Before they left the treekin, Arya and Calancy butted heads with Nymeria. Nymeria had been getting antsy all along the new road. When they camped, she would run into the trees. She would come back all a twitter and bed down. Several times she had stopped and howled, and once there was an answer back. Now, Arya told her that she was free to run the 100 miles of forest that Arya had purchased. She had the pardon of the King around her neck, but neither she nor her pack was allowed to kill people. Arya told her, "You must protect Calancy and her people; they will live here now in your woods. And you must come and see me in the new town, so that I know you are well. Who will protect me if not you, Nymeria?" Nymeria shivered when they said all that. Real freedom was something she hadn't tasted in over a year. She touched Calancy with her paw and then leaned in close to Arya, who hugged her, and she was gone, howling all the way.
"Bet she's with pups by summer," Arya said to herself. "Wonder what it's like to be pregnant?" She hugged her new husband, Thomas, as he listened to the howls that answered Nymeria. And so they made their way north into the cold. Beth stayed with the treekin to keep teaching them Westeros, and one swampkin stayed to keep communication open.
In two more weeks, they all arrived at the end of the road. They camped for a few days, and then Arya took the stonekin for a walk about. They were looking at mountains. As they got to one short arm of the range, the stonekin began to talk excitedly among themselves. Their leader said, "This one," in perfect Westeros. Through a translator, he added, "Many minerals and jewels in this one, good stone to build a city, and walls. It looks very much like our old homeland." All of their wagons of tools and belongings were taken there. It was less than a mile to the new city. Arya warned them that there might be unhappy clans nearby, but they had the orders of their King and the Warden of the North West behind their claim. "If anyone gives you trouble, shout the words, Arya of the Black Hand so ordered this!" The stonekin leader nodded happily and bowed to Arya. She pulled him up, saying, "Welcome to your new home and homeland, good stonekins!" They all cheered with joy and began work.
In two days, the stonekin reported back that they had struck a large cavern inside the mountain, and there was treasure there of every kind. A chunk of star metal with a thin pale green crystal sticking out of it was plunked down for Gendry's forge on the Sovereign. Gendry paid them handsomely for it. He could make several swords from that one piece, but the green crystal was speaking to him. Lee had no weapon that Gendry had ever seen, and Lee was still with them as their healer. They also had the two doctors and Mangana, the older as well. Gendry began forging a staff for Lee.
Thomas had used red powder to mark off the walls of the new city. It was really large. When the road crews met the marks he had for the east gate, they moved to the south gate marks and started south. Arya had offered the crew double pay if they could reach the southernmost point of the north by year's end. Thomas then began marking off trenches to be dug, and one of the stonekin asked him what they were for. He responded, "It gets bitterly cold in winter, and I want walkways under the ground to move from building to building." The stonekin nodded and promised help soon. Wagons were coming in with stone from the stonekin, and wagons were coming in with wood from the treekin, too.
Thomas showed the stonekin his sketch of the administration building. For the time being, it would serve as a mess hall and sleeping quarters for everyone, but eventually it would be for meetings, with apartments for dignitaries. Amazingly, it took a little over 3 months to complete the Great Hall; everybody worked on it. The walls were of a dark granite, the floors were basalt, and the great rafters of ironwood were shipped in from the Forrester Clan to the south. The roof was made from thick slate. The building was three stories tall and had a tower on one side of the hall that rose six stories. The main building was in the shape of a square, only it was turned, so one corner stuck out the front, and one out the back. Great windows were around the north and south sides at the top of the walls. Bart emptied his kitchen on the Sovereign and set up in the Great Hall's kitchen.
The walls of the city were going up as the hall was finished, and outside, a large wharf was being built to take 12 large ships. Men from the mountain clans were hired for that job and received a respectable living from it. They drove huge piers into the shore and stretched large timbers between them for the wharf. Then the docks were set up, and the slips for each ship were dredged. The massive shipyard was under construction, too. A celebration was planned in the summer, when the crops came in, and the weather was fine. A few days before it was to happen, people from all over started arriving. And three familiar ships came into the harbor. Bran brought 100 steel 'flowers'; Thomas and Gendry were all over him with questions. The ammunition, the 'flowers', and the powder were stored in the half-finished troop station closest to the bay. Trains of wagons came up from Winterfell, and Deepwood Motte, and even some from the Hornwood made it.