Chapter 6: Through the Swamps of Despair, Towards a River of Blood
The three days following Jon Arryn's message were a blur of intense preparation at Moat Cailin. The partially refortified fortress, which had begun to feel like a strange, ancient extension of Voldedort's own will, now buzzed with the focused energy of an army about to advance into enemy territory. Smiths' hammers rang day and night, armourers mended hauberks and sharpened spearheads, and quartermasters meticulously distributed the last of the supplies that could be spared for the marching host.
Voldedort, a figure of tireless, almost unnerving energy, oversaw it all. He designated a garrison to remain at Moat Cailin, a force large enough to hold the critical causeway, under the command of a dour but reliable Glover kinsman, Galbart Glover, who seemed more comfortable amidst the black stones and whispering reeds than many of his Northern brethren. Howland Reed also pledged a contingent of his crannogmen to remain, their intimate knowledge of the surrounding bogs a far more potent defense than mere numbers.
"Hold this place as you would hold the heart of the North itself, Master Glover," Voldedort instructed, his grey eyes, Eddard's eyes, fixing the man with a gaze that promised dire consequences for failure. "No enemy passes south of these towers unless they march over your dead bodies. And ensure that word of any movement, any whisper on the wind, reaches me without delay."
"You have my word, Lord Stark," Glover replied, his voice gravelly. "The Moat will hold."
To Howland Reed, Voldedort spoke with a different, more nuanced tone. "Your men who remain, Howland, their eyes and ears are as valuable as a thousand swords. The swamps guard our back. Ensure they remain… inhospitable to any Targaryen sympathizers who might think to probe our defenses."
Reed nodded, his gaze as deep and unreadable as the darkest pools of the Neck. "The bogs have their own ways of dealing with intruders, Lord Stark. They will not find passage easy."
On the morning of their departure, a thin, greasy mist clung to the swamps, making the black towers of Moat Cailin appear even more spectral. The Northern army, thousands strong now with the combined levies of the various houses, stretched back along the causeway, a river of steel and leather. Banners, heavy with dew, hung limply at first, then began to stir as a faint breeze sighed through the reeds. The direwolf of Stark, the roaring giant of Umber, the sunburst of Karstark, the mailed fist of Glover, the seahorse of Manderly – a potent collection of Northern fury.
Howland Reed and a select group of his most skilled crannogmen took the lead, their small, dark forms moving with an uncanny silence that belied the treacherous terrain. Voldedort rode just behind them, alongside Ser Rodrik Cassel and the Greatjon, who seemed uncharacteristically subdued by the oppressive atmosphere of the Neck.
The journey south through the swamps was an ordeal. The causeway, barely wide enough for two horses abreast in many places, soon deteriorated into a series of muddy tracks, often disappearing entirely into shallow, reed-choked waterways or treacherous patches of sucking bog. Progress was agonizingly slow. Horses struggled, wagons became mired, and men cursed under their breath as they waded through knee-deep, foul-smelling water. The air was humid and heavy, alive with the drone of insects and the croaking of unseen amphibians.
Voldedort, however, seemed impervious to the discomfort. He rode with an unwavering focus, his eyes constantly scanning the surroundings, absorbing every detail of the alien landscape. Eddard's memories provided a general understanding of the Neck's dangers, but it was Voldemort's own ingrained paranoia and acute senses that kept him truly alert. He felt the oppressive weight of the place, the ancient, almost sentient hostility of the swamps towards intruders.
Howland Reed proved to be an indispensable guide. He and his crannogmen seemed to possess an almost supernatural ability to find solid ground where none appeared to exist, to anticipate quicksand, and to navigate the labyrinthine waterways. They moved like ghosts, their knowledge of the terrain absolute. Voldedort watched Reed closely, noting the subtle ways he interacted with the environment, the almost reverent way he would pause to listen to the wind in the reeds or examine a disturbed patch of mud. There was a subtle magic to the crannogmen, an attunement to nature that was far removed from the grand, structured sorcery Voldedort knew, yet undeniably effective in this domain.
"The Neck does not suffer fools gladly, Lord Stark," Reed remarked one evening, as they made a damp, uncomfortable camp on a small, boggy island barely large enough for the command tents. "She demands respect. Those who try to force their will upon her often find themselves swallowed whole."
