[The Westerlands, late 4th moon, 299AC]
The first thing Lucion noticed was that the roads were still full.
Not deserted and quiet like the roads of the Riverlands, the scars of war still apparent, no, the Westerlands were moving onward as usual, the war having just reached them.
Farmers drove wagons piled high with household goods. Women carried children. Old men walked beside tired horses. Entire families moved westward beneath grey skies, fleeing rumors they barely understood.
Word traveled faster than armies.
The Golden Tooth had fallen.
The North was in the Westerlands.
Tywin Lannister was somewhere east with his army, yet his situation was as ever, unclear.
The uncertainty frightened people more than certainty ever could.
Lucion watched them pass from horseback.
Most avoided looking directly at him.
The lion on his surcoat had long since been removed, but western eyes still recognized western faces, his golden hair and emerald eyes giving him away at but a glance.
One old woman stared openly.
When their eyes met, she quickly looked away.
The gesture bothered him more than insults would have.
He had been called traitor before.
He had expected hatred, hells, many of the Lefford men had found great pleasure in calling him every slur and ill-name known in the known world.
Disappointment proved far harder to stomach.
Ahead of the column, Tempest moved along the roadside.
The great silver direwolf was impossible to ignore.
Children pointed as their mothers pulled them closer.
Even grown men watched him carefully.
Cinder remained nearer to Alaric, pacing alongside the king's horse with an ease that should have been impossible for an animal of his size.
The wolves unsettled westerners.
Good.
Lucion found they unsettled him occasionally as well.
Taking his thoughts away from the two great northern beasts, Lucion and the rest of the column soon crested a low hill.
The land beyond opened before them.
Green fields, villages, mines, and roads, again with the bloody roads.
Everything Lucion remembered.
But now, he stood not on the land as a member of House Lannister, but a retainer and companion of the King in the North.
Robb Stark soon guided his horse alongside him.
"You've been looking around aimlessly all morning." Robb said, nudging him with his elbow
"I'm well aware, Stark," he replied with a low chuckle
"Thinking?"
"Unfortunately," he sighed out
Robb laughed.
"Must be serious, then."
Lucion glanced toward him.
The young Stark looked older than he had a year ago.
War had that effect.
It changed green boys, taught them lessons, and turned them into different people.
Sometimes into men.
Sometimes into corpses.
"Do you know whose lands these are?" Lucion asked.
Robb looked around.
"No."
"House Moreland."
"Never heard of them."
"Most people haven't."
Lucion pointed toward a distant stone manor, with squat walls, not very impressive to the eye.
"Their family has held these lands for nearly three centuries, having once controlled larger swaths of land, their line tracing back millennia to Pate the Plowman."
Robb studied the building.
"It doesn't look like much." He finally said after examining the pitiful building, confused at the importance of the middling lands
"It isn't," he laughed
"Then why mention them?"
Lucion went quiet for a moment.
"Because that is how kingdoms actually work."
That got Robb's attention.
"Meaning?"
"Everyone talks about Casterly Rock, and the Great Houses of the West. Great castles, and greater lords."
He gestured toward the fields.
"Nobody sings about the men who own several hundred acres and three villages."
"Yet those men pay taxes." Lucion said, looking over the fields, "They raise crops, provide levies, keep roads maintained. They are the reason great houses remain great."
Robb followed his gaze.
For several moments neither spoke.
Finally Robb nodded.
"Alaric says similar things."
Lucion snorted.
"Of course he does."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means your cousin and our king often thinks like an old man trapped in a young man's body."
Robb barked a laugh. "Gods, don't tell him that."
"I have." He replied with a wry smile
"And?"
"He said he'd heard worse." Lucion shrugged, earning a laugh from Robb and the men around them who had been not so suddenly listening in on their conversation
The laughter largely came because that sounded exactly like Alaric.
Ahead, the king rode with Jorah Mormont and Ser Desmond Manderly.
Tempest suddenly stopped.
The direwolf stood perfectly still.
Ears forward with his massive head lifted.
The great beast was watching, waiting for something they couldn't see.
Lucion frowned.
A moment later, riders appeared on the road ahead.
Scouts.
Three of them.
