[The Westerlands, The Golden Tooth, 3rd moon, 299AC]
As darkness fell, the sun disappearing beyond the horizon, they began to move.
No horns were sounded, and no banners flew above them. The men spoke little as they pulled away from the main host in small groups, disappearing into the hills west of the road while the greater camp behind them remained quiet and hidden beyond the ridges.
Dorren rode near the front beside Ser Harald Stark, with Oswald and three crannogmen rangers moving ahead of them on foot. Shadow padded silently through the rocks beside Dorren's horse, black fur blending into the darkness so completely that at times the direwolf vanished entirely until bright sapphire eyes caught torchlight for half a heartbeat.
The mountains swallowed all sound in a strange way. One moment, a man could hear another rider breathing twenty feet away, and the next the wind would shift and turn the whole world silent.
Dorren, quite frankly, hated it already.
"You still have time to complain and go back," Harald muttered beside him.
Dorren glanced at the older man. "Would that make you happy?"
"No," Harald said plainly. "But it'd make me less worried."
"Although im sure Alaric would be quite displeased that his younger brother failed to execute a mission he personally entrusted him with." Harald pondered mockingly, though without any true malice, as it was all in good fun.
Dorren snorted softly through his nose. "That almost sounded caring."
Harald looked ahead, his smile evident in his voice. "Don't spread it around."
Behind them, the small force stretched along the narrow trail in uneven lines. Twenty-six men in total. Northerners mostly. A few mountain clansmen. Four crannogmen rangers carrying ropes, hooks, bundled tools wrapped in leather and cloth. Men chosen because they could move quietly and kill quickly.
Or because Alaric trusted them.
His brother had trusted him with this.
The thought should have filled him with pride. But honestly, it filled him with pressure.
Dorren was no stranger to being entrusted with a task by his now royal brother, but this… this mission of theirs was integral to their future plunder- ahem, campaign, into the westerlands
The goat path climbed sharply after the first hour, twisting between jagged rocks and dead pine roots that clung stubbornly to the mountainside. Horses struggled for footing almost immediately. More than once, loose stone rattled away beneath hooves and vanished into the dark below without ever striking bottom.
One of the clansmen spat over the side. "Hate mountains."
"You're from the mountains, ya dolt," another muttered.
"Aye," the first answered. "That's how I know."
A few men chuckled quietly.
Dorren kept his eyes forward while Shadow ranged slightly ahead now, stopping every so often to sniff the air or stare into the darkness beyond the trail. The direwolf moved differently these days. Sharper and even more aware. Sometimes, Dorren felt as if the beast already knew where the path led before any man took the next step.
Ahead of them, Oswald raised a hand suddenly.
The column stopped at once.
No one asked why.
The warg crouched low near the edge of the trail, staring into the darkness below. One of the crannogmen crept beside him without a word.
Dorren dismounted carefully and moved forward beside Harald.
"What is it?" he whispered.
Oswald tilted his head slightly, listening to something none of them could hear. "A Lefford Patrol," he said after a moment. "Not close. Lower down the ridge."
"How many?"
"Four men, mayhaps five."
Harald frowned. "How do you know that?"
Oswald finally looked at him. "Because the owl above them counted."
Harald stared for half a heartbeat longer before muttering, "Right."
Dorren nearly smiled.
The patrol passed somewhere beneath them unseen. They heard faint voices eventually, then the distant clatter of hooves against stone.
They waited nearly twenty minutes after the sounds faded before moving again.
The climb was beginning to worsen, by midnight, most of the men were leading horses rather than riding them.
Several animals slipped more than once, snorting nervously while handlers cursed beneath their breath. Cold wind cut through cloaks and gloves alike, and Dorren could feel his thighs burning from the constant strain of balancing himself against the narrow path.
Then the mule slipped.
The animal screamed as its rear footing vanished beneath loose shale, and suddenly half the trail erupted into motion. Packs shifted violently. One handler lost his grip and nearly went over the edge with the beast before Harald lunged forward and caught him by the arm.
"Pull!" Harald barked, half whispering, half yelling.
Men grabbed ropes instinctively.
The mule kicked wildly, stones breaking loose beneath it and tumbling down into blackness. One of the crannogmen flattened himself against the cliff face to avoid being dragged over entirely while Dorren grabbed hold beside Harald, boots slipping as the animal's weight strained against them.
"Move, you stubborn bastard," a mountain clansman growled from further back.
Shadow lunged forward then, snarling deep enough that the mule froze for one strange second, ears flattening in terror.
That pause saved the wretched creature.
The men hauled together, dragging the beast back onto stable footing inch by inch until finally it collapsed, trembling against the path.
