The year was 58 AC. The two-year grace period had expired, and the gears of the great war had finally, terribly, engaged.
South of the Neck, the world's most formidable army gathered. It was a sea of steel, leather, and nervous anticipation, a tide of one hundred thousand soldiers drawn from the six subservient kingdoms, all marching under the banner of the three-headed dragon.
This was not merely a feudal levy; this was an army of conquest, spearheaded by eight hundred Dragon Knights. These were the elite of the Targaryen guard, men who had undergone Visenya's blood rituals, their bodies enhanced to superhuman levels of strength and speed, their armor gleaming with captured light.
Above them, casting dreadful shadows that swept across the swamps, wheeled the true power of House Targaryen: eight dragons. At their head flew the remaining two dragons of the original conquest: Balerion the Black Dread, now claimed by the formidable Prince Maegor, and Vhagar, the bronze queen, ridden by the heir to the throne, Prince Aegon. Leading them all was King Aenys I Targaryen himself, mounted atop his own swift, silver-blue dragon, Starfyre. The other five dragons, younger but no less hungry, hung back, a reserve of living fire.
They stood before Moat Cailin. The fortress was formidable, a collection of black towers sinking into the bog, yet it was the only path, the plug in the bottle of the North.
On the battlements of the Gatehouse Tower, the air was thick with a different kind of tension. It was the cold, sharp focus of the North.
King Torrhen Stark, his beard now a cascade of iron-grey, stood beside his son and heir, Prince Edric Stark. Edric, a man in his prime, was the picture of his uncle Alaric's training: lean, controlled, his eyes holding the chilling, pale-blue light of mastered Ice Magic. Beside them, his hand gripping the hilt of his greatsword, was Brandon Snow, Torrhen's half-brother and the grizzled, loyal commander of the Moat for over three decades.
Their army was half the size of the one below—fifty thousand soldiers. But these were Northmen, defending their home, and they were not alone.
Interspersed among the archers on the walls were five hundred Magicians, men and women trained in the Broken Tower at Winterfell, the North's own arcane academy. They were already chanting, their voices a low drone that laid a shimmering, almost invisible shield of cold air over the fortress.
Ready for the counter-assault were the five hundred Winter Wolves, the North's answer to the Dragon Knights. These were the elite of the Northern army, warriors who had proven their loyalty and been granted Alaric's potions, giving them strength and speed to match any foe.
And in the mists, hidden by the swamp and the towering walls, two terrible secret weapons waited. From high perches on the towers, Giant Eagles, each large enough to carry an armored rider, watched the skies.
In the marshy ground behind the gates, a pack of Giant Direwolves, each standing a monstrous six meters at the shoulder, paced impatiently, their low growls vibrating in the chests of the men around them.
Torrhen had refused his brother's aid. When Alaric had offered the full might of the Winter Kingdom, Torrhen had placed a hand on his shoulder. "This is not your war, brother," the old King had insisted. "You are responsible for your people, the Free Folk. You are a king in your own right. This is a war for the True North, and we will face it with the strength you have taught us." Alaric, seeing the wisdom and the unbending pride in his brother's eyes, had accepted. The North would stand or fall on its own new power.
The silence stretched, thin and brittle. There were no pre-war talks, no ravens exchanged, no offers of surrender. The Targaryens knew the North would not kneel, and the North knew the Targaryens would not relent. The battle was inevitable.
King Aenys, perched high on Starfyre, finally broke the quiet. He pointed his Valyrian steel sword, Blackfyre, directly at the Gatehouse Tower, at the Stark banner flapping in the wind.
"For the Iron Throne! For the memory of my father! ATTACK!"
His command was punctuated by the earth-shattering roar of eight dragons. In response, a thousand Northern war horns bellowed their defiance.
The Targaryen army surged forward. The ground attack began as the eight hundred Dragon Knights led the charge, their enhanced bodies moving at an unnatural speed, a silver blur aimed at the central causeway.