Robb noticed too.
"They always do that." He said, gesturing toward Greywind, who similarly was watching the scouts, only taking away his attention when Robb reached down to scratch his ears, now reaching close to the same height as their mounts.
Lucion kept watching Tempest.
The animal had reacted before the riders became visible.
Before any man could reasonably have seen them.
He had noticed similar things before.
Not once.
Repeatedly.
Enough times to stop dismissing it.
"Perhaps they smell better than we do." He said, hoping for a more plausible explanation for all of the growing weirdness as of late
Robb considered that.
"Mayhaps, although im sure most animals smell better than us."
Neither sounded convinced.
The scouts arrived in front of Alaric shortly afterward.
They brought news of a mining settlement several miles ahead.
Still functioning and producing ore.
No garrison, meaning there would be no resistance.
Alaric listened carefully.
Then nodded.
"We'll take this settlement."
Simple as that.
The column moved on.
By midday they reached the settlement.
The mine sat among low rocky hills.
Timber structures surrounded the main shaft.
Ore carts stood idle beside tracks.
Workers gathered nervously outside.
There were more of them than Lucion expected.
Several hundred at least.
Entire families.
The war had reached them even if soldiers had not.
The foreman met them near the entrance.
A hard-looking man with grey in his beard and calloused hands.
He bowed awkwardly.
"M'lord," he said with evident fear
"You will address him as 'your grace' man, before you stands the King in the North!" Ser Desmond bellowed, scaring the old miner witless for a moment
Ignoring the commotion, Alaric dismounted.
"So you're the foreman."
"A-Aye, y-yer grace."
"Still working?"
The man hesitated. "Barely, in truth."
"Why?"
"Well, t-there be no buyers for our ore as of late; the lord left with his men and hasn't come back, caravans have all but dried up, we keep working with no one to give over our goods to."
He glanced toward the hills.
"The overseer left three days ago, mumbling something about the war being lost and going elsewhere before 'savages' came."
That surprised nobody.
Lucion looked around.
The settlement felt abandoned despite the number of people present.
Hope had left before the soldiers arrived.
Alaric spent the next hour walking through the site.
Examining.
Questioning.
Observing.
Many commanders saw objectives.
Alaric saw systems, lines of production, logistics, people, and their families even, not mere workers, but people.
That was the difference.
Eventually they gathered inside the overseer's hall.
Maps covered the tables.
Reports accumulated quickly.
The discussion began immediately.
Jorah Mormont looked toward the mine.
"We could hold it, keep the workers mining, take what they've stockpiled and continue to procure more material to repair and smith more weapons as need arises."
Lucion nodded.
"There's value here, a great deal at that, it lies close to the Golden Tooth, so resistance or a would-be liberation would likely be just a passing thought from any upstart lordling in the area." He said, pointing to a few minor houses in the vicinity as he did
Alaric shook his head. "No."
The answer came instantly.
Jorah frowned.
"No, but your grace, wouldn't the resources gathered here serve us in the long run?" The Lord of Bear Isle questioned, not with hostility, but simple curiosity, something no man would ever think of doing before their kind, further showing how different Alaric is from most men.
"No," he continued, pointing toward the map.
"How many men would it take?" he posed
"A few hundred," Jorah replied immediately
"Aye, a few hundred men who could better serve by raiding and plundering what we can from this land."
Nobody spoke.
Alaric continued.
"How many wagons?"
"Several."
"How much food?"
"More than a little."
The room grew quiet.
Lucion already understood where the conversation was going.
"You're going to close it."
"Aye, it would only serve to hinder our goals in the west more than it would benefit us."
The foreman looked horrified.
Alaric ignored him.
"I don't need this mine producing ore."
"I need Stafford Lannister unable to use it, he still remains near Lannisport, raising a would-be relief host to oppose us, mostly greybeards and green boys, but a host all the same."
The simplicity of the statement struck Lucion.
Not because it was brilliant; the plan was a rather straightforward one, his words nothing but practical.
That was what made Alaric so dangerous.
He rarely chased glory, only results.
The foreman stared at Alaric as if the king had just ordered him to cut off his own hands.
"You can't close the mine," the man said.
