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Back then, when Aegon Targaryen descended from the clouds on the back of Balerion the Black Dread and hovered above the waters of the Gods Eye, King Harren finally realized the truth… his mighty walls and sky-piercing towers were useless against a dragon.
What happened afterward is now well known throughout the Seven Kingdoms. The cruel-hearted Harren the Black was burned alive by Balerion's flames in the tower that would come to be known as the Kingspyre. That very moment marked the end of the once-powerful House Hoare, which vanished completely from history, leaving behind only ashes and ruin.
People still say that Harrenhal is a cursed place. Back when Harren the Black ordered the construction of the largest castle in the Seven Kingdoms, it was rumored that he mixed the blood of Riverlanders into the mud and mortar, forging every brick of the castle with pain and sacrifice.
And perhaps that curse was real… because no family that ever took possession of Harrenhal has managed to hold it for long. Like a bitter, despairing wail from House Hoare echoing through time, every house that dared occupy this fortress eventually met a grim end, wiped out without exception.
But none of that had anything to do with the current lords trapped within these ancient walls. Not even a copper star's worth. They were surrounded — besieged by twenty thousand men, clinging to survival day by day, never knowing if the castle might fall tomorrow. Who would bother worrying about old curses at a time like this? Only someone with too much free time and too little to eat.
For that, at least, they could be grateful to Aegon Targaryen… when he struck Harrenhal, he only scorched the highest towers. The massive outer walls were left untouched.
Because if the Black Dread had punched even a single hole in those walls back then, Robb Stark and the few thousand men still under his command would've already been finished. No chance of holding out. No chance of escape.
The walls of Harrenhal were so thick it defied belief. They were broad enough for twenty warhorses to ride side by side along the top. And even after three hundred years of wind and rain, the castle gates, taller than even the main keep at Winterfell, remained standing, solid and untouched.
It was thanks to these absurdly overbuilt defenses that Robb Stark, leading four thousand battered remnants of his northern host, had managed to flee into Harrenhal. And by sheer grit, he had held out against wave after wave of attacks from Tywin Lannister's twenty thousand strong force.
To this day, he hadn't given the old lion even a single opening.
For more than half a month now, a long stretch of rain had settled in over Harrenhal. The downpour had forced the Lannister army to suspend its assaults, leaving both sides to spend their days locked in a silent standoff, glaring at each other across the soaked battlements.
With rain pouring down in sheets and their heavy armor drenched through, the soldiers couldn't storm the walls — any attempt would have drained their strength too fast, turning the attack into a pointless suicide mission.
Trying to climb Harrenhal's towering walls with long ladders in weather like this was no different from marching to certain death.
Since the southwestern flank of Harrenhal was bordered by the vast waters of the Gods Eye, any real assault could only be launched at the northern and eastern gates.
But the defenses left behind by Harren the Black all those years ago were so meticulously designed and so thoroughly implemented that, despite holding a clear advantage in numbers, the Lannisters had never once managed to break through either gate.
Outside the walls, Tywin Lannister could do nothing but stew in frustration. At this point, no clever tricks or cunning strategies were of any use. Tactics required communication, and with things as they were, there was no way for any sort of exchange or maneuvering to even begin.
Worse still, time was not on their side.
Inside Harrenhal, Robb Stark's forces had plenty of stored grain… enough to feed the fewer than four thousand men he had left for quite a long while, assuming none of it went moldy.
But Tywin Lannister's army outside the walls had no such luxury. Their supply lines relied entirely on the support brought in by Littlefinger, who had chosen to cross the Vale and align himself with the Lannisters.
And what's more, if any one of the Baratheons in King's Landing came out victorious in the struggle for the throne, then even without thinking too hard about it, it was obvious who their next target would be… Tywin's camp. After all, a child king still sat on this side of the war.
If that moment came, and Robb Stark remained trapped inside Harrenhal, while Edmure Tully's twenty thousand troops held Riverrun and blocked the retreat, and the Vale's ten thousand knights came galloping in from the Eyrie… and meanwhile, up north, Clay Manderly was steadily building his strength, waiting for the right time to strike back…
Then just one look at the map would be enough to see that Tywin was already surrounded, caught on all sides, just like he had once been back in King's Landing.
That was why he had to make something happen… fast. He needed a breakthrough, some kind of victory.
