[Chapter Size: 3900 Words.]
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Third Person POV
North, 300 AC.
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The ironborn were docked at several points along the coast of the kingdom, while they set up camps to guard their ships and raiding parties advanced through the frozen lands of the north, which had already been squeezed for moons, searching for where else they could take more plunder.
They had been having a relatively easy time. With no resistance from the north and without the army, the people had become easy prey. Items of value, slaves, and women were resources they were piling up in heaps. Their intention was to strengthen the Iron Islands, and bringing these resources would prepare them to deal with Westeros and its kings.
Balon was clear about this. The north was an easy target, and he was also blinded by his personal vengeance. After all, the wolves had taken his son, had turned him into something he did not like. He did not see an iron man in Theon, and that irritated him deeply, offering a bloody vengeance against the north.
But the relaxed position of the ironborn was about to end at this moment, not because of reinforcements from the north, not because of reinforcements from the south, perhaps the self-proclaimed Stannis Baratheon, but they were not yet imagining an attack from the inhospitable north of the Wall, not from that side.
And that attack, even if they had been prepared for it, the result would remain the same...
Suddenly, those small points along the coast, camps guarding ships with hundreds of ironborn at most, began to be attacked by animals and by arrows that rained down on them from unseen positions, both from within the forests and from above the hills.
However, the arrows knew very well where to fall, they knew very well where to kill.
Each attacked camp fell into immediate despair. There was no dealing with that, there were not many men there; they were only guards left to protect the ships, while the main forces were inside the North, attacking small villages and towns near the coast.
Panic spread quickly through the camps as the arrows began to catch them by surprise, massacring a good portion of them right from the start while they ran trying to protect themselves.
The commanders tried to organize their men, but three more volleys of arrows began to fall over each of the camps. While some searched for shields and others tried to protect themselves behind their tents.
Then from where the arrows came, or even from other places to catch them even more off guard, the arctican infantry came running right after with swords and shields in hand.
"For Arctic!" they shouted.
Some hundreds — only two or three hundred arctican soldiers — ran past the rows of tents and campfires and began cutting down one man after another. They ended the suffering of those who had been struck by arrows and were screaming on the ground.
The arcticans ignored the pleas for mercy from those men. It was like entering one ear and leaving the other, as if they were speaking a strange language when asking for mercy, because the arctican swords did not stop falling upon them, massacring them without pity.
It was a complete slaughter.
The fleet always identified where the camps guarding the ships were, and ships would detach from the fleet, finding a blind spot along the coast and eliminating enemy scouts, then approaching through that blind point and preparing to attack without warning.
They massacred the ironborn and then advanced to ensure the ships were not damaged.
When the camp finally fell into complete silence, only a few men in arctican armor remained moving from side to side, clearing the area before burning all the bodies of the dead enemies and rescuing the captives.
Almost no Arctican fell during these clashes; their armor gave them complete protection against arrows and other enemy weapons.
When there were captives in the camps, they carefully planned where to attack, avoiding as much as possible harming the northerners who were being carried as slaves.
In any case, questions were asked to the captives when everything ended, who were now there as former goods destined to be taken to the Iron Islands.
They were asked about their homes, about their families, and whether they had any place to go.
Most said no. That their villages had been wiped out, some many moons ago, and they had been trying to survive since then. They said that if they were left there, they would probably die.
Then the arcticans spoke the name Stark.
They spoke of Jon Arctic, the boy raised in Winterfell and now the future king of the Seven Kingdoms. They also spoke of Arya Stark, who was with them, who was with the king of Arctic.
Names have power, and the North never forgets the name Stark.
Although there was still some resentment against Robb, the captives accepted the help. Having no other option, they boarded the ships of the ironborn themselves.
At the same time, the arctican forces took control of those ships to sail them, but they gave them a good cleaning, because those ships were anything but hygienic. Compared to those of Arctic, they were far more disgusting.
Even so, in less than a day everything was already prepared.
"Take the ships to sea!" the commanders shouted, and then they returned to the sea.
During the fleet's descent toward Pyke, about a dozen times ships detached from the main fleet, going to the coast and then returning with captured vessels and some captives.
Jon made the decision to take the ironborn ships precisely for the consequences of the attack on Pyke. They would need to remove all the slaves from the islands. He intended to completely dismantle that people of raiders, so that it would take centuries for them to recover from what was about to happen to them.
This would be the final price for two rebellions from the ironborn.
