𝑹𝒐𝒃𝒃 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒌
299 𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕
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"They were boys!"
He slammed his fist so hard on the table that map markers to indicate the movement and stations of troops fell to the stone floor. Robb flew to his feet with speed that could rival Grey Wind, and in a second stood before Lord Rickard Karstark with a maddening fury that all in the room were surprised by, and yet feared it at the same time.
"Boys! Two boys no older than mine own little brothers, and you fucking butchered them!"
"They were Lannisters! They killed my sons!"
"Willem did? And Martin?"
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Robb could barely hold himself back as his fists clenched so tight that his fingernails dug into his palms, drawing blood. His eyes were fuming with such a fiery hatred that it made Robb feel sick, but most of all made him feel powerful. A sickening power he did not wish to stain him.
"Torrhen was killed at the Whistling Wood in battle and the Kingslayer murdered Harald in his cell, you know that. So why in bloody hell would you kill two boys who had nothing to do with it?!"
"Why would you spare Lannisters?!"
The Lord of Karhold spat back as all eyes stared between the two men, the two kin. Talisa bit her tongue to stop from shouting, to get them both to stop and to have everything sorted out in the morning on a night's sleep and clear heads. But she knew Robb would not give Lord Karstark that at all.
"It wasn't right to kill them, they were hostages!"
"Right?"
Rickard spits as though the very word was poison in his mouth.
"Right? I'm not here for right or wrong, I'm here to kill them! All of them, every Lannister until their name and corpses are buried in the fucking dirt!"
Robb didn't even try to stop himself from sending his fist forward as hard as he could into the chest of the much older older, immediately dropping the Lord to his knees as he coughs and wheezes painfully, but Robb did not care.
"You killed two boys of fifteen all because your bloodlust that has consumed you."
Robb shook his head as he crouched down low, his Stark and Tully eyes glaring like knives down on the old man on the floor.
"You betrayed me. You betrayed your King."
"Aye. And I'd do it again."
Lord Karstark spits blood at Robb's boot before looking up into his eyes with a glare of spite and hatred.
"Your brother was my King. And he abandoned us! Giving the crown of the North to a fucking boy who won't take that extra step-- who won't get his hands bloody because of his father's fucked sense of honor!"
"Get him out of my sight."
He ordered as he stood up, and his grand-uncle Brynden the Blackfish nodded immediately and grabbed Rickard Karstark by the collar very roughly, forcing him to his feet as the Lord of Karhold continue to struggle and resist as three men struggle to pull the furious old man as he screams and hollers.
"You've lost this war, boy! Do you hear me!? YOU'VE LOST THIS FUCKING WAR!"
Robb stumbled back panting as the Lord of Karhold continue to scream all the way down the halls, leaving the great hall in silence. He stumbled backward, the table catching him as he leaned against it whilst shaking.
"Get out.."
He whispered quietly, so close to snapping as all that were left nodded wordlessly, making their way to the two doors at the end of the hall and exit. But Talisa stayed. As soon as his own mother shut the doors behind her, Robb slammed his fists onto the table.
"AARRGGGHHHH!"
He proceeded to throw everything off said table, punching the hard carved wood until his hands turned bloody. He flipped the table, picking up a chair and throwing it before bending over and giving one last scream of pure anger and frustration, letting it all out as loud as he could be Robb finally dropped to his knees, the silence following him once again.
She knelt beside him as he slumped against the fallen over table, his hands reaching down and picking up one of the map markers, staring at it with a scoff.
"The Karstarks won't stand for this, even if I am their King."
"Robb.."
"He's dead."
Robb spit angrily as he turned to his wife with frustrated tears in his eyes.
"Lord Karstark, he was dead the moment Jaime Lannister strangled his son. He marked himself by his need for revenge."
"If that is so, then what of yourself?"
Talisa spoke softly and quietly as she had knelt beside him, her delicate healing hands so rough yet smooth at the same time. He closed his eyes as he tried to relax, but the frustration of all that keeps piling up weighs him down, makes it hard to even breathe. But Talisa was a breath of air that filled his lungs. But even so, it was still hard to breathe.
"You marched into this war with every intention of enacting vengeance on the Lannisters and all those who have conspired to murder and to maim the innocent. You started this war, my love. And now you must end it."
Her soft lips pressed gently against his forehead, but it brought only short, brief comfort as he opened his eyes once more.
"Ben.."
He paused, clearing his throat.
"Ben told me once that all wars must end, that all men must die. "Some wars are short and brief while others are long, but all wars are vain, as time will wash it all away.""
Robb shook his head, turning to look into Talisa's eyes with a great sadness.
"I've prayed that this war might end. I nearly beg and cry almost every night to save my people from this terrible destruction, but I always hear his voice in my head, always see him talking to me, teaching me the ways of this life in my dreams... This war will end, 'Lis..but before it does, a lot more people must die."