Whether it was the Vale's forces crushing Edmure Tully, or his own men breaching the castle and capturing Robb Stark alive — it didn't matter which. What mattered was that something had to give.
They couldn't afford to keep dragging this out.
He'd already tricked both Renly and Stannis once, but when those two were finally finished tearing each other apart, it would be his turn to face judgment. And when that time came, everything he had would collapse.
What he didn't know was that something inside Harrenhal was about to change… something big. And with it, his chance might finally arrive.
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"Your Grace, you really need to rest. There's no need for you to be out on patrol like this. If the soldiers see you in your current state, it might unsettle the whole camp."
The only person who could speak so directly to Robb Stark — the King in the North and now also the King of the Trident — was Theon Greyjoy, the one man Robb had always trusted like a brother.
A year ago, this boy had been hunted down and brought back under orders from Clay and Catelyn Tully, which meant all the chaotic and painful events that had followed in another timeline never came to pass.
And during that period, the Ironborn had, in a practical sense, lent real support to the North, earning some grudging goodwill.
Because of that, Theon Greyjoy still held a decent position among the Northern forces. He had fought alongside Robb Stark through one campaign after another, and gradually, some of the Northern lords began to accept him too.
Back when the surprise attack on their camp broke out, it was Theon who had pulled Robb out of the chaos, escorting him through enemy lines and leading the King of the North and the Trident all the way south, straight into the safety of Harrenhal's blackened stone walls.
And so now, the firstborn son of Balon Greyjoy, heir to the Iron Islands, had unexpectedly become one of the central figures among the battered remnants of the North's army, now entrenched within the fortress walls. He was present at every war council, spoke at every meeting, and not a single voice rose in objection.
Theon Greyjoy now stood before Robb Stark, who was slumped in a padded chair, his face pale and sickly, his whole body looking drained and heavy with illness. Theon's tone was firm, almost severe.
"Your Grace, please. You need to rest."
"No… mm… I still have to go," Robb muttered hoarsely, barely managing to get the words out before a violent coughing fit overtook him. "The men… they need to see me… cough, cough…"
That cough cut through the room like a knife.
Three days earlier, in a desperate defense of the walls, Robb had ignored the objections of his bannermen and fought side by side with the soldiers atop the battlements, cutting down Lannister troops as they tried to scale the towers with ropes and grappling hooks.
No one doubted the Young Wolf's strength in battle. He had fought fiercely for a long stretch of time, and by the end, his sword and armor were dripping with Lannister blood. He hadn't suffered a single wound in open combat.
But a warrior could guard against blades he could see. The danger always came from what he couldn't.
Just as the fighting began to die down, when Robb raised his arm to strike down another foe, a single arrow — no one knew who fired it or from where — slipped through the chaos and found a gap beneath his arm. It burrowed into the exposed flesh just below his armpit.
Thankfully, it struck his right side, and he'd been wearing more than one layer of armor. If it had been the left, or if his gear had been any lighter, he might not have survived.
Even so, the arrow had taken him out of the fight. Robb Stark, King of the North and the Trident, collapsed on the spot and had to be carried down from the walls by his guards.
Many of the soldiers had seen it happen. And once the battle ended, the whispers began to spread. No one needed to orchestrate it… not even the Lannisters. Rumors didn't need help. Sharing them was enough to keep them alive.
Robb had been carried back to the lord's chambers atop the Kingspyre Tower… the same tower where Harren the Black had burned to death. But not long after they laid him down, he passed out from blood loss.
Though they'd managed to stop the bleeding eventually, Robb never came back out in front of the troops. And the longer he stayed hidden, the louder the rumors grew. Even the nobles had no way to refute them.
On the morning of the third day, Robb Stark finally woke. But the air in Harrenhal was damp, the stone walls cold, and his wound had inevitably become infected. Even with the healers working day and night to apply poultices and salves, there was only so much they could do.
In an age where no one understood the basics of chemistry or biology, expecting them to craft anything close to a proper antibiotic was laughable. They might as well pray for magic or a god's blessing instead.
As soon as Robb regained consciousness, he immediately understood the situation. He had to appear before his men… soon.
If he didn't, the rumors would declare him dead. And once that happened, it was only a matter of time before some desperate noble or anxious commander took matters into their own hands and opened the gates to the Lannisters.
