Chapter 156 — The Dreadfort Rebellion!
Roose Bolton!!!!
The instant that name rang out, the "real" Roose Bolton—hidden beneath a cloak—crushed the reins in his hand.
You're Roose Bolton?
Then who the hell am I?!
For the briefest moment, the corner of his mouth twitched under the shadow of his hood.
Gone in an instant.
"Give them fifty golden dragons," Roose said quietly, voice as calm as winter ice.
One of his men spurred forward through the downpour. Keeping a careful distance—close enough to look respectful, far enough to stay alive—he hurled the coin pouch over.
Rosso caught it, opened it—
And his eyes lit up with greedy joy.
Ha! These bastards really do have money.
Walder Frey had been collecting bridge tolls at the Twins for decades. No wonder his dogs could afford to throw gold around like scraps.
Rosso stuffed the pouch into his cloak immediately.
Truth was, despite serving as bannermen to the Lannisters, House Clegane's lands were tiny. In the rich Westerlands, even wealthy landed knights were often richer than them—let alone old noble houses.
And the Mountain's needs?
His armor had to be oversized. His greatsword had to be monstrous. Even his horse had to be enormous.
And big meant expensive.
Most of the Clegane coin went into feeding and arming Gregor Clegane alone, leaving almost nothing for men like Rosso.
This raid into the Riverlands had barely yielded anything. They'd avoided attacking true noble keeps… which meant all they'd managed was squeezing starving villagers for barely a hundred gold dragons—
And, as always, every last coin had gone into the Mountain's pocket.
So when Rosso suddenly got his hands on fifty dragons…
He was practically beaming.
Roose pressed the advantage instantly, tone sliding smoothly into the right balance of awe and flattery.
"Lord Walder Frey has always been a friend to House Bolton," he said respectfully.
"He's mentioned your name in my presence more than once, Lord Roose Bolton."
Then he leaned in—subtly eager, perfectly obedient.
"May I ask where you and your brave men are headed?"
"We've got several Frey caravans behind us—fine wine, silks, all the best goods. Since you're a friend of the Twins, I can send word immediately."
"Hot food. Warm wine. Proper hospitality."
He even added, almost purring:
"I'll make sure you and your warriors are treated comfortably… as though you'd returned to… the Dreadfort itself."
"Perfect!" one of Rosso's riders blurted out without thinking. "We're going to—"
SMACK!
Rosso's palm cracked against the back of the man's skull, cutting him off mid-word.
"Shut up, you idiot!"
The rider stared at him in wounded confusion, but didn't dare protest.
Rosso wasn't wasting time on explanations.
Instead, he narrowed his eyes through the rain and studied Roose Bolton again, suspicion creeping up like a blade sliding between ribs.
Too enthusiastic.
Way too enthusiastic.
They weren't honored guests. They were men wearing Bolton colors while burning villages and flaying bodies in the Riverlands—invaders.
Even if this truly was a Frey guard captain… no one with half a brain would grovel this hard to a band of infamous butchers.
The moment greed met instinct—
Rosso's caution won.
His voice turned hard.
"What's your name, boy?"
"Walder Frey, my lord."
Roose's reply didn't waver.
He'd prepared for this. He chose the most common, endlessly recycled name in the Twins—one so overused it had become meaningless.
"I'm Lord Walder Frey's son."
Rosso cursed silently.
That old stallion had so many sons and daughters he could've formed an army with them.
And among them were multiple "Walder Freys."
No one could possibly know which one this was.
Rain hammered down.
Rosso's smile widened into something false.
"I can't see your face properly in this storm," he said. "Come closer, Walder Frey."
Then he gestured with a welcoming hand—far too friendly, far too practiced.
"I haven't seen your father in a long time. Let me get a look at you. See if you resemble him."
As he spoke, his right hand slid down toward his sword hilt.
If they came within charging distance, Rosso was confident he could kill the lot of them in a heartbeat.
Four or five men.
And they were rich.
Maybe they had more gold.
Maybe they had jewels.
