees between himself and the slaughter.
He ran until the screams of the dying loyalists faded into the cold wind.
He ran until the mud turned to soft pine needles.
He ran until he physically could not anymore.
His left boot caught on a root and his knee buckled, the sound of the joint snapping like the crack of a tree branch as he collapsed hard into the mass of an ancient oak. Grey Wind tumbled from his shoulders, the direwolf rolling to a stop just a few feet from where he lay. The breath of the beast was so shallow Robb could barely track it through bleary eyes, the massive chest hitching as blood still flowed free into matted fur.
Robb lay on his back, staring up at the canopy, suddenly aware he was bleeding.
Hot fluid sprayed his lips as he coughed. He hadn't felt the hits in the melee, but he could track them now. A deep gash under his left arm from a spear he hadn’t even felt go in, chainmail driven deep into the wound. A puncture in his thigh from a blade that must have torn through more than just skin from the dark blood that soaked into the moss.
The king dragged himself over to Grey Wind, numbing fingers clawing at the dirt as the wolf’s breathing began to slow even more. "Hold on…”He didn’t mean to whisper, voice a wet rasp in the quiet woods but it was all the noise he could muster. "I have…” He rolled to his side, fingers falling to his waist as his back found another tree. “I have it."
Bloody hands fumbling blindly at his belt pouch, it only took a few moments for them to brush past leather in search of glass that bore heat.
The miracle water — the Estus Flask, Veder had called it when he had given it to him. It shone with a light as gold as the boy’s hair, glowing faintly in the gloom of the woods. ‘Drink this if you're dying. Don't ask how it works.’
Words he had held close to his heart.
Robb worked at the cork with trembling fingers, nearly dropping the vial as his fingers refused him. He pulled the stopper with his teeth, spitting the cork into the dirt. Just a sip. One sip, and he could pour the rest down Grey Wind’s throat.
He kissed the glass, tongue flicking out to taste the sun and Robb could feel it. The work of Greg Veder was never in doubt, the gift working immediately at his worst wounds. Robb held the vial out and raised it towards an unmoving Grey Wind.
They could survive this. They could get back to Riverrun. They could—
Robb gasped as a sudden, staggering pressure crushed the breath out of his lungs.
He didn't fall.
He couldn't fall. His spine ground harshly against the rough bark of the large pine tree behind him as something pinned him upright. The flask slipped from shuddering fingers to tumble into the mud, golden liquid spilling uselessly into the dirt right beside Grey Wind.
Robb blinked, soft rains blurring his vision as hands slick with his own hot blood, fumbled blindly down to his stomach.
It was wood.
Pale wood in the shape of an arrow, the shaft twisted with age, encrusted with dry barnacles and stinking of low tide; driftwood carrying the smell of deap ocean in the middle of a forest.
A footstep cracked a twig.
Robb forced his eyes up, the edges of the woods turning black as a figure stood in the shadows of the pines. His clothes were soaked, ironborn armor dripping onto the green moss. Wide eyes stared back at him, familiar eyes blown out with the manic fervor of a madman as stagnant water trickled from the corners of the man's mouth.
Bood bubbling over his lips, the King in the North managed a word.
"T-Theon?"