The room went still.
A few northern guards shifted slightly. Not much, but enough for Lucion to notice. Tempest lay near the wall with his head on his paws, pale blue eyes watching the room. Cinder sat closer to Alaric, still as carved stone, amber gaze fixed on the foreman.
The foreman noticed the red-brown wolf and swallowed.
Alaric did not look offended.
That was often when men ought to worry most.
"I can," Alaric said. "And I will."
The foreman's mouth opened and closed for a moment before words found him again. "Your Grace, this mine feeds families. It feeds the village. It feeds half the folk in these hills, one way or another. The ore goes out, coin comes back, bread gets bought. You break the mine, and men go hungry."
"Men are already hungry," Jorah Mormont said from near the table. "I saw children outside with bellies flat as boards."
The foreman glared at him, then seemed to remember who surrounded him and lowered his eyes. "Aye. They are. Which is why closing the mine won't help."
Lucion watched Alaric carefully.
The king had the map before him, but he was not looking at it now. He studied the foreman instead, and Lucion had seen that look enough times to know Alaric was measuring the man, not merely hearing him. It was never only about the words. It was about whether the man speaking believed them, whether fear, pride, or hunger moved him
"What is your name?" Alaric asked.
"Daven, son of Willem, Your Grace, my family has worked these mines for generations."
Alaric nodded once. "Then you know better than any man here how long it would take to bring the mine back to full work if I destroy the lifts, take the tools, burn the ledgers, seize the carts, and collapse the lower supports without burying the shafts entirely."
Daven's face tightened.
"Months," he admitted.
"How many?"
"If we have timber, iron, rope, smiths, beasts, and men who know the lower ways? Four. Maybe five. Without those things?" He shook his head. "Longer."
"Good."
The foreman looked like he wanted to lunge at Alaric for the simple response.
Lucion understood the feeling, funnily enough.
Alaric soon turned to him. "See that the families are fed from the stores. Two weeks' worth. No more. Any more and we become their lords, and I have no men to spare for that. The tools are to be collected under guard. The foreman will name the men needed to make the mine useless without slaughtering half the settlement doing it."
Daven looked sharply at Lucion.
"Why him?"
The question was blunt.
Lucion preferred blunt men.
Alaric answered before Lucion could.
"Because he knows these lands, and because your people will hear a western voice before they hear mine."
Daven studied Lucion again, harder this time.
"A Lannister voice," he said, venom in his tone
"Aye," Lucion replied. "A Lannister voice."
"And what sort of Lannister helps wolves tear down a mine in the west?"
"The sort who has seen what lions do when no one tells them no."
Daven went quiet.
Lucion stepped closer to the table and looked down at the map, partly because it gave his hands something to do and partly because he did not like the foreman's eyes on him.
"You'll choose thirty men who know the shafts well enough to weaken what must be weakened without killing themselves. They'll be fed first. Their families will be listed and fed as well. Anyone too old or injured to work will be given grain before the soldiers take their portion."
Jorah grunted. "That will make some of the men grumble."
"They'll live," Lucion said.
Alaric nodded. "They will. And if they do more than grumble, they will answer to me."
Daven looked between them slowly, as if trying to understand the shape of the thing forming around him.
"You're paying us to ruin our own lives," he said at last.
"No," Lucion said. "I'm paying you to survive long enough to have lives after the lords are done ruining each other."
The men in the room looked around at his words, some of the guards laughing, and the surrounding lords looking at him with odd eyes.
He had not planned the words. They came too quickly to be clever, and perhaps that was why they worked.
Daven looked at him for a long moment, then gave a tired nod. "I'll name the men."
"Good. That settles that then," Alaric said.
The work began before sunset.
Lucion remained in the settlement while Alaric rode the outer roads with Tempest and a screen of scouts, Cinder at his side as always. The wolves drew men's eyes wherever they went. Even the miners stopped pretending not to watch. Some kissed their seven-pointed star pendants in the southern fashion, while others muttered prayers Lucion could not hear. One old woman made a sign that was not of the Seven at all.
'The Old gods, huh.' Lucion thought.
In the Westerlands, a thoroughly Andalized kingdom.
That bothered him more than the rest.