Maybe—
Roose Bolton's voice cut through the rain like a thin, cold knife.
"I wouldn't want to trouble you, 'Lord Roose Bolton.'"
The emphasis was delicate.
Cruel.
He eased his horse back half a step—almost imperceptible—then turned cleanly.
"We have urgent business. Farewell."
Rosso's last shred of patience snapped.
"Bastard—!"
Who cares if they're Freys, fake Freys, real Freys?
There are only a few of them. Kill them, take the gold, strip the bodies.
He bared his teeth.
"Kill them—"
Before he could finish—
Roose Bolton suddenly roared:
"RETREAT!"
He slammed his heels in hard and burst into motion, galloping back the way he came—toward the low hills and shallow dips in the land.
Rosso's face twisted.
"Trying to run after you've been exposed?!"
He spat into the rain.
The moment all pretense shattered, Rosso stopped pretending too.
He threw his head back and bellowed, spurring forward at full speed.
"CHASE THEM DOWN! KILL THEM!"
"Then we split the gold dragons!"
At the promise of shared coin, the dozen riders beside him went rabid with greed. They howled like wolves and thundered after him—not even a torrential storm could cool the burning desire for gold inside their skulls.
In an instant, a dozen warhorses surged across the mud, kicking up sheets of filth that sprayed higher than a man's head.
But the moment Rosso's group reached the edge of what looked like nothing more than a common marshy stretch—
Bolton cavalry erupted from the slope.
Dreadfort elites burst from concealment like knives drawn from shadow, using the downhill momentum to slam into Rosso's formation with crushing force.
The collision drowned out even the storm.
Steel bit into flesh.
Warhorses screamed.
Bones cracked.
Rosso's grin froze and shattered into naked terror.
He watched, horrified, as one of his men was smashed horse and rider together by a warhammer—his skull bursting, brains and rainwater mixing into the mud like slurry.
A spear thrust at Rosso's right side.
He barely managed to deflect it—
Only for a sword from behind to drive clean through his chest.
"I—FUCK—!!!"
He let out a guttural, dying shriek, agony and weakness ripping the world from under his feet. He toppled from the saddle and hit the ground hard, face-first in the muck.
The last thing he saw was a blur of hooves—
And then his body was trampled into silence.
"BASTARDS! PIECES OF SHIT!!!"
Not far away, the Mountain—Gregor Clegane—had already noticed the commotion.
He'd assumed Roose and his men were nothing more than irrelevant passersby.
But now—
His strongest lieutenant had been butchered in an ambush.
"Kill them all!"
In blind fury, the violent Westerlands monster forgot his Lord's orders entirely. He threw his arm forward like a butcher pointing at cattle.
Then he charged.
More than two hundred raider-knights surged after him, forced to follow.
For a moment, the roar of their hooves overpowered even the screaming and thunder.
"Move!"
Hearing the storm of riders closing in, Roose Bolton gave the order without hesitation.
Rosso's squad had already been wiped clean—by Roose's nature, men who dared impersonate House Bolton while committing atrocities in the Riverlands deserved to be flayed and hung in the Dreadfort's hidden chambers.
But Roose wasn't stupid.
No matter how confident he was, he was not arrogant enough to believe twenty riders could defeat an enemy force ten times their size.
That kind of insanity… Roose had only ever heard of one man doing it.
The Kingsguard commander in King's Landing.
"Toward Harrenhal!" Roose shouted.
"Alternate cover—full speed!"
He wheeled his horse and led the Dreadfort cavalry into a desperate sprint for Harrenhal.
---
"FORM UP!"
Lance's voice cut through the curtain of rain—clear, commanding, iron.
The column immediately shifted from marching formation into battle order with disciplined precision, revealing true elite training.
Then shapes began to appear on the horizon.
Mounted figures charging hard through the downpour.
Roose Bolton was at the front—his pale, signature face smeared with mud and blood.
To buy him time, his escort had already lost nearly ten elite cavalrymen.
Each one was worth a fortune.
Roose had poured gold and years into training them. Armor, weapons, horses—each rider easily cost ten gold dragons or more.