"A lesson many southrons have learned to their cost, I imagine," Voldedort replied, his gaze thoughtful. He saw parallels between the Neck's insidious defenses and the subtle, creeping nature of his own preferred methods of conquest. This place, for all its discomfort, resonated with a certain dark pragmatism.
The morale of the Northern troops, initially high with the prospect of marching to war, began to fray under the relentless misery of the Neck. The dampness was pervasive, seeping into clothes, blankets, and spirits. Food was monotonous, fires difficult to keep lit, and the constant threat of leeches, biting insects, and unseen dangers wore on the men's nerves. There were whispers of bog spirits, of men disappearing without a trace – crannogmen myths, perhaps, but potent enough in this gloomy environment.
Voldedort addressed this with a mixture of Eddard's stoic resolve and his own brand of chilling inspiration. He shared the men's discomfort, refusing any special treatment, his tent as damp and Spartan as any other. He spoke to them not of glory, but of grim necessity, of the justice owed to their murdered kin, of the shame of returning North with their duty unfulfilled. His voice, imbued with that subtle magical resonance, cut through their weariness, shoring up their flagging spirits with a cold, hard resolve.
"This swamp tests us," he declared one evening, his voice carrying over the assembled captains. "It seeks to weigh our determination. Let it find that Northern will is stronger than any mire, colder than any bog water, harder than any stone. We pass through this trial, and when we emerge, we will be a force tempered in the miseries of the Neck, ready to unleash our full fury upon those who thought us easily broken."
His words, and his own seemingly inexhaustible endurance, had an effect. The grumbling lessened, replaced by a grim, dogged determination. They were Starks, Umbers, Karstarks, men of the hard North. They would not be bested by a swamp.
The greensight continued to manifest, often in unsettling ways, amplified by the strange energies of the Neck. One afternoon, as they navigated a particularly treacherous stretch of waterway, Voldedort was struck by a vision so vivid he almost lost his seat on his horse. He saw a narrow, winding river, not of water, but of fire, consuming a field of golden wheat. Screams echoed, and the sigil of a golden rose – House Tyrell – was visible for a moment before being engulfed in flame. He also saw dragons, not the skeletal ice-dragons of his Other-related visions, but magnificent, terrible beasts of scale and fire, their roars shaking the very foundations of the world.
Dragons… here? The thought was startling. Eddard's knowledge spoke of them as long extinct in Westeros. Was this a glimpse of a distant past? Or a potential future? The Targaryens had been dragonlords. Could their return be a factor in this war? He stored the vision away, another piece in the complex puzzle of this world's magic. The Tyrells… they were Targaryen loyalists, their strength in the Reach considerable. The vision of fire consuming their lands was… interesting.
More practically, he received flashes of Robert Baratheon leading his Stormlanders, their movements swift and aggressive, clashing with forces loyal to Lord Cafferen and Grandison, Targaryen bannermen. He saw Jon Arryn, more cautiously advancing from the Vale, securing allegiances in the eastern Riverlands. These glimpses, though fragmented, helped him build a mental map of the war's progress beyond the limited scope of raven messages. He began to adjust his own marching pace, calculating the optimal time and place to converge with his allies.
He also continued his subtle observations of the crannogmen's magic. He noted their use of herbal poultices that healed wounds with surprising speed, their ability to seemingly meld into the swampy landscape, their uncanny knack for predicting changes in the weather. He saw Howland Reed once hold his hand over a patch of disturbed earth, his eyes closed in concentration, and then declare with certainty that a large band of deer had passed that way hours before, heading west. It was a form of divination, simpler than the greensight, but deeply connected to the living world. Voldedort wondered if these subtle arts could be learned, adapted, perhaps even amplified by his own far greater power.
The entity of "Voldedort" continued its strange internal evolution. The grim conditions of the Neck brought forth Eddard's memories of hardship, of duty performed in the face of adversity. There was a stubborn, unyielding quality to the Stark spirit that Voldemort found… useful, if sometimes tiresome in its adherence to notions of honor. When a small party of men became separated in a dense fog, Eddard's ingrained sense of responsibility for his men warred with Voldemort's colder calculation of acceptable losses. He ultimately dispatched a group of crannogmen and some of his own best Glover scouts to find them, a decision that earned him quiet approval from Ser Rodrik and reinforced the image of a caring lord. The men were found, exhausted but alive. Voldemort noted the boost in morale outweighed the minor delay. Sentiment could, at times, be a strategic asset.