The arcticans received the ships that returned with vessels of the ironmen, with the ships of the fleet applauding and laughing. There were only northern captives besides the arcticans returning, there were no prisoners, because the order remained the same: total extermination of the ironborn.
But not all were exterminated. The Arctican forces were relentless and planned meticulously, and some managed to escape the chaos of the camps... and they carried the memory of the horror they had seen in each of the camps, telling their companions as soon as they found them again across the North.
"It's good that they're capturing the ships. They'll certainly grow desperate without any way to return home..." Jon was listening to the reports together with his main men, Jorelle Mormont was also there as a guest.
She herself had gone to speak together with Arya with the people brought from the north. They grew tense when they discovered they were going to the Iron Islands, indeed, but that was their destination for the destruction of the ironborn.
"Even so, with the ships having nowhere to run, the villages they didn't manage to attack will continue to be tormented," Jorelle added. She watched another group of ships arriving, pressing her lips together right after.
Jon remained silent for a moment. His body turned and he left the group; there was something for him, and his eyes turned toward the coast of the North.
He couldn't even see it from there, only a few points on the horizon indicating the continent, but not wanting to be seen with a fleet at sea, all they could observe was the distant outline of the land.
"As for that... well, that's not necessarily true. I don't intend to leave that scum so free," Jon said in response to Jorelle.
His green eyes shone brighter than usual, they seemed to travel kilometers away, passing the coast and advancing deep into the North. He saw through one of his eagles that flew over the Wolfswood.
The immensity of the forest revealed how many animals lived there. An entire ecosystem pulsed with hundreds of thousands of lives.
And Jon's eyes on that ship shone even brighter, blood began to run from his nose. No one could see it with his back turned to the gathered deck, but it was there, pushing the limits of his magic.
Something had begun to change inside that forest.
Every animal within the Wolfswood — squirrels searching for food among the roots of the trees, crows and owls carrying food to their chicks, deer and elk grazing in the clearings, hares running through the bushes, weasels and martens sliding through the vegetation, wolves sniffing for smaller prey, coyotes and foxes stalking at the edge of the shadows, badgers digging the earth, lynxes silent on the low branches, even the great bears lazily stretching and the rare shadowcats devouring some large prey — all blinked at the same time.
Something changed in all of their eyes.
An order began to be implemented within their minds.
Jon was already tired of hearing about the ironborn: their phrases, their beliefs that they were blessed by the Drowned God, that they were taking the iron price, that "what is dead may never die".
It was time to show that people what real power was.
What it truly meant to witness the power of the Old Gods through Jon.
They were on land.
And they would be devoured by nature itself.
No god would save them from what was coming.
The forest understood that.
And the forest sought blood.
It was in one of the villages that had resisted quite well during the first moons of the raiders' attacks. This time, however, it fell.
All the adult men who fought were dead.
It took a week for the raiders to leave the coast and reach that place, but they finally found that village with more than two hundred people. There were only fifty ironborn, but unlike those people who lived as simple farmers, they were experienced and cruel raiders.
The village had no way to deal with fifty men accustomed to war.
It was a one-sided massacre.
The only ones who could offer any resistance were the village's hunters, but there were only a dozen of them. They were killed without even managing to kill anyone.
Women were dragged away. Young girls were grabbed as they cried and begged for mercy for their mothers, sisters, and relatives, but received only punches while the women were pulled into the houses.
Inside, the raiders committed every kind of barbarity.
And in the middle of all that chaos, someone emerged from the forests.
Dirty, tired, and with a dry face, but finally finding relief upon locating his fellow raiders.
"Help!" the newcomer shouted.
The men who continued looting the village and burning some houses looked at the disheveled boy, who did not seem to be more than twenty namedays old.
"Who are you?" one of the ironborn asked, already approaching to hit him.
Even wearing a uniform, he was far too injured to look like a true ironborn.
"Listen! I was under Captain Dan's command. I came from the coast... we were attacked!"
"Attacked?"
The men looked at each other.
"Call Beck."
"He's in one of the houses."
"The coast was attacked. He'd better know now, call him now!"
One of the men nodded and ran into the village.
The other remained there, staring at the boy.
"Tell me... who are they? How many survived?" he asked.
"I don't know... they just appeared out of nowhere. They wore heavy and full armor, gray and white colors, with a blue symbol on the chest, very well made... I've never seen anything like it. I still don't know how to describe it properly. I only know they started with arrows... then they came with swords. They didn't leave anyone alive. They simply began massacring everyone, even those who were wounded and couldn't fight. There was no mercy. I just tried to run as far as I could. I got dirty and hurt coming here... but I managed to arrive," the boy murmured.
