[Chapter Size: 2500 Words.]
Third Person POV.
Riverlands.
...
...
A knight galloped swiftly that morning, doing everything he could to reach his destination. It had rained during the night, and several puddles of water still remained on the ground, while some were trampled forcefully by the horse that advanced fiercely — or so the rider atop it demanded.
"We're getting close…," he murmured as he saw the towers in the distance, above the trees, along the road he followed.
As soon as he emerged into a more open area, he found himself entering a camp of men at the entrance of the Twins, with the two towers and the bridge between them over the wide river as the backdrop.
All tense, in a way, already expecting what was to come, from what they heard as whispers from scouts and vague news from the North, but they still had some time to breathe, as they could hide on that other side of the river.
The man on horseback, a scout from the northern region among dozens of others searching for information on the enemy, rode forward through the middle of the camp, ignoring the curious glances. He continued ahead until he found the entrance of the Twins open.
"Man approaching!" shouted some men above the gate as he stopped in the vast stone entrance hall, pulling the horse's reins. A few guards approached.
"I am Jared Rivers, in service to Ser Hosteen Frey. I am here to deliver my report to Lord Walder Frey," said the man, merely a low-ranking soldier who worked as a scout for the sixth son of Lord Frey, bringing all the news passed on by the other scouts or from investigations he himself conducted in the North with a team.
"All right… Search him, and take him to the commander of the guard to request an audience with Lord Frey." Said the captain of those men, while two of them began checking the scout off the horse, removing all dangerous objects before pulling him inside to speak with the head of the Twins' guard.
As soon as he heard about the man, Ser Merlon Frey (OC), one of Walder Frey's sons with the lowest positions, used to take charge of the guard — an important task, but at the same time, nothing worthy of Walder Frey's main sons.
The guards brought the bastard to him. A man serving his brother, Hosteen, who was taking care of the camp and the defense against the North before the northern army arrived.
"If he has news for my father, then I will take him to him. Lord Frey wants to know everything that is happening in the North," said the head of the guard, his tone heavy with nervousness even as he tried to hide it. He clearly did not seem comfortable with any news coming from the North after what he had heard.
So the group of guards with Ser Merlon advanced across the bridge between the Twins to the other side of the river, where Walder Frey was, staying with the main family farther from the northern side.
The scout was escorted, disarmed, and continued into the hall, where he found Walder Frey at the main table having the first meal of the day. There were other Freys seated, all eating restlessly; it was possible to see their hands trembling slightly.
That scout was not a fool — he knew what was happening there. Even without the threat already upon them, it was only a matter of time. They were coming, and he was there to deliver the message.
"My father and my lord, this man claims to have information about the North," said Ser Merlon. Walder Frey stopped biting into his roasted pork leg beside a young girl and stared at the group, his eyes settling on the common man, covered in mud and humbled from having been caught in last night's rain.
"News from the North?! Tell me, what is happening in the North? Should I be worried?" said Walder Frey with suspicion, despite the fear still present in his voice.
"Lord Frey…," said the man as he knelt. "It is true that the Northerners are finally marching south. I was at the field where Lord Bolton… was attacked by the white dragon…," he began, while Lord Frey could not keep himself from spitting.
"That damned traitor!! Roose Bolton left my sons at the entrance of the Twins and ignored my request to be here and gather forces against the North when all he did was run to Tywin, leaving me at the mercy of a living, damned dragon's fury!" growled Walder Frey, who at that point already knew they wanted to kill them for the Red Wedding.
"I saw what that dragon can do, my lord!" the scout continued, failing to restrain his worry even if it was improper. "The field was completely dead… even from ice. You could feel the chill in the air, even though the attack happened moons ago! There is only cold and death in that place!" he said, making no one there feel any more comfortable.
Winter, when commanded by Daemon to act alone against the Boltons, attacked at the southernmost point of the North, while the Bolton group had already left the territory knowing they stood no chance. Not even Roose Bolton's son was expected anymore, as Moat Cailin was under the control of the ironborn, blocking both Roose Bolton's entry and Ramsay Snow's passage; it had already been abandoned. They knew they had no chance when the wildling army was already in Dustin territory.
But what they did not expect was the dragon's attack. The 3,000 Boltons were wiped out after the white flames turned the air itself into something deadly, freezing their lungs without even burning them with the ice-fire.
Afterward, as they retreated, the Bolton men were caught, losing even more of their forces, with the dragon failing to wipe them out completely due to exhaustion, forcing the female dragon to return north while the Boltons, Freys, and their allies in that group fled south, leaving the Freys closer to the Twins and the Boltons fleeing to King's Landing. Besides letting Robb Stark escape from the Red Wedding, it had been a disaster for those who expected benefits from the event — in the end, all they achieved was a promise of extermination.
Hearing the story about the field, Walder Frey slammed the table in anger. "I have heard that damned story about the Frozen Field countless times! I do not want to hear about it!" he snarled at the bastard.
After all, in the region where the dragon had unleashed its white flames upon the Bolton men, the field had already undergone several changes! All life in that area had been killed by the freezing; leaving a blackened blot in a grayish and slightly greenish region on that side of the swamp, even trees, plants, and flowers had withered, comparable to a burned field.
Since the ice dragon's flames did not merely destroy everything they touched — the very air around them changed as well — a dry, freezing air. Men died just by breathing, their lungs freezing; animal life perished the same way, and all vegetation died rapidly when frozen by that air.
"Yes, my lord," said the man with care and regret, faced with Walder Frey's fury. "My lord… I received information from other scouts farther north who managed to get past the Reed scouts… An entire army is being gathered at Moat Cailin, and they are dividing. And the great majority is coming here. Around one hundred and twenty thousand or more men. They say it is the largest army the realm has ever seen assembled — the wildlings, Northerners, and Stannis have united," murmured the man cautiously.
