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Clay had just finished dealing with the knight from House Vance. The blade had fallen, the matter was settled… for now. What came next was simple enough: lead the entire army back.
As for the defensive setup that Tytos Blackwood had painstakingly arranged at the river crossing… well, that hadn't been put to any use. But honestly, that didn't matter much anymore.
What mattered was this: the war in the north was over. Finished. And that meant it was time to turn their eyes south and start unraveling the mess waiting for them there.
To the people of Riverrun, the southern front still felt like a tangled web; confusing, unpredictable, and full of shadows. No one really knew what was going to happen next. No one even knew where to begin.
There was a general sense of uncertainty hanging over everyone, a haze that dulled the air like the first breath before a storm.
And the heart of that uncertainty lay in one simple, impossible fact.
Their king, Robb Stark, was still locked up in Harrenhal, a prisoner of Tywin Lannister.
He had named himself King in the North and King of the Trident, but that was as far as his crown reached. He didn't call himself King of the Seven Kingdoms, nor did he lay claim to the title of Protector of the Realm.
The North, at least, had the Neck. As long as they held that narrow strip of swamp and bog, no southern army could break through without bleeding itself dry. No one could storm the Neck head-on and live to boast of it. That was the North's shield, old and tested.
But what about the Riverlands?
Stuck in the middle, hemmed in from the east, west, and south by enemies who watched and waited, the Riverlands were like a trembling rabbit caught between hungry wolves. Only this rabbit had no burrow to hide in and no claws to fight back with.
There was no turning back now. They had boarded the North's ship, and whether it sailed or sank, they were all in it together.
And the worst part was this: even if the North and the Riverlands somehow managed to pull themselves together, even if they swept south like a storm and crushed every last enemy in their path, what would happen after that?
What would they do when it was over?
That was when things got truly awkward. Because even together, the North and the Riverlands couldn't piece together a crown strong enough to claim rule over all Seven Kingdoms.
The North clutched its ancient title, King in the North, a name that made it painfully clear where their reign began and ended. Their authority, their history, everything about that title screamed isolation. It was about bloodlines and tradition, not ambition.
And as for the Riverlands, more specifically, House Tully? Let's be honest. They had been nothing more than loyal lapdogs propped up by the Targaryens for generations.
And now you wanted Edmure Tully to stake a claim on the Iron Throne? To declare himself heir to King's Landing?
Please. The very idea was laughable… so laughable, in fact, that every highborn in the Seven Kingdoms would fall out of their chairs roaring with laughter.
But without a legitimate crown, without a real claim, how was the North supposed to end this war?
Even if they managed to smash every southern army and bend every foe to their will, the war wouldn't truly be over. Because the Riverlands, stuck right where they were, in that cursed patch of land between three hostile fronts, would get hit again sooner or later. And the moment they did, the North, as the so-called leader of this alliance, would be expected to march.
But the North didn't have the strength for that kind of war.
With their meager production and sparse population, even if they won every single battle, even if their warriors never lost heart and their banners never fell, in the end, they'd still be bled dry… not by swords, but by the endless resources and deep pockets of those southern lords.
It was a dead-end. A no-win situation. A strategic nightmare with no way out.
Clay understood that. Edmure Tully understood that. Most of the Northern and Riverlands lords had already seen it coming, whether they admitted it aloud or not.
That was why no one wanted to keep fighting. The longer they fought, the poorer they'd become, and the poorer they became, the less weight their threats would carry. The weaker they looked, the less fear they inspired.
But Robb Stark didn't understand that.
He still believed in the war, believed in the cause, and so he kept pushing forward until even the last of the North's reserves were drained away.
And in the end, someone had to clean up the mess.
That someone was Clay. The eternal fire brigade commander, sent out once again to stamp out flames before they burned everything to ash.
He had another reason, too… one he kept tucked away deep in the back of his mind.
Even if the rebellious fire in his heart kept growing stronger by the day… even if it was only a matter of time before he parted ways with the North entirely… even then, the North could not afford to be gutted too deeply.
Because beyond the Wall, the wind didn't just bring cold. It brought something far worse; a creeping, bone-deep sense of death.
The White Walkers were not so easy to kill. Their ability to turn the dead into their soldiers came at no cost to them. Every corpse was another weapon, another recruit. They never had to worry about supplies or morale. Just death.
After Clay had defeated the wildlings beyond the Wall, he had, in truth, silently allowed the remaining hundred thousand or so to be swallowed up by the White Walkers.
He hadn't had a choice.
He couldn't afford to stay on the Wall forever.
So now, while only he knew the full truth, the army of the dead was growing stronger every day, right under the noses of the great lords of the Seven Kingdoms.
By now, their numbers had almost certainly passed one hundred thousand.