"Could the North be counterattacking?" He did not know exactly what was happening. To him, it could only be the North. Though the description of the armor sounded very strange, perhaps a delirium of the boy?
"I don't know... I just know I don't want to go back there," the boy replied, trembling. What he had seen had deeply disturbed him.
"Stop being a coward, you fool!" one of the ironborn snarled, clearly irritated by that display of fear.
At that moment, the commander of that raid, of the place, entered, in a bad mood.
"Tell me what is happening." Beck, an ironborn missing some of his front teeth and with a vile look, asked after having to leave his entertainment with a northern woman taken by force.
"We were attacked on the coast. The camp didn't even have a chance. I believe it's the North," said the man.
"And the ships?" the man snarled, looking directly at the boy, knowing the captain would want their balls.
The young man swallowed dryly. "They were taken... all of them. I saw it from afar."
That made all the men who heard the answer frown.
They were being robbed.
And there was no way to take the iron price without ships to return to the sea.
"Damn. Let's hurry and go to the coast to see what's happening. We have to look for the captain," said one of the men.
While they discussed, something made one of the men look at the sky.
A dark cloud was coming toward them.
It moved low, very low, and also at high speed. As he narrowed his eyes, he realized that those were not particles of cloud.
They looked like wings.
Wings beating against each other.
He only pointed, trembling.
"What is that?" he asked openly.
All the faces turned to see.
And all immediately swallowed dryly.
"My Drowned God..." one of them murmured.
Suddenly, the cloud advanced directly over them, dropping downward. The sound of wings became clear. The sound of vultures, crows, and owls advancing together, all camouflaged by black feathers.
The ironmen dropped their axes, forgetting they were holding them.
Others around the village also noticed.
They took a step back.
They were frightened.
The boy, the newcomer who had run from the coast to there, did not wait any longer to understand what was happening. He simply turned and ran to the opposite side screaming.
The men took another step back.
Then another.
And then they began to run as well, imitating the boy.
But it was too late.
Thousands of birds simply left their nests in the forests around and advanced toward that village.
Thousands of them.
The sound grew loud and took over the town, wings and bird calls, together with moans and screams of terror.
It did not take long for the first to attack the ironborn.
They tried to pierce any exposed part of the body with their claws. The ears were the first parts attacked. The claws also scraped across the scalp, trying to pierce the skin in a way no bird should be capable of doing.
But suddenly, all of them seemed to have been taken by madness.
As if they were angry.
A blind fury that made them want to kill the ironborn.
Screams echoed everywhere.
"Demonic birds!" they shouted!
Some fell to the ground, but were covered by the birds like a cloak trying to pierce him.
Even the northerners watched the situation with horror and fear, looking for places to hide while shouting and raising their hands to protect themselves from the birds.
But they dodged them.
The demonic birds completely ignored the northerners.
Meanwhile, the ironborn screamed, trying to protect themselves while their faces were cut and torn apart, as they were surrounded by those animals.
They were ripped by beaks and claws.
Eyes were torn out.
Skin was ripped open.
Cuts appeared all over the body, but the faces of the ironborn were the best targets.
That village that had once been prosperous, and then had succumbed to the ironborn, was now in the middle of a scene of terror.
Even for the northerners.
They watched the men who had raped and murdered in the village being killed in that brutal way.
Amid the chaos, the birds circled through the streets, making it almost impossible to see anything.
Men slowly stopped screaming.
Both inside the village and outside it, some tried to flee.
But no one managed to escape.
No matter where they ran.
Soon, the screams of pain ceased.
Only the laments and the cries of the northerners remained, praying to the gods that they would not be consumed as the ironborn had been.
The birds then simply took flight and advanced away from that village.
The northerners remained there, frozen, looking around and finding bodies of ironborn fallen everywhere. Most did not even have faces anymore, because that was where the birds most liked to attack.
That was a scene they would never forget.
It took a long time before they were finally able to act again, after remaining paralyzed for so long. Everyone who had not been killed by the ironborn before was alive... As for the fifty raiders plus the young man who had run to them earlier, all of them were dead...
But that was only the first village.
Meanwhile, a group of ironborn who had just attacked a small village to the south advanced along the road toward the coast, when they were surprised by a thunderous sound coming from the forest.
Thousands of paws could be heard advancing.
The group stopped immediately, frightened, when they saw more than two thousand wolves running together.
