The Dargon Cub

Chapter 21

293 AC.

Gerion.

Gerion looked out on the walls of Castermere, in two years they'd transformed the place, the castle was still more rundown than it should be, but they'd created a large living quarters in one of the main parts of the keep and while the rest still needed work, he could now bring Joy here and have somewhere comfortable for her to stay.

Originally he was going to ignore the castle itself, building a new one would take more time perhaps but it would allow it to be planned out to his own preferences, but the more he walked around the ruins of Castermere the more he saw it's potential. When finished it would be an imposing seat and even if he didn't see the benefit of it for a long time, he wasn't building it for himself.

"My lord a raven for you." Masdon his squire said as he handed him the scroll.

"Thanks lad, why don't you go get the horse's ready, we'll take a ride over to the mines and have luncheon over there today." he smiled at the young lad.

"Of course my lord, I'll see to it at once."

When the boy left Gerion looked at the raven and shrugged, he broke the seal with no reverence whatsoever, the crowned stag just annoying him, and began to read to see what message the king was sending now. Ever since he'd been named as Lord of Castermere he'd occasionally receive a raven from the crown asking him to come to some feast or other at Kings Landing, luckily being so busy allowed him to ignore them.

Lord Gerion.

His grace invites you to the tourney of King's Landing of 293 AC,

In recognition of the ten year anniversary of his graces victory over the dragons,

We shall be pleased to accept you and your retinue and his graces bids you to come and enjoy the festivities.

Jon Arryn,

Hand of the king.

Gerion scrunched the scroll up and threw it off the battlements smiling as he saw it blow away in the air. He had no intention of going to Kings Landing anytime in the near future and certainly not at the request of a drunken king celebrating a ten year old war.

He made his way down to the courtyard to find Masdon standing by his horse with his guards, smiling at them he quickly mounted and they rode out of the gates towards the mines themselves. The ride to the mines didn't take very long and when he saw them come into view, he once again marveled at what they'd accomplished here.

Two years ago this had been abandoned and now it was a hive of activity, the barracks they had built housed almost one thousand men with two hundred of them mounted, to get to the mines you would need to take the barracks and where they'd placed it made it very unlikely you could. There was narrow valley leading to the mine entrance and Gerion had copied the design of the Bloody Gate of the Vale for his defensive position.

The walls of the Barracks were hard stone and placed on top of them were a number of large scorpions which could be fired at any attacking force, behind the walls they had a number of large trebuchets and with the mines themselves behind them had more than enough stone to fling at any enemy. One of the more curious things they had was a large multi arrowed crossbow which was attached to a bellows, and when needed the wind wheels, Gerion still wasn't sure how it worked, only that it could fire crossbow bolts the size of spears rapidly and continuously for as long as the bellows was connected to the wind wheel.

"My lord." Caron said as he reached the barracks gate.

"Good day Caron, how fares you?"

"I'm well my lord, we didn't expect you today." the tall blond man said worriedly.