And what worried him most… was that he'd never fought the White Walkers directly. He had no idea what kind of strength they possessed at this point or what tricks they might still be hiding.
If he rashly brought the dragon across the Wall now, without knowing what awaited him, he might just be handing out another golden medal to the White Walkers — for spear throwing, no less.
Sheathing his sword, Clay didn't spare so much as a final glance at the cooling corpse lying behind him.
Let him rot in the open.
The journey back to Riverrun would take more than a week at best. And if Clay didn't want a plague spreading through his camp, the body really ought to be buried.
But for a man like that, someone whose recklessness could have exhausted an entire army and gotten thousands of soldiers killed, Clay didn't even have the patience to dig a grave.
He swung up onto his horse.
With the battle behind them, he led the army south once more. The soldiers were silent, weighed down not just by exhaustion but by something heavier, something they didn't have the words for. Along with them came three hundred prisoners from the Vale, and the two deeply unfortunate Cobray brothers… still alive, but clearly wishing they weren't.
And so the column moved forward, down the long road toward the south.
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"Lord Umber, His Grace's condition hasn't changed. I'm afraid he won't be waking up anytime soon."
The room was dim and stale, a faint smell of rot lingering in the corners like a sickness that didn't want to leave.
Theon Greyjoy stood by the doorway, his voice low as he spoke to Jon Umber, who had just stepped inside and cast a glance around the room.
The Lord of Last Hearth gave a long, weary sigh, the kind that came from a place deeper than fatigue. He nodded silently, then turned to take Theon with him as they stepped out, leaving the room behind.
Not long ago, before the ambush on the camp, Jon Umber would never have spoken this way to Theon Greyjoy. Not just because Theon was a Greyjoy, but because to the North, he was still an outsider
But now, after everything that had happened… there weren't many highborn men left in Harrenhal who could speak with authority at all.
Lord Medger Cerwyn was trapped in the Eyrie. Rickard Karstark had disappeared after the great battle, his fate still unknown. Roose Bolton, ever the careful player, remained in the Eyrie as well, keeping his position unclear.
Wyman Manderly had to stay in White Harbor to guard it, and the Lord of Deepwood Motte had fallen on the battlefield.
The North's leadership was hollowed out, its upper ranks left frighteningly empty.
And right in the middle of this growing power vacuum stood the North's one unshakable pillar, the young king who had led them all the way here, who had kept them holding fast in this cursed castle. And he had fallen.
Robb Stark had taken an arrow. It was a close call, but by some miracle, the field medics had managed to save his life… barely.
But there was no time to rest. Tywin Lannister's attacks only grew fiercer, and Harrenhal's eastern gate changed hands again and again in bloody struggle.
Robb, driven by urgency and by a sense of duty that refused to let him rest, forced himself to the front lines. His body was still unsteady, still fragile, but he went anyway to raise the morale and to hold the line.
And then came the storm. A sudden, punishing downpour and a wind so cold it sliced through armor like it wasn't there. The North's king, who had just led his soldiers to repel the Lannisters, collapsed not in battle but afterward, struck down by the cruel, indifferent hand of nature.
Even a body made of iron has to bow to the laws of flesh and bone eventually. It was already a miracle the wound hadn't festered. But then Robb Stark, in his stubbornness, let it get wet.
If Clay had known about it at the time, he likely would have said only one thing:
"He must've had water in his brain."
Because of course, after being soaked like that, a wound that had started to heal obediently flared back to life.
Then came the swelling. The fever hit hard. Everything that followed ran like clockwork… just as expected.
There were no antibiotics. No proper medicine. The healers had only herbs hastily gathered in the chaos of war, and those, too, worked poorly at best.
So Robb Stark, after holding on for three long days, finally gave in. His eyes slipped shut, and he collapsed into unconsciousness, burning with fever that refused to break.
The moment he fell, the remnants of the Northern army were thrown into complete disarray.
Before this, as long as Robb Stark remained visible, as long as the soldiers could look up and see their king still walking the ramparts, still standing strong on the walls of Harrenhal, they had hope. The mere sight of him reminded them what they were fighting for.
In addition, they had enough food. The castle's stores were deep, and every man could still eat a hot meal at the end of a cold, bloody day.
And more than that, none of them believed they had lost because of their own failures. It was the Vale army that had ambushed them like cowards, creeping in and striking from behind. Had they come at them in a straight fight, man to man, the North would have held.
So from top to bottom, from the surviving nobles to the lowest footsoldier, everyone was carrying a belly full of fire. Morale was high. The will to fight burned hotter than ever.
That was how, with only a few thousand men, they had managed to withstand wave after wave of Tywin Lannister's twenty-thousand-strong army. That was why Harrenhal still had not fallen.