Everyone breathed again.
One man laughed shakily.
Another muttered a prayer to the old gods.
Harald released the rope and looked at the mule like he regretted saving it. "Next time," he muttered, "let it fall."
"That mule's carrying half our climbing gear," one crannogman said.
Harald grunted. "Then it's lucky."
They pressed on.
Hours passed that way. Climbing, slipping, and resting only briefly before moving again.
Dorren lost all sense of distance as they continued onward.
The moon disappeared behind clouds sometime near dawn, leaving the mountains darker still. Men began stumbling from exhaustion. Twice, they had to stop while horses were carefully maneuvered around stretches where the path narrowed so severely that one bad step meant death.
Shadow never stumbled once.
The direwolf moved ahead of them like he belonged to the mountains more than they did.
Dorren found himself watching him more than the trail.
At one halt, Harald crouched beside Dorren near a tiny concealed fire no larger than a cooking pot.
"You're thinking too loudly," the older man muttered.
Dorren glanced at him. "That's not possible."
"Tell that to your face, lad."
Dorren snorted softly. "And what exactly am I thinking?"
"That your brother was mad to trust you with this."
Dorren looked down at the fire.
Harald was not wrong.
"I keep waiting to wake up and find out I'm still the bastard running behind the others in Winterfell," Dorren admitted quietly. "Only now people expect me to know what I'm doing."
Harald scratched at his beard. "That never changes."
Dorren blinked. "What?"
Harald shrugged. "Every battle, command, and any little decisions that you have to make. You always wonder whether this is the one where everyone realizes you have no idea what you're doing after all."
Dorren laughed faintly at that.
Harald smirked, continuing. "Difference is, good men keep going anyway."
For a while, the two men sat in silence, watching as the concealed fire flickered and wavered from the wind.
Then Harald said quietly, "You know, he would've liked this."
Dorren's smile faded, he knew almost instinctively who Harald was referring to, that being Ser Torrhen, Alaric, and his guardian and father figure, taken from them far too soon.
The man who had raised him.
The man who had taught him to ride, fight, curse properly, and survive northern winters without complaining every hour of the day.
Dorren stared into the flames. "He'd call this plan stupid."
"Aye," Harald admitted. "Then he'd volunteer first."
"That he would," Dorren replied as they sat in more silence, reminiscing on old memories and days gone by.
They moved again shortly after dawn.
By midday, the terrain finally began sloping downward.
Not much.
But enough for Dorren to thank the gods.
The crannogman leading the column crouched near the edge of a ridge and raised two fingers silently.
The men dropped low at once.
Dorren crawled forward carefully beside Harald until they reached the edge.
Then he saw it.
The western side of the Golden Tooth.
Even from a distance, the difference was obvious.
The eastern approach, the one facing the main road, had been built for war. Tall walls. Heavy towers. Layered defenses stacked against the mountain itself.
This side looked neglected by comparison.
The walls remained strong, certainly, but lower. Fewer towers and patrols. The terrain itself had become the defense instead.
The Lannisters and Leffords believed nobody could come this way.
Dorren smiled slowly.
"Arrogant bastards," he muttered.
Harald nodded once. "Aye, arrogance is how most castles fall."
They spent the next several hours hidden among the rocks studying the western wall.
Patrol patterns.
Torch movements.
Guard rotations.
There were not many.
Too few, honestly.
Dorren watched one pair of guards stop entirely during a patrol to piss off the side of the wall while talking about women back at Lannisport.
He almost pitied them.
Almost.
Oswald remained crouched nearby with his eyes half closed.
"What are you doing?" one young clansman finally whispered.
"Listening," Oswald answered.
"To what?"
"The ravens."
The clansman looked unsettled after that and moved elsewhere.
Harald watched the walls carefully. "Three towers undermanned," he murmured. "Western stair is nearly empty."
Dorren nodded.
They were weak here.
Not because the castle itself was weak, but because no commander truly believed this side needed defending.
That would change soon enough.
Shadow stiffened suddenly beside Dorren.
Every hair along the direwolf's spine rose.
Dorren saw it instantly.
Beside him, Harald also noticed the direwolves hackles rising.
"What is it?" he whispered.
Shadow turned toward the ridge behind them.
Then came the faint sound of hooves.
Lefford patrol.
They were far too close for comfort.
Harald immediately motioned men into position among the rocks while the crannogmen vanished into brush so quickly Dorren nearly lost sight of them entirely.
The patrol appeared moments later. Six riders winding carefully along the lower trail, relaxed enough that one man was laughing about something.