He also found himself assessing the Northern lords with a new clarity. The Greatjon's boisterousness hid a keen tactical mind when it came to brute force. Rickard Karstark's grief made him a relentless, if somewhat single-minded, warrior. Wyman Manderly's sons, Ser Wylis and Ser Wendel, who commanded the Manderly knights, were jovial but competent, their men the best equipped in the army. Roose Bolton's contingent, which had joined them before they entered the Neck, remained an unsettling presence. They were disciplined, silent, their pale eyes missing nothing, their commander, a dour man named Steelshanks Walton, as cold and efficient as his lord. Voldedort kept a particularly watchful eye on them, recognizing their potential for both great service and great treachery. He saw in Bolton's men a reflection of his own Death Eaters – tools to be used, but never fully trusted.
One evening, a raven, looking bedraggled and exhausted, finally reached them, bearing a message from a Tully scout operating in the northern Riverlands. It confirmed what Voldedort's greensight had hinted at: Lord Hoster Tully was calling his own banners at Riverrun, incensed by the King's abduction of Brandon Stark (who had been on his way to Riverrun for his wedding to Catelyn Tully) and the murder of his prospective son-in-law. The message also warned of significant Targaryen loyalist forces massing near the Green Fork of the Trident, under the command of Lord Randyll Tarly, a formidable general.
"Tarly," Ser Rodrik spat, reading the message over Voldedort's shoulder. "A hard man. Commands the finest infantry in the Reach. This will be no easy fight."
"No war worth fighting ever is, Ser Rodrik," Voldedort replied, his eyes gleaming with a predatory light. "But Tarly is predictable. He will expect a conventional assault." He looked at Howland Reed. "The Green Fork… are there routes through the wetlands to its west, Howland, ways to approach Tarly's flank unseen?"
Reed traced a finger over their campaign map. "The land there is softer, but yes, Lord Stark. For men who can move like shadows, there are paths. Difficult, but possible. The crannogmen could guide a smaller force."
A plan began to form in Voldedort's mind, a daring, unconventional strike that would utilize the unique skills of Reed's men and the element of surprise. Eddard Stark might have opted for a more straightforward, honorable confrontation. Lord Voldemort, however, saw an opportunity for a swift, decisive, and utterly ruthless maneuver.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of mud, mist, and misery, the character of the land began to change. The oppressive canopy of the swamp thinned, the ground grew firmer, and the air, while still damp, lost some of its suffocating heaviness. They began to see clear streams, fields that had once been cultivated, and the distant smudge of hills on the horizon. They were emerging from the Neck.
The Northern army, gaunt and mud-stained but hardened by their ordeal, marched onto the plains of the northern Riverlands with a collective sigh of relief that was almost a roar. The sun, when it finally broke through the persistent clouds, seemed brighter, the sky wider. They had passed through their first great trial.
They made camp near the banks of the Fever River, a tributary of the Green Fork. The contrast with the Neck was stark. Here, the land was more open, though already showing the scars of approaching war – abandoned crofts, fields left untended. But there was a sense of space, of freedom, that had been absent for weeks.
Voldedort stood on a small rise, looking south. The Riverlands stretched before him, a vast, fertile chessboard upon which the next stage of the war would be played. He could almost taste the conflict in the air, the scent of blood and ambition. His greensight gave him a fleeting image of the Trident itself, its waters running red, three great armies clashing on its banks.
Howland Reed stood beside him, his expression, as always, difficult to read. "The air tastes different here, Lord Stark."
"It tastes of battle, Howland," Voldedort replied, a grim smile touching his lips. "And of opportunity."
The passage through the Neck had been more than just a physical journey. It had further solidified Voldedort's control over the Northern host, honed his understanding of this new world's subtle magics, and brought him to the threshold of the real war. He was no longer just the grieving Lord of Winterfell seeking vengeance. He was a force of nature, a calculating intellect with ancient power, poised to reshape the destiny of this land. The serpent had shed its skin in the swamps, and emerged, leaner and more dangerous, into the heart of the storm. The rivers ahead, he knew, would soon run with blood. And he would be there to ensure it was his enemies' blood that flowed most freely.