But now that Robb Stark had collapsed, the spirit they had clung to so fiercely, the resolve they had kept alive through every brutal night and desperate charge, was starting to flicker.
And a force that had lost its spirit could never hold a fortress as vast and cursed as Harrenhal.
Outside the tower, Theon Greyjoy followed Jon Umber across the narrow stone bridge that linked Kingburn Tower, where Robb lay, to the Widow's Tower.
It was there that the remaining Northern lords had gathered.
All of them.
They needed news of their king. Real news. Not whispers or half-truths passed through soldiers' lips.
Good or bad, they needed an answer.
Days had passed in this nervous silence, and the waiting was eating them alive. The guards had been very strict, blocking all visitors and keeping them away from the King's chamber. Rumors had now exploded like wildfire inside Harrenhal's blackened halls.
And with Robb Stark hidden away from sight, their fear only deepened.
Some had even begun to whisper that the King in the North was already dead, that his soul had left his body and returned to the gods.
None of them could stand waiting any longer. And that was why, today, they had called this council.
Inside the Widow's Tower was a large hall, spacious and well-used, clearly built for gatherings like this. Theon Greyjoy stepped inside and cast a quick glance around.
As expected, they were all here.
There sat Lord Halys Hornwood, Ser Helman Tallhart, Howland Reed, and Galbart Glover, brother to the fallen Lord of Deepwood Motte and now head of House Glover. Alongside them were a few remaining heirs from other noble houses, all gathered under the dim light and shared uncertainty.
Among them, Jon Umber was now regarded as the de facto leader. After all, the Umbers of Last Hearth had always stood as one of the North's strongest and most loyal vassal houses.
Once known for his thunderous voice and violent temper, Jon Umber had changed.
But ever since the ambush at the encampment, that fire had slowly started to fade from his voice, replaced by something quieter… something heavier.
And the reason was simple.
Now, he no longer had the strength or position to support such rage.
"Tell us, Theon," Jon Umber said with a sigh, his voice low and strained. "Be honest. How is His Grace, truly?"
Theon sat down beside him. His gaze lifted, drifting toward the window, where a blanket of grey clouds hung over the castle like an omen.
It was not even that cold in Harrenhal, not compared to the battlefields hundreds of miles away, where Clay Manderly had just crushed a Vale army driven to ruin by snow and wind. Yet here in the south, it was still the same relentless, maddening rain, falling in fits and starts and soaking everything in a damp unease.
"His Grace's heart…" Theon said quietly after a long pause, "is still beating. So you can rest easy on that, at least."
But everyone in the room knew what those words really meant. And no one looked the least bit reassured.
"The wound… it's troublesome. We're short on proper medicine here."
Another quiet sentence, but again, everyone could hear what went unsaid. They all knew exactly who the subject of that vague sentence was.
They had all seen wounds like this before. They had fought through this brutal siege, tending to the dying, carrying off the wounded with blood on their hands and ash in their lungs. They'd seen what happened when infection set in. And they knew how quickly it could turn.
If not for the cold settling in, if not for the sudden chill in the air, the wounded lying in the tower would have fared far worse. Half of them would've been dead by now, maybe more.
Lord Galbart Glover frowned deeply. His eyes locked onto Theon Greyjoy's face, unflinching, and his voice came out slow and firm, each word weighty and sharp with urgency.
"Theon," he said, "tell us the truth. Do you believe His Grace… can survive this?"
All eyes turned to the young man, with messy brown curls, a scruffy beard, and a face paler than it should have been.
With the exception of Jon Umber, every Northern lord in that room stared at Theon Greyjoy.
And the strange thing was, they trusted him.
Technically, he wasn't even one of them. But over these past weeks, Theon had proven himself in ways that few could deny.
He had been raised by Eddard Stark, lived for years in Winterfell, and those days had left his sense of self uncertain, his identity pulled between two worlds. But marching with Robb Stark through war after war had finally carved his place. Whatever blood ran through his veins, Theon Greyjoy now belonged to the North.
"Robb… Lords," Theon began, his voice soft but clear, "I'm no Maester. I don't know the ways of medicine. But I can see things for what they are. If the wound can stop swelling once this cursed rain finally passes, if the sun comes out and shines on him again, warming his skin and drying the fever…"
He paused and everyone was silent.
"If that happens," Theon said, "then he might still stand again. He might still fight beside us."
But he didn't say the other possibility.
He didn't have to.
Everyone in the room knew what came next.
If the swelling didn't go down, if the rain kept falling and the wound kept festering… then the fever would win. And Robb Stark would die.
They all understood. No man could last long once the fever took hold of an infected wound.
And now, it was time…
A decision had to be made!
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[Chapter End's]
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