The ironborn, just like the captured northerners, could barely believe it.
The first man to be struck was the first unfortunate one.
When they tried to defend themselves, they began to be seized by the giant wolves, who knocked them to the ground while their teeth went straight for the neck, seeking to kill quickly.
Screams and cries of pain echoed throughout the group as, one by one, the ironborn were killed.
The wolves did not rest until the last of them was dead.
Then they simply retreated, leaving only the northerners there, frozen with fear. Soon after, the pack advanced again into the forest.
No one had ever seen anything like it. It was as if the forest itself was putting an end to the raiders, that they would have a horrible death.
The forest judged.
The forest wanted to see them dead.
The entire region around the Wolfswood witnessed similar scenes of terror.
The animals of the forest simply turned against the ironborn — only against them. They always spared the common people and massacred anyone wearing the symbol of the kraken.
This event would never be forgotten by the North.
Wolves, bears, and even normally harmless animals — birds and small rodents — attacked the invaders.
This caused many other villages near the forest to be spared from attacks.
This time, no one managed to survive.
No one managed to flee from the animals.
The ironborn who tried to hide inside the forest to ambush northern convoys were simply devoured from one day to the next.
Many times they did not even know where death came from.
They were resting or camping when they simply disappeared. All they left behind in the camps were dead bodies and the place devastated by animal tracks. Some did not even leave bodies; the animals finished devouring them.
The North would never forget that.
Many would say that it was the Old Gods who had grown angry at the presence of the ironmen and had sent the beasts to punish them.
Others said it was King Arctic himself who controlled the animals, when they learned that he was in the North at that moment, something that would be discovered in the future.
But to think that a man could control an entire forest seemed absurd.
It was something impossible.
What they did not know was that it was true... Jon Arctic had the ability to implement an order in all the animals across a scale of hundreds of kilometers.
He did not control them directly. He only implanted a simple order in the minds of the wildlife.
Massacre everyone who carried the symbol of the kraken on their chest.
And never harm the oppressed people or the people of the North...
Only the invaders.
That went far beyond Jon controlling a single creature or even an entire city.
Because the scale there reached tens of thousands of animals.
It was no wonder that when he finished doing that at that moment, which had begun with his nose, his nose began to bleed heavily.
At first it was only a thin stream, but soon the blood flowed like a small waterfall.
Jon began to feel dizzy and ended up falling, which everyone quickly noticed. Jorelle, Arya, and all the others quickly approached, worried.
"What happened to him?" one of the men asked.
Jon's nose looked like a fountain of blood while he struggled to breathe.
"Jon!?" Arya looked at him, touching his face, worried.
"I'm fine... I just need to breathe a little. Can you bring me a cloth?" Jon said shortly after recovering a little.
Jorelle took a cloth she had and handed it to the king, who began to wipe his nose.
"Now everything will be fine... the North will be safe now..." He stood up with those words.
Arya questioned him, scolded him when he said what he had done, his powers were dangerous if used on such a large scale. But in the end, she thanked him and cried at his side.
Jon had to rest for a few days after that.
He had used too much of his strength.
Another event caused by the creatures Jon had tamed in the last few days, which served as his hunting dogs beneath the waters, the three krakens.
In the middle of the ocean, entire ships of ironborn were intercepted by the creatures that advanced ahead of the fleet.
It did not take long for the krakens to bring the ships to them.
The ironmen tried everything to avoid it. Some even sought surrender when they found themselves surrounded by an entire fleet.
But that did not exist.
The men of Arctic simply boarded the captured ships and began to massacre the ironborn, freeing the captives.
Afterward, the bodies were thrown into the sea.
The ships were taken over by other arcticans.
The fleet that originally had 300 ships soon became a fleet of 431 ships.
Some were captured at sea, but many more were taken along the coast, since each stop yielded about ten or twelve ships.
Jon watched everything with satisfaction.
Now there was nothing left preventing his arrival at Pyke.
Even so, Jon continued keeping his eyes on the North, observing the reactions of each lord who received his letters.
Now, the arctican fleet continued advancing across the sea, getting closer and closer to its enemy.
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Raccoon Here:
I wanted to eliminate some ironborn still causing destruction in the North. Now I want to make a chapter about the reactions of the main Northern lords, like Alys Karstark, the Manderlys, Howland Reed, Lady Dustin, and even Roose Bolton.
After that we will begin Pyke. I will make a reaction from the lords of Westeros south of the Neck after Pyke, and from that point on the confusion will begin with the maesters of the south.
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