Behind them, the one-hundred-thousand-strong army of the Six Kingdoms began its slow, thundering advance, their shields locked, a moving forest of steel.
But the true attack came from the sky.
Aenys, Maegor, and Aegon broke from the main formation. They rocketed their dragons—Starfyre, Balerion, and Vhagar—straight towards the embankment, aiming for the single spot where Torrhen Stark stood beside his son and brother.
The other five dragons circled in the rear, a looming threat, waiting for an opening to appear in the Northern lines.
The three great dragons ascended, hovered for a horrifying second, their shadows swallowing the tower, and then dove.
"DRACARYS!" Aenys roared.
"DRACARYS!" Maegor bellowed.
"DRACARYS!" Aegon screamed.
Three distinct, apocalyptic streams of fire converged on Torrhen's position. Balerion's was a torrent of midnight-black shadow-fire; Vhagar's was a molten bronze inferno; Starfyre's was a blinding, focused lance of silver-blue heat.
The combined assault was an extinction-level event, hot enough to turn the ancient, damp stone of the Moat to slag.
Torrhen and Brandon Snow braced themselves for the heat scorching their faces even before the flames arrived.
But Edric Stark stepped forward.
He was the calm in the center of the storm. He had trained under his uncle for this exact moment. He planted his feet, his gaze locked on the approaching annihilation, and brought both hands forward, palms out.
He did not shout. He commanded.
"Rho Aias!"
His voice, amplified by his own magic, cut through the roar of the flames. In the instant before the fire struck, a miracle of pure Ice Magic manifested.
A gargantuan shield, formed of five interlocking petals of crystalline ice, burst into existence. It was a beautiful, terrifying construct, glowing with an internal blue light, each layer as thick as a castle wall.
The dragon fire struck the shield with a sound that defied description—a supersonic shriek of ultimate heat meeting absolute cold.
A massive cloud of steam instantly obscured the sky, blinding both armies. The pressure was unimaginable.
The first layer of the ice shield, the outermost petal, held for a single, defiant second before boiling away, shattering into a billion pieces.
The second layer caught the brunt of Balerion's shadowflame, the ice hissing as it cracked and vaporized.
The third layer buckled under Vhagar's molten fury, exploding outward, turning the superheated steam into a blizzard of razor-sharp ice shards.
The fire, now diffused but still immensely powerful, slammed into the fourth layer. Spiderweb cracks, glowing with orange-hot energy, raced across the surface of the ice, but the layer held. The final, fifth layer remained pristine, untouched.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the dragon fire stopped. The three great beasts, their immediate burst of flame expended, were forced to pull upward, their roars turning from triumph to frustration. They had to circle to regain their height and let their fire rebuild.
Below, the steam cloud cleared.
The Targaryen army stared in stunned disbelief. Their King, their most feared Prince, and their heir, riding the three most powerful creatures in the world, had failed to kill a single man.
On the wall, Edric Stark stood, sweat pouring down his face despite the intense cold radiating from his own shield. The spell had taken a quarter of his magic reserves, but he was standing. Torrhen Stark was standing. Brandon Snow was standing.
Torrhen placed a mailed hand on his son's shoulder, a silent, profound gesture of respect. Then, his eyes turned to the sky, where the dragons were wheeling, momentarily disorganized.
The old King in the North roared, his voice heard across the entire battlefield.
"Archers, fire at will! Magicians, target the riders! Break their concentration!"
He raised his own Valyrian steel sword, Ice, and pointed it directly at the dragons.
"Eagle Brigade—YOUR KING COMMANDS YOU! ATTACK! FOR THE NORTH!"
From the high towers of Moat Cailin, a new sound ripped through the air. A series of piercing shrieks as fifty Giant Eagles launched themselves into the sky. On their backs, riders armed with long, rune-tipped lances of weirwood and steel angled their mounts, climbing at astonishing speed to meet the dragons in their own domain.
The war for the North had truly begun.