꧁~~~~~~꧂
The rain was pouring down with a vengeance of its own, but the Young Wolf did not blink nor flinch as it splattered down upon him, soaking his leathers, sinking into his skin and reaching his bones like a cold, frigid fingers of death. But there had been a fire burning in his eyes as his bannerman pulls Rickard Karstaek forward.
The sky was bleak and dark, empty of all hope that there might be a tomorrow. As Robb walked further into the rain and to the stone by the heart tree still baring the strike marks from his sword from so many months ago, he drew his sword slowly. The Lord of Karhold only scoffed as he smirked.
"See you now want to get your hands bloody. If that be, take the gloves off and do it."
He spat, and Robb had thought for a moment. He looked to his hands covered with his gloves of leather, they too soaked to the knuckles. His Lord Father executed men before, he knew. Robb saw it many times. He too did it without gloves and without passion. But Robb would only follow one of those examples, ripping off his gloves as he threw them to the feet of Rickard Karstark.
"My hands are clean of this, even though I carry this sentence myself. This is your doing, my Lord."
"Your hands bare the blood of the North, boy. You'll damn us all."
"Kneel."
His singular word was deep and dangerous, and the Lord of Karhold did just that as he knelt on the rock, his gaze moving to the face carved into the weirwood on his right.
"The blood of the First Men flows through my veins just the same as yours. We are kin, Stark and Karstark."
"And yet you betrayed me. We share blood, aye, but it will not save you from your fate."
"And it won't save you from yours, Robb Stark."
Rickard Karstark spat as he looked down to the drenched ground, Robb steadying the tip of his sword to the ground, his un-gloved hands resting on the pommel of his blade as he glared down at the old man.
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"Rickard of the House Karstark, the Lord of Karhold, I, Robb of the House Stark, the King in the North and Lord of Winterfell, here in sight of Gods and Men I sentence you to die. Speak now your final word, or forever hold your silence."
Rickard Karstark only looked up slightly, eyes narrowed as he shook his head out of spite.
"Get on with it, boy. Kill me and be cursed. You are no King of mine!"
A flash of white crossed the eyes of Robb in a second as he lifted his sword with a shout, bringing it down, the head of the Lord of Karhold falls with it as the sound of thunder crashes in the distance, blood splattering on his hands.
𝑱𝒐𝒏 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒌
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"Are you sure you're all right?"
He asked quietly as the wind whistle softly. The air was getting colder, and the world seemed to be moving faster as the army of Mance Rayder pushed ever more east. Southeast to be more specific. Towards the Frostfangs, he remembered. It was a rare occasion for the twinscould find a moment just to talk. Most times it was very late in the night, and Jon didn't know whether he was actually there talking with his brother or simply dreaming.
"Ben?"
Jon gazed at him leaning forward agaisnt the a rock that stuck up out of the snow and ice covered ground. All around them were Wildlings, giants and mammoths. The mammoths and giants numbered fewer, of course, but still an impressive number. Ben had remarked how he reckoned someone lucky enough or crazy enough could kill a giant with just a longsword. But Ben hadn't answered, the wind rustling a bit more, whipping his brother's unusually let down hair around a bit.
"Talk to me. I've never seen you this quiet before... Just talk."
"Have you been having dreams?"
Jon was somewhat caught off guard by the question as Ben still did not turn to him. Instead, he stared still at the endless landscape of mountains, hills, rocks and snow.
"Since Father, I mean. Or even before all that."
He sighed heavily but nodded.
"On occasion."
"Anything in particular?"
"Where are you going with this?"
"I asked first, asshole."
Benget remarked without a smile but with humor in his voice as Jon chuckled just for a moment before it quickly wore off. He too began to stare ahead at the endlessness of ice and snow.
"It's..hard to explain."
"Explain however you can."
Ben exclaimed with a nod, and Jon sighed, looking up into the sky to see Orell's eagle flying high up in the sky.
"Every time I close my eyes to sleep..I never feel like I'm asleep, if that could make sense... I close my eyes only to open them and I'm no longer there, but..somewhere else."
"Ghost."
Ben stated as Jon quirked his head slightly, raising a brow as he had come to the same conclusion.
"How did you--"
"I can see through the eyes of Frost, I've found."
He said as said great direwolf trotted along through the snow, the white covering his jet black fur as he moves through it all.
"It's like Orell's eagle. He's watching us right now, you know. In fact, I bet he's going to mention this to Mance, not that it really matters though."
"So you're saying that you and I are Wargs?"
"It wouldn't be too far fetched considering our blood stretches to the First Men. When I said before how blood doesn't really mean shit..I guess I was wrong in a way. Maybe it does mean something in the end."