His condition had been tightly guarded. Only a handful of high lords — men like Theon Greyjoy and Jon Umber, who had broken his left hand — knew the full truth about his injury.
But when Robb insisted on walking the walls, Theon shut him down on the spot.
"Look at yourself," he said bluntly. "It's pouring outside. You can barely sit upright, let alone march through a storm. Where's the fierce, fire-eyed King in the North we followed into battle? Because I don't see him anymore."
Theon's concern wasn't just surface-level irritation… it was real. He was genuinely worried. If Robb forced himself out into the driving rain and cold wind just to make an appearance, only to collapse or worsen his condition, then things could spiral completely out of control.
The army's lead maester had already made things painfully clear: the fact that Robb Stark had even regained consciousness was nothing short of a miracle, a gift from the gods themselves to the House of Stark. And if they kept pushing their luck — if Robb kept pushing himself — the maester wouldn't promise anything at all.
No one blamed the man for being blunt. Everyone knew what he was working with. During the days of the siege, it had been that same weary but tireless maester, leading a handful of barely-trained assistants, who had somehow managed to keep dozens — if not hundreds — of dying soldiers alive, stitching them back together with nothing but grit and threadbare supplies.
Robb Stark, though, was desperate. Ever since the failed defense during the surprise attack on their camp, he had been looking for any way to reclaim the authority he had lost — the authority of a king who once ruled both the North and the Riverlands. He wanted to prove, through brave and direct action, that he was still worthy of command.
But now, with an injury he hadn't seen coming, all those efforts had unraveled. Not only were they wasted — they might have made things worse.
"…Theon," he said quietly, his voice hoarse and unsteady, "did I… make a mistake?"
He no longer tried to sit up. The weight in his limbs, the relentless cold that seemed to creep through his bones no matter how many blankets they piled on him… it was all too much.
And in that moment, Robb Stark could feel just how close he was to slipping away forever.
He had never feared death, not truly. But dying here, in this grim, storm-lashed ruin called Harrenhal — dying now, while the North's last three thousand soldiers still looked to him for hope — would be the end of everything. If he fell, the army would break. They'd be scattered and cut down by the Lannisters like wolves caught in the open.
Theon felt a sharp pang in his chest when he heard Robb's words.
They had always been close. From the day he first arrived at Winterfell, Theon had ridden at Robb Stark's side, laughed with him, trained with him, fought with him. He had watched with his own eyes as Robb led his bannermen into battle, as he rose higher and higher, beating back the Lannisters and claiming the crown of the North.
But Theon had also been there when it all fell apart. He had been in the thick of the chaos when the camp was attacked. He had seen the disbelief on Robb's face, the pain, the moment when victory and command slipped through his fingers.
He knew exactly what Robb was feeling.
Once, Robb Stark had commanded twenty thousand men. He had ridden south like a storm, a young king ablaze with fury, determined to avenge his father's death.
Now, he had barely three thousand left. No longer an avenger, but a broken man trapped within a crumbling castle, battered by wind and rain; a prisoner in all but name.
Anyone in his place would struggle to accept it.
"You've done everything you could," Theon said softly. "And you've done it well. No matter how hard it gets… we'll find a way to hold on."
He meant it. Every word.
But even as he spoke, his thoughts drifted elsewhere — back to a forest on the edge of Winterfell, to the cold shadows of the Wolfswood.
He remembered the boy who had drawn a sword on him there. He had hated that boy. Still did, in many ways.
And yet, in this moment, Theon found himself wishing for nothing more than to see that same young man appear atop Harrenhal's high walls, his banner rising in the mist behind the Lannister army.
He wished to see him charge from the rear with a wave of Northern cavalry, smashing through enemy lines with the fury of winter itself, and returning every drop of blood and agony the North had suffered back to the Lannisters tenfold.
But he knew how unlikely that hope was.
As one of the few remaining figures within the upper echelons of Northern command, Theon understood all too well what it would take to turn the tide.
He knew exactly what the arrival of ten thousand knights from the Vale could mean for this war — how their intervention could change everything in a single stroke.
But breaking this deadlock, this slow and suffocating stalemate they were caught in, would be as hard as reaching the heavens.
And for now, they had no choice but to wait.
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[Chapter End's]
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