Not because he cared much about which gods a miner's wife whispered to in fear. Because until recently, no one in these hills would have thought to call upon northern gods at all. Yet now Alaric Stark rode through their lands with direwolves, and old women remembered old signs their grandmothers must have taught them in secret or superstition.
The world was changing in small ways.
Small things often did the most damage.
Daven proved competent once he accepted the matter. Bitter, but competent. He gathered the men, assigned teams, pointed out the pulley towers that mattered most, and argued fiercely with a Glover officer who wanted to burn more than necessary.
"You burn that store shed, and you lose every spare rope," Daven snapped. "You want the mine dead for half a year, or do you want it dead forever with a dozen men trapped in the lower dark when the wrong line snaps?"
The Glover man looked ready to cuff him.
Lucion stepped between them.
"Listen to the man who knows the mine."
"He talks like he commands here," the officer said.
"He commands the mine," Lucion replied. "You command your men. Try to remember which one you are better at."
The man's face darkened, but he backed down.
Daven gave Lucion a grudging look afterward.
"That one doesn't like you."
"Few men do."
"I didn't say I liked you either."
"I didn't ask." he shrugged
That earned half a smile.
By nightfall, the first lift tower came down.
Not with fire, but with axes and ropes. Northern soldiers and western miners pulled together while timber groaned and cracked. The frame leaned slowly, then gave way all at once, crashing into the mud with a sound that rolled across the hills.
The second tower fell an hour later. The tools were loaded into wagons under guard. Ore already dug was counted and marked. Mules were taken. Ledgers seized. A group of miners carried out iron fittings while a pair of Mormont men watched them closely.
Jorah found Lucion near the storehouse shortly after moonrise.
The older lord had a wineskin in one hand and a look on his face that suggested he had been thinking too much.
"You handled the foreman well," Jorah said.
Lucion took the skin when offered and drank. The wine was sour. He drank again anyway.
"He handled himself well. I only gave him an outlet to point his anger at."
Jorah snorted. "Aye, well he seemed to have plenty of anger alright."
They stood together for a while, watching men work by torchlight. The mine settlement seemed almost unreal in the dark, all smoke and shadows and tired men moving through torch glow. Farther off, Alaric's main camp spread around the village and lower road. Fires dotted the hills. Horses stamped. Men sang quietly in some places and argued in others.
"You ever think you'd come home like this?" Jorah asked.
Lucion glanced at him. "Is this where you tell me some northern wisdom about homes not being stone and soil, but men and oaths?"
"No. That sounds like Stark talk."
"It does." The two laughed at that, envisioning either Alaric or Ned giving such a speech
"My wisdom is simpler. If you choose a side, choose it properly. Men who keep one foot on both banks end up drowning in the river."
Lucion looked at the broken lift tower, thinking on Jorah's words, as he left Lucion to his thoughts.
Later, near the king's command tent, Smalljon and Derrick Umber returned from the village with a wagon they insisted had been abandoned. The wagon contained three barrels of ale, two sacks of onions, six blankets, and more chickens than any abandoned wagon had a right to contain.
Alaric stared at them.
Tempest stood beside him.
Cinder sniffed at the wagon, and one of the chickens made the fatal mistake of flapping directly in his face. The direwolf snapped once. Feathers exploded. Derrick looked genuinely saddened.
"That one was mine," he said in a grumble barely audible, plainly having no plans to quarrel with the direwolf that reached him at the shoulder, no small feat considering he was an Umber.
Alaric did not blink, he just stared at his maternal cousin incredulously. "Explain the wagon, Smalljon."
Smalljon gave him a broad smile. "Well, I, uh, I found it, yeah, I found it!" He exclaimed, sounding unsure at his own words
"In a village under our protection," Alaric said, his brow lifting
"Near… a village under our protection," Smalljon replied in a small voice
With chickens."
"Chickens wander," The Umber heir said with a smile
"Into wagons?" Alaric replied, his brow lifting even further
"They're clever birds," Smalljon said, looking dead serious now
Lucion stood nearby with Robb and Jon. Robb had one hand over his mouth and was failing to hide his laughter. Jon looked as though he wanted to remain stern and could not remember how, his face now looking more cramped than anything. Lucion tried to keep his own face still.