Walder Frey could not help trembling upon hearing that. Even his relatives at the nearby tables shuddered as well, staring in horror at the scout, whose face remained tense.
"Lies!" said Lord Frey. "This can only be lies!" His old voice betrayed his disbelief. How could the Twins survive such a vast army? If that were true, they were in a dreadful situation.
"And if… if we use something so they won't attack us? We have prisoners, don't we?" he asked his grandchildren, sitting close by in silence, swallowing hard at his words.
In truth, the prisoners they had were no longer valuable. Tywin had taken all the important prisoners when he received news at the Wall. He already anticipated a southern advance, and before the Freys could hear about the North, the main prisoners had been taken away.
What remained in the Twins were unimportant men captured at the Red Wedding — the few loyal to the Starks who were not killed, after many had sided with the Boltons when House Stark suffered betrayal.
"We can survive this. The Twins can hold against an army of a hundred thousand… or a dragon," said Ser Merlon Frey, trying to sound confident. Perhaps it was the only thing they could cling to at that moment.
Lord Frey looked at him and nodded, though still nervous. He wanted to believe those words. "Call all the men, all my sons! We have the Twins to protect!" shouted Walder Frey. His descendants were still scattered across the Riverlands, controlling the lords who were supposed to submit to them, acting still in the name of the benefits they expected from Tywin.
"It will be done, my lord," said the son in the castle's guard, ready to go to the maester and ask him to write to the sons — and Walder Frey did not finish.
"Any letter with the Lannister seal arrive today?" asked Walder, as he did every day. He demanded a response from Tywin. He needed the lions. He had fought for the lions to bring down the wolves and, in the end, had been betrayed, receiving only silence from the old lion.
"No… the maester didn't mention anything, my lord," replied Ser Merlon carefully, while Walder Frey still trembled.
"Write another letter, then," ordered Lord Frey, shaking. The man simply nodded, turned his back, and left.
"Get him out of my sight as well," Walder demanded, no longer wishing to speak with the scout. He did not want to hear any more details, even though he knew the man still had much to say.
All Walder Frey wanted in that moment was to pretend none of that was happening. The blow of attacking Robb Stark for his clear disrespect of their agreement — for simply deciding to marry a foreign woman when an arrangement had already been made for him to wed one of Walder's daughters — and for trusting in the power of the Lannisters and the alliance with the Boltons was now coming back to bite him.
And now, the Boltons were facing not only the remnants of the North, who perhaps did not even reach eight thousand men at that moment, but an entire army, with a hundred thousand wildlings, along with Northerners and the men of the Stormlands united.
Walder could not deny they were in danger. "No… it can't be… We will deal with them… Right?" he murmured as a young servant girl carefully handed him wine.
Unlike usual, he did not slap her backside as he did with the others. He simply pushed the wine away.
"Do not offer me that thing right now. Not today," he snarled with anger and nervousness.
"Grandfather, you have to calm down," said one of his grandsons at the table.
"How am I supposed to calm down?! There is a damned dragon in the North with a giant army coming!" Walder Frey growled.
"But the lions won't abandon us like that. I'm sure they'll come help us. They also need us to control the Riverlands and deal with the wildlings!" said one of the grandsons, full of hope.
The old man stared at him for a moment and slowly nodded. He clearly wanted to believe that could be true.
'The lions wouldn't abandon us now… would they?' thought Walder Frey. 'They have to come. They are allies… allies in an unforgivable crime. They can't simply turn their backs.'
With that thought, repeated many times in his mind, Walder Frey began to calm himself, telling himself that everything would be fine, that the lions would arrive before the Northern army.
Even so, he kept the order to summon all his sons.
In Riverrun, a message had reached Brynden by raven while the castle was being surrounded by the Freys, turncloak allies, and a few Lannisters — the last ones being only a handful of troops remaining in the Riverlands.
Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, was in command of the troops maintaining the new watch against the siege of Riverrun. Lately, the Frey men had been a bit nervous; he could feel it.
And it was curious, because it all came from the news in the North: a great army commanded by Daemon Targaryen, the self-declared King of Westeros, was advancing south with a massive host gathered at Winterfell — the largest army the ancient castle had ever seen before it, some said the largest army the North had ever known. His goal seemed singular: to destroy the Freys, the Lannisters, and the Boltons. And in the end, reclaim the Iron Throne for the Targaryens.
Brynden could not deny a certain satisfaction at the fear the Freys displayed, but he also could not ignore how fragile the situation was in the face of that man from the North — the same man who had entered his family's vault one night and stolen gold and other riches after defeating the Blackfish himself in combat, as if he were dealing with a child. Brynden remembered that day very well; all his decades of experience had been nothing before that man.
It was frustrating, when that man came to Riverrun driven by direct resentment toward his niece, Catelyn Stark, who had grown tense upon hearing all of it and at the possibility that the man might in fact be a Targaryen, confessing that she had always treated him badly, that she hated the boy and made his life a living hell, as he said. She regretted it in the end, but it seemed far too late.
And after moons in silence, ever since his confusion in Braavos, he had returned three moons ago, no less than with a gigantic army that had taken the Wall and massacred the ironborn and the Boltons across the entire North.
They said he had assembled the entire North before Winterfell and might now be advancing south. No one knew exactly where he was, as the reports varied — but he must still be far, since such a large army would march slowly.
The largest army the North had ever possessed in its history… Wildlings, Northerners, and Stormlanders, all led by a Targaryen three hundred years after the Conquest… And this one rode nothing less than an ice dragon… And he was coming, coming for Riverrun.
At the same time, a raven was approaching Riverrun, carrying a letter marked with the Targaryen sigil.
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