Jon shrugged with a smile, in awe and baffled at the same time, the prospect of having such a power that should not exist. Old Nan spoke of it often, comparing the Warging to crows and such, always make every comparison with crows. Jon watched Ygritte walk along the snow for a bit as she followed after Mance and Tormund. Jon was about to step forward and join, but Ben stopped him.
"What else?"
"What else, what?"
"What else do you see in your dreams, other than what Ghost might see?"
Jon frowned for a moment before shaking his head.
"Nothing. I see Ghost, but not much else."
"Not dragons?"
The question caught Jon a bit more off guard, and the look from Ben only makes him feel more off than he'd already felt before. There's a seriousness to his brother's simple question that confuses Jon all the more, but also concerns him greatly. Shaking his head, Jon sighs.
"No. When we were kids, sure, but that was so long ago. Why, do you have dreams of the beasts?"
Jon asked, and the wind blew softly, whipping Ben's hair about a bit as he looks off into the distance, replying with only a small hum that neither confirmed nor denied what Jon had asked was true or not, leaving Jon all the more concerned now for his older twin.
𝑩𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒌
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Benget watched with an annoyed glance as Tormund rode on the back of a mammoth, using the massive reins to steer the great furry beast, though not with ease as a giant might.
"You looked small standing down there, Lord Crow, but up here you're even smaller!"
"That's not what your cousin said!"
Tormund immediately dropped his amused grin at the mention of her as Ben only walked along with a brief smile of victory before it turned to ash, leaving a bad taste in his mouth. Val was walking along also, but she made a point to be far away from him at all points in time.
"Was it hard for you to kill the Halfhand?"
Ben glanced behind him, seeing the man himself walk towards him. Mance stood taller than he, and probably stronger, despite the older age. His eyes still looked as sharp as they had when he'd met the man.
"Depends on what do you mean by easy? Was it easy to fight a great swordsman? No. Was it easy to drive my sword through his heart without hesitation? Aye, it was."
Mance Rayder nodded slowly as the two men stood by as countless others walk along as they march east.
"He was my brother once, you know. He was a good man. I'm curious as to how it were so easy to stomach killing a good man such as him."
"When we were separated from the ranging party, Qhorin Halfhand kept on a rant about my mother and father, how he thought of me as a bastard and so on. A no good, damn traitor."
"So you kill everyone who makes a remark or slight to your mother and father, is that it?"
Mance's eyes were narrowed and Ben knew he had to tred lightly, the ice was thin enough as it's been these last few weeks, and he could feel it almost cracking here as the King-beyond-the-Wall held a questioning gaze that seemed to almost speak how he already knew. But Ben nodded, breathing out slowly.
"If you are to question my loyalty, need I remind you what I've had and what I've lost in just the last year and a half alone. I could have been a King, a higher standing one than yourself, mind you. I could be enjoying my summers in Dorne and not freezing my ass off at the edge of the world. I could have had everything, but I came back to this."
"For Jon."
Mance simply stated, and Ben shook his head, though not to disagree with what he had said.
"Not just him. Jeor Mormont. He knew what Craster was doing, and did nothing to stop it. I saw what took that child, I saw its glowing blue eyes in the night. You and I know the songs are true, every last one of them about..them...Winter is coming. And it's coming for all of us, Free Folk and Crow, Northern and Southern, it's all the same. Winter is coming."
Mance Rayder stood tall above him for what felt like five minutes, eyeing him up to see if he'd crack in any hinting way. But Ben did not move, his violet eyes peering into the brown ones of Mance unmoving and unbreaking. Mance lost as he blinked, but he did not concede defeat also as the King-beyond-the-Wall nodded.
"Do you know why I joined the Watch, Benget Stark?"
"The lovely sights and the even lovelier people?"
"I came to find my purpose in this world. I never had the chances you did have. I stand before you a King, and yet do not wear crowns of silver and jewels, nor robes of purple and gold. I became a brother of the Night's Watch for a reason, and you can see that reason all around you."
Mance pointed around at the seemingly endless march of people band together in commen cause.
"90 warring clans all brought together for a purpose. By the time I came to them, five had already been in talks of making themselves the next King-beyond-the-Wall, Tormund included. But I killed three of them, and the others bowed, not because it was my right, but because I took it.
"My purpose in this world is to see my people safe and warm, protected and prepared for the wars that are surely to come. And through these last twenty years, there was always an underlying purpose in my heart that I know you know what it is."
Ben looked away as he shook his head, but did not say a word about it as he saw Val continuing along through the snow in the far distance, her hair marking her to he easily spotted.
"You know why she's colder than ice and snow?"
Mance's gaze had matched his own in the direction towards Val.
"Well, you see, when you gather together 100,000 people together, people tend to have families."
Mance spoke as the two watched the honey-haired Wildling Princess continue to trek through the snow.