Even with Dreadfort wealth, he had only three to four hundred such cavalry in total.
Every dead one was a bleeding wound to his power.
Behind him, the raider force still pursued with murderous momentum. Even Roose—calm as frozen water—could not stop anger flickering in his eyes.
"My lord!"
"Up ahead—look!"
Roose raised his head sharply.
Through the pounding rain, he saw it—
A dense black mass.
Black-armored knights.
And at their center, like a beacon stabbed into the storm, sat a rider cloaked in white—
Snow-bright armor.
A white cloak.
In the darkened world of rain and mud, he was blinding.
"Kingsguard!"
"Royal Army!"
Roose's pupils tightened.
His mind began calculating at once.
With the North and the Iron Throne already on the edge of war, royal forces were not allies.
They were enemies.
But behind him were killers.
Ahead of him was an armed host.
A perfect trap.
Roose exhaled slowly and wiped rain and blood from his face. His pale expression settled back into its usual composure.
Royal troops… fine.
Better to be captured by them than slaughtered by the impostors wearing his family's flayed-man banner.
Besides—
He still held a card no one dared ignore.
Cersei Lannister.
If the king meant to judge him, Roose refused to believe Tywin would sit idle while his only daughter—his greatest marriage asset—remained in Bolton hands.
"I am Roose Bolton—Lord of the Dreadfort!"
He raised his voice and shouted into the storm.
"I come under the order of Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun, to—"
"TRAITOR!"
"BUTCHER!!!"
His words were violently cut off by two furious roars.
Two riders burst from the royal line like arrows loosed from rage—
Eddard Stark and Jaime Lannister, swords leveled as they charged straight at Roose.
Lance did not stop them.
He simply flicked two fingers at Ser Balman beside him.
Balman understood immediately—he peeled twenty elite riders off the flank and followed, guarding Eddard and Jaime as they surged forward.
Roose's men didn't resist.
They didn't even reach for steel.
Instead, Roose suddenly threw up his hand and shouted—
"STOP!"
His riders reined in hard.
Then, without hesitation, Roose ordered every man to drop their weapons, leap down from their horses, and kneel in the mud with hands behind their heads.
The surrender was so clean—so efficient—that both Eddard and Jaime hesitated mid-charge, momentum faltering.
…This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
Even furious Jaime froze, stuck between anger and the laws of chivalry. A true knight could not strike down men who had discarded their swords and surrendered.
But the moment Roose's force stopped blocking their line of sight—
Everyone saw what Roose had been running from.
A massive cavalry force surged through the rain behind them—
And above it snapped several blood-red flayed-man banners.
"What in the seven hells is going on?!" Eddard swore under his breath.
At fifteen, he simply didn't have the experience to understand this kind of chaos.
The man before him claimed to be Roose Bolton—
But behind him, "Boltons" were chasing him down like prey.
Then—
A light, mocking voice drifted in from the side.
"Well now."
"Lord Bolton."
Roose slowly lifted his head.
Eddard turned too.
A tall rider in gleaming white armor approached at an easy pace, as though the storm were nothing but scenery.
While riding, he casually unfastened the two massive blades strapped to his back—one black, one white—then held them like toys in his hands.
He was clearly ready for battle.
Yet he looked almost… relaxed.
Like he'd stepped outside for a stroll.
Those blue eyes.
That unmistakable presence.
Even Roose Bolton—who prided himself on never showing emotion—felt his heart sink.
"So pathetic," the white knight said lightly.
His warhorse stepped forward without mercy, hooves splashing mud onto kneeling men—mud that slapped against Roose's face.
Then the knight's hands loosened slightly on the hilts.
The sword points dipped.
Those blue eyes slid lazily toward the two hundred "Dreadfort" riders charging in—
But locked instantly onto the huge mountain of a man leading the charge.
A slow curve formed at the corner of his mouth.
Mockery.
Amusement.
The rain hissed, but the voice cut through it perfectly—clear enough for Roose to hear every word.
"So…"
"Did the Dreadfort revolt?"