Spring came early, and so the planting was done early to save time when war came. Everything started early on the whole of Westeros, because no one knew how much time they had. Well, maybe Ming, Tse, Belaletrix, and Tyrion had an idea as they interrogated their new prisoners. Once the Zonian general understood that his life was in the balance, he began to talk more openly. When Tormund arrived at Brandon's Rest, he had 16 tree-kin who had been enslaved as wind-power operators on the Zonian sleds.
They were sworn in by Arya and joined the small community of tree-kin in the city. The captured sleds were taken by the wildlings as booty, along with 5 surviving ships. The wildlings kept the rings, and the tree-kin began testing them for wind affinity. Two brave tree-kin that had learned a few Westerosi words had stayed behind to help the wildlings learn to use the sleds and help test the wildlings. One of the first vehicle loads of the season arrived with 30 new guns and ammunition, so Tyrion sent 5 guns north of the wall to be installed on the ships the wildlings had taken. A carpenter and a telepath went as well. The other 20 guns were mounted on the Portsmith, the smaller vessel, and the new catamaran.
The three new captains were training on their ships when the ice began to melt in the harbor. The Black Hand and the Portsmith opened paths through the ice, and all the ships began drilling and practicing tactics.
A new spur of the vehicle, which had begun construction the previous year, was finished to White Harbor. Gendry finished the new vehicle just in time to make the first run down to the southeast coast. Welbi and Wicket had sent 4 ships with supplies from Braavos. They carried guano from caves for powder production and a crack troop of 40 men to serve as guards and as a ship's battle crew. The new vehicle transported all these things to Brandon's Rest in less than two weeks. A new vehicle-switching mechanism was built by Thomas and the stone-kin, enabling vehicles to move between sets of tracks. Small spurs were added to the tracks, with switch mechanisms that allowed more than one vehicle to be on the track at the same time. Strict schedules were created to mark which vehicle was to be where at any given time. Switchmen manned the switches, and small stations were built to house them.
Arya was overseeing the construction of a vault and armory in the hall. It allowed her to spend time with the children and oversee the construction. She was also practicing swordplay in the evenings, with one of the new captains from Braavos, who was a solid duelist. Ferrego was faster than she was and quite skilled at defense. She was gaining quite a few of his tricks and getting even better. All the fighters were training seriously as the invasion deadline drew nearer. Thomas was knee deep in fire arrow construction and had come up with a battery setup that could be mounted on ship decks to allow multiple launches at once. Four such batteries were mounted on each of Brandon's Rest ships. Several were added to the walls of each city and fort along the coast. They were shipped all over Westeros, and three Iron Island ships came to port to collect many of them.
In his spare time, Gendry and his forge team were cranking out magic weapons and rings. As recruits arrived in the city, they were tested for affinities and then equipped and trained with their new weapons. The city could boast 40,000 well-trained troops now that could be deployed as ship crews or as reinforcements for the forts and cities along the coast.
Tyrion had come up with a plan to use wildfire yet again to destroy enemy fleets as they came in. Production had been sped up all over Westeros, and many barrels were being shipped to Brandon's Rest for use in defense of the coastline. A sling setup was being tested to sling barrels onto the enemy ships as they came into range. It involved a barrel of wildfire with an explosive charge. The testing was quite dangerous, and there were several accidents. But slowly, excellent teams could accurately deploy the dangerous explosive where they wanted it.
Trading in the port seemed to be in a frenzy, trees from the tree-kin wood cutting were in high demand for ship building all over Westeros, and were being shipped north to the city and south by vehicle. Everyone in Westeros was preparing for this invasion.
The vault construction reached a depth of 40 feet and was beginning to extend outward to support the tunnels that would hold the vault and armory when the stone-kin discovered a vein of silver. Excited words came back up the shaft, and Arya agreed with the thought of following the vein instead of the planned tunnel direction. Nothing made stone-kin dig faster than a rare metal discovery, so the progress was amazing.