"Wildling or not, family is the truest thing in the world, Stark. Losing it's one of the most heartbreaking things one can suffer through in this life we live. Val is Tormund's blood and family, aye, but her parents were killed long ago. So many of us grew up as orphans, and so many have died young. Her heart is stone and ice because if it weren't, she would be dead."
Ben nodded slowly, but he could not tear his gaze from her silhouette in the far distance as Mance sighed.
"Love is what gets us every time, Benget Stark. It is what dooms us all."
꧁~~~~~~꧂
Frost's howls mixed with the great howls of the wind as snow is whipped about in all directions, making it hard to see, let alone walk. But walk they did anyways as Ben walked with no problem, glancing every now and again at Jon as he keeps slipping, only for Ygritte to partially catch him with a grin before dropping him into the snow, rinse and repeat for hours.
The Fist of the First Men stood before them now, but something was off. The place always had a feeling about when he'd first gone there, but now it's something else. It had not been a blizzard the first time, and yet even as one rages now all around them, it feels silent in his ears.
Jon nearly tripped again as he stubbed his toe, nearly making Ben smile, but drops it as he sees what he stubbed foot on. A dead horse. And more specifically, it's head. Just its head. Now looking around on the ground, dozens of horses heads spiraled around as Ben walked into the middle of the spiral, shaking his head with a sigh.
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"It's shaped like an eye, you see? No pun intended."
He said as the others all stood around eyeing the slaughter that's before them.
"Could be a warning from the Night's Watch, saying that they're watching us or something. But I'd put this far past them as I know Grenn's head isn't capable of coming up with a complex thought."
He nodded towards Mance.
"It's a warning from them."
"If it's a warning from them, why bother with it? Why bother?"
Orell spoke with distaste and annoyances towards Benget, whom only gave a smile in reply as he nodded once again.
"Why are songs sung in bards and taverns, in weddings and funerals, hm? It's to tell a story, spread the message, keep said message alive. They want everyone to know that they're coming with winter storms in their hand and vengeance in the other."
"You said there were dead Crows. There's no men here."
Jon says to Orell, but Ben shakes his head.
"That could also be a part of this warning. No men here, Jon, dead or alive. There's only one place they can be."
"Meat in their army."
Mance nodded as he looked around at the brutal display before them before glancing at Ben.
"How many men were here."
"300, give or take."
"300 men came out here alive and now will stay out here dead. Mormont took a gamble coming out here. A gambling man wouldn't bet against Jeor Mormont, but those things aren't men. Not any more. And whether he's alive or a blue-eyed corpse, your Lord Commander took a gamble and lost."
"What could he have done?"
Ben only shrugged, glancing at Mance.
"Sit in the snows and wait? You and I know that's not the man Jeor Momront is...or was."
"Aye. And now he's dead, which means the Crows are have no Commander, no organization."
Orell mentions.
"I wouldn't count on that. There's a thousand men stationed in Castle Black alone. If Mormont is dead, Ser Alliser Thorne surely would have taken over, or Ser Jeremy, even."
"Either way, it's time. Tormund."
It's time, he thought to himself. It had felt like years up to that point where he even thought about what's beyond the southern part of the Wall. Who is out there. His family. Gods only knows what's happening to them.
"Take Orell and forty or so good men. Climb the Wall."
Ben glanced to Jon, seeing the nervous expression on his face at the thought of climbing a seven-hundred foot tall wall of ice and cold. The thought itself made him on edge also.
"And take these two, also. They know Castle Balck's defenses better than anyone. They know how these "one thousand" men fight, how they think. They'll be useful."
"We'll see about that."
Orell remarked with narrowed eyes tords Ben, who only gave the same glare in response. He glanced up into the sky and slots Orell's eagle, and thought it would be funny to throw a rock at it. But looking back down, he saw Tormund with the largest grin on his face he's ever seen.
"We're finally going to war, old friend?"
"Aye. Hide near Castle Black, and when I give the signal, hit then in the night. They got a big ol' Wall to hide behind, but only hides one side."
The two friends embrace for a moment.
"We'll meet again."
"Aye. If you do your job."
Mancr jabbed before giving a single glance to Ben for just a moment before turning and walking away.
"How will we see your signal?"
Orell calls out, but Mance didn't even give him a glance.
"Send your eagle over the Wall at night. When it's time, I'm going to light the biggest fire the North has ever seen!"
꧁~~~A/N~~~꧂
Well, would you look at that? Another chapter. This one is kind of short, so my apologies for that. This next one after this should be pretty fun as, you guessed it, they're climbing the Wall. I tried here to give more insight to Val's character as to why she is the way she is. Ben continues to lie, and Orell of course doesn't trust him. And here you can see the start of Robb really slipping, which leads to you know what.
Also, Targaryen heritage hints? All good fun that I hope you guys enjoy.
Thank you so much for reading!!