~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
The future of the North?
They looked at the mountain of food stacked before them, then at the black sea beyond the walls, silent again, returned to its terrible stillness.
The future.
Wasn't the future already clenched in this man's hands?
Greatjon Umber's throat worked. His mouth had gone so dry he could feel it burning.
He wanted to say something. He wanted to find words for the gratitude, for the awe that had lodged itself in his chest. But every word he reached for felt small. Pale. Useless.
So he didn't reach for words.
He dropped to one knee on the cold stone with a heavy thud.
The giant of Last Hearth, a man famed across the North for his ferocity and his refusal to bend, laid his greatsword flat before him , a blade taller than most men , and bowed his proud head.
"Lord Lynn."
"It is you who have allowed my people to survive the Long Night."
"I, Jon Umber, offer you everything I have. My family. My soldiers. My life. All of it is yours to command."
His words pulled the surrounding lords back to themselves.
Lynn already held the Riverlands and the Vale. Ned had made clear he intended to bring Lynn into the North's own affairs. It was only a matter of time before the North itself followed.
Wyman Manderly moved next. His enormous frame dropped to one knee with surprising speed, an agility no one would have expected from a man his size.
He wasn't as raw with emotion as Greatjon. But his eyes burned. A particular kind of burning , the kind men called fanaticism.
"White Harbor will forever be your most loyal harbor, my king."
Then Lord Hornwood. Then Rodrik Flint. Then the representative of House Karstark.
One after another.
In the courtyard of Winterfell, every bannerman of the North knelt. Great lords and minor ones alike. Vast holdings and small ones alike. Every single one of them faced the man standing at the center of it all and offered him their humblest respect and their most burning loyalty.
They had sworn oaths to the Starks before.
But this was different.
This was fealty to a man who could command life and death, who could conjure food from nothing, who had led them through the Long Night and kept them alive to see another dawn.
Lynn looked out at the sea of bent knees.
"Good," he said.
"Get up, all of you."
"Northmen don't need to spend their lives on their knees."
They rose, the relief on their faces plain.
"This food is only the beginning." Lynn's voice carried across the courtyard. "I'll see to it that every commoner in the North receives double rations going forward."
He let that land, then continued.
"But the Long Night is long. Food alone won't be enough. Our castles need reinforcing. Our roads need repair. We'll need more weapons and more walls if we're going to face what's still out there."
The lords exchanged glances. The joy on their faces began to curdle into fresh worry.
Lynn was right. He was always right. But every task he'd just named required manpower , enormous amounts of it. Winter was already here. Common folk were struggling just to survive the cold, let alone take on heavy labor.
"I know what you're thinking."
Lynn turned. He looked out past the walls at the silent army of the dead standing in its vast, motionless columns.
"Manpower," he said. "I have plenty of it right here. And unlike living men, they never tire. They feel no cold. And they require no wages."
The lords stopped breathing.
Their eyes followed his gaze to the army beyond the walls.
A thought surfaced in every mind at once , a thought so mad that none of them dared finish it.
"My lord..." Wyman Manderly ventured carefully. "You mean..."
"Yes."
Lynn nodded.
"All of them. I can lend them to you."
Silence swallowed the courtyard whole.
Lend them.
Lend these things , these monsters that ate the living , to them?
"No." Lord Hornwood stepped forward, his face white. "My lord, this is too dangerous. Bringing them inside the castles — if they lose control, if something goes wrong—"
"They won't lose control."
Lynn cut him off.
"Because they have no will of their own. Their will is mine. As long as I draw breath, they will be the most obedient servants you have ever had."
He said it with the kind of quiet certainty that left no room for argument.
The lords went still.
They remembered the moment , it felt like it had happened minutes ago and years ago at the same time. The man had snapped his fingers, and an army capable of flattening all of Westeros had simply stopped. Every corpse, every shambling dead thing, halted in perfect unison. Then he had waved his hand, and they had knelt.
That was not control.
That was something else entirely. Something absolute.
Wyman Manderly's eyes lit up.
Behind that enormous, soft face, his brain was spinning hard and fast. An army that never slept. Never hungered. Never complained. Never died.
Not an army. A labor force. An endless one.
They could break open mountains. Dig mines. Raise walls. Lay roads. They could do anything the living could do, and keep doing it long after the living had worn themselves out.
With labor like that, White Harbor's docks could be expanded tenfold. Trade routes inland could be cut through in a fraction of the time it would normally take.
And that meant,
Wealth. A river of it, flowing without end.
"I agree!" Wyman's hand shot up, his broad face flushing red. "My lord, your wisdom burns as bright as the sun itself! With these — these workers , the North's future is limitless!"
Greatjon caught on a moment later. He wasn't a man for ledgers and calculations, but he could see it plain enough. With dead men for labor, his crumbling Last Hearth could become an impregnable fortress , and fast.
"I agree!" he bellowed. "And if any bastard here doesn't, they can answer to me personally!"
With the two most powerful men in the room declaring themselves, the rest of the bannermen stopped hesitating.
The courtyard erupted.
"Half my castle wall is rubble , I've got no one to fix it!"
"I've been trying to open the iron mines in the valley for years. Never had enough hands. This changes everything!"
"A road from my lands to White Harbor? My fur trade alone would triple!"
Lynn watched them, the corner of his mouth curling upward.
"Since we're in agreement," he said, and the courtyard fell quiet instantly, "let me explain how this will work."
Every ear in the yard sharpened.
"I'll assign laborers based on the size and population of each holding." He paused briefly, choosing his words. "A smaller castle like Lord Hornwood's , ten thousand. A mid-size holding like Last Hearth , fifty thousand. And Winterfell, as the heart of the North, will keep one hundred thousand."
One hundred thousand.
Ned and Catelyn both went rigid.
A hundred thousand dead soldiers, stationed permanently at Winterfell. That wasn't assistance. That was occupation.
But the other lords weren't thinking any of that. Their faces showed nothing but unguarded, almost feverish joy.
Ten thousand. Fifty thousand. Numbers beyond anything they'd dared to imagine.
"My people will manage the overall coordination," Lynn continued. "You simply tell them what needs doing. Wall repairs, road work, mining, defending against outside threats , they'll carry out every order you give them."
He looked across the assembled faces one by one.
"With one condition."
"They answer only to you and your heirs. Anyone who attempts to seize private control of them, or turns them against a fellow bannerman, "
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. The temperature in his voice alone had already made every person in the courtyard go cold.
"My lord, you have our complete loyalty!" Wyman said at once. The others echoed him in a rush.
"Good." Lynn nodded. "Then it's settled. Three days from now, they'll march to your castles on their own."
He said nothing else. The lords were already leaning toward each other, buzzing with plans and calculations, already living in the future they were building in their heads.
Lynn turned away from them and walked toward the tower.
Ned fell into step behind him.
"Lynn."
"Are you truly going to distribute them? To every house?"
"Is there a problem?" Lynn said, not slowing.
"It's too dangerous." Ned's voice was tight with worry. "This is like burying a wildfire cache in every castle in the North."
"But as long as the fuse stays in my hand," Lynn said, "nothing explodes."
"But why do you, "
"My lord." Lynn stopped. He turned and looked at Ned steadily. "Don't worry. This is exactly what I want."
"In the game of thrones, there are always schemes. Always betrayal. Always someone with ambitions they keep hidden." A brief pause. "House Bolton is proof enough of that, wouldn't you say."
➤ Next: Joffrey's Invitation
— .—— .—— .—— .—— .——
[FULL STORY ACCESS]
📖 Read ahead up to [Chapter 470]
✨ Support the author: https://p a t r e o n（.）com/DarkGolds