As the fools kept laughing about everything and nothing at the same time, they sprang into action.
The first arrow struck the lead rider through the throat, inflicting a lethal wound on the poor bastard.
Before the body hit the ground, Shadow launched from the rocks, his speed so fast he left nothing but a black blue behind.
The direwolf slammed into the second horse hard enough to send both rider and animal tumbling sideways down the slope. The Lefford men reacted then, scrambling for weapons, but the crannogmen were already among them.
One rider managed half a scream before a knife opened his throat.
Harald killed another cleanly through the chest before the man fully turned his horse.
Dorren met the last rider head-on.
There was nothing graceful about it.
The Lefford man swung wildly from horseback while Dorren shoved inside the strike and drove steel beneath his ribs, through boiled leather and cheap mail. The rider gasped wetly and grabbed at him before falling sideways from the saddle.
Then it was over.
Fast and ugly, quiet prevailing over the land again.
Shadow stood over the body of the rider he'd pulled down the slope, muzzle drenched dark with blood.
One of the younger men looked pale.
Harald pointed at him. "If you're going to vomit, do it downhill."
That broke the tension enough for a few tired laughs.
Dorren wiped his blade clean slowly.
The killing bothered him less now, in truth, it hadn't bothered him much since the assault on the twins.
That feeling bothered him more.
Harald noticed, "You know, it never gets easier, all that happens is the feeling becomes detached from us, delayed maybe, but never gone. And you should pray it stays that way, lad, if not, well, then we have bigger problems on our hands." He said, a grim chuckle coming out
Dorren looked at the dead Lefford rider beside him. The man, having not been much older than himself.
They hid the bodies beneath loose stone and brush.
No evidence left behind.
Then the crannogmen finally unpacked the climbing gear.
Hooks wrapped in leather.
Coiled rope ladders.
Short-handled tools bound tightly to prevent noise.
Dorren watched them work with practiced speed.
"You lot planned this long before we arrived," he said.
One older crannogman glanced up. "No, our king did."
That sounded about right.
Night fell fully before they moved toward the wall.
Shadow climbed first.
The direwolf moved across stone almost silently despite his size, climbing broken rock and narrow ledges with terrifying ease until he disappeared into darkness above.
"Gods," one clansman whispered.
Harald heard him. "Save your prayers for the climb."
The scaling itself took forever.
Every scrape of leather against stone sounded too loud. Every shifting rock felt like a disaster waiting to happen. Men climbed slowly, carefully, hauling themselves upward one painful stretch at a time while the wind tugged at cloaks and threatened to peel them from the mountainside entirely.
Twice, Dorren nearly slipped.
Once, a climbing hook shifted enough to freeze every man below it.
Nobody spoke louder than a whisper.
Above them, the western wall loomed closer inch by inch.
Then Shadow reappeared at the top.
The direwolf crouched low against the battlements, silent and waiting.
'By the gods, how in seven hells did he make it up there?' Dorren thought to himself, the men below him no doubt thinking the same
Harald climbed first onto the wall proper.
Dorren followed immediately behind him.
Two guards stood nearby.
Neither expected enemies from this direction.
The first died before he understood what he was seeing, Harald's hand clamping over his mouth while steel slid quietly beneath his jaw.
The second turned too slowly.
Shadow hit him hard enough to crack him against the stone wall before his scream fully formed.
More Northerners climbed onto the battlements.
Bodies dragged aside.
Torches dimmed.
Patrol routes secured.
The western wall belonged to them within minutes.
Dorren finally straightened atop the battlements and looked inward.
The Golden Tooth stretched beneath him.
Barracks.
Courtyards.
Supply wagons.
Sleeping men.
Torchlight flickering across stone streets winding through the fortress.
Completely unaware.
For the first time since seeing the castle, it no longer looked invincible.
It looked vulnerable.
Harald stepped beside him, breathing hard from the climb.
"Well," the older man muttered, "No turning back now."
Dorren laughed lightly at the comment.
Below them, the crannogmen were already splitting into teams, carrying bundles of pitch, rope, and tools deeper into the fortress. Others moved toward gate mechanisms and supply stores while archers quietly took positions atop the wall.
The castle still slept.
For now.
Dorren rested one hand briefly against Shadow's neck while staring east toward the unseen mountains beyond the walls.
Beyond them waited Alaric and the main host.
Waiting for chaos, weakness, disorder, any sign telling them that now was the time to strike.
Dorren drew a slow breath.
Then he looked back toward the sleeping castle beneath them.
"Well, men, let's go ahead and wake the bastards," he said quietly, a wolfish grin spreading across his face.
There was work to be done now.