He failed.
Alaric caught it, gods damn him, of course he caught it.
"You find this amusing, Lucion?" He asked, those ice grey eyes bearing into him like a winter's chill
"I find it… Educational, Your Grace. I had not known chickens could surrender themselves to northern custody."
Robb choked on his drink mid-sip and sputtered as he coughed up wine.
Jon turned away, his shoulders now violently shaking up and down, small sounds escaping every now and then.
Smalljon pointed at Lucion triumphantly. "See? The lion understands."
"I understand theft when I see it," Lucion said, quickly adjusting his stance so as to not be on the receiving end of Alaric's stare any longer.
"Borrowing," Derrick added, having let his brother take the lead, but not speaking up in their… procurement, of the items.
"You borrowed ale, onions, blankets, and chickens?" Robb asked in between weezes
Derrick nodded solemnly. "We are broad-minded men."
Even Alaric smiled then, faintly and despite himself.
"Return what was taken improperly," he said. "Pay for the ale if you drank any. Pay double for the chicken Cinder unceremoniously murdered," he added, looking over at the giant she-wolf, who was still munching on the bird without a care in the world.
Derrick looked offended. "That was an act of war."
"The chicken was unarmed."
"It attacked first."
Cinder licked blood from her muzzle and looked pleased with herself, nodding in a scarily human fashion.
The laughter spread farther than it should have. Men nearby picked it up, then others beyond them, until the edge of the camp sounded almost cheerful. Lucion laughed too, and for once he did not stop himself quickly.
It felt strange.
Good, but strange.
He had laughed among Lannisters before. At feasts. Hunts. Training yards. But there had always been a measure to it, a carefulness, the knowledge that every jest could become a slight if taken by the wrong ear. Here, men mocked giants to their faces and lived. Men teased kings if they were brave or stupid enough. The laughter had edges, but fewer knives hidden underneath.
It made belonging easier.
After the camp quieted, Lucion found himself beside a smaller fire with Jon Snow. The white wolf Ghost was not there, off with scouts or hunting in the dark, but Tempest lay near Alaric's side within sight, and Cinder paced the outer edge of the firelight as if keeping count of every living thing in camp.
Jon followed Lucion's gaze.
"They make you uneasy."
"Most sensible men are uneasy around beasts large enough to eat them."
"They don't eat men without reason, besides, you have one of your own, do you not?" he asked, nudging Jon with a mocking smile
"Yes, well, Ghost is much more well behaved, he usually lies quietly near me, Tempest and Cinder, they downright scare me at times." Jon replied, jumping a little when Cinder turned toward him and barked at him, before turning away and lying down
"Seems she heard you." Lucion said dryly
Jon laughed, composing himself again, then leaning forward with his forearms on his knees. The firelight made him look younger for a moment, though the war returned as soon as he turned his head.
"What was Casterly Rock like?" Jon asked.
Lucion looked into the flames.
"Large."
"Really, is that all? It's not like you grew up there or anything," he laughed
"It's… difficult to explain the Rock to someone who has not seen it. Winterfell feels old, warm even in its own way. The Rock feels… cold, resolute. It rises above everything, and after a while you begin to think that means the people inside it do too."
Jon was quiet for a moment. "Did you believe that?"
"When I was young, aye. All Lannister children believe some version of it. Even those of us distant from the main line. The Rock stands, the gold flows, and the realm bends around it. You grow up hearing that without anyone saying it plainly."
"And now?"
Lucion watched a coal collapse into ash.
"Now I have watched western men abandon mines because no wagons came. I have watched old villagers hand iron keys to a Stark. I have watched miners ask a northern king for food because their own overseer fled with coin. The Rock still stands, but the ground beneath it feels less steady than it did."
Jon nodded slowly.
"I know something of that."
"Of mighty castles losing their shine?"
"Of names not meaning what you thought they meant."
Lucion looked at him then.
Jon met his gaze without flinching. There was no self-pity in the bastard's face. That made the words stronger. Lucion had known highborn men who wore grievance like a jeweled cloak, always eager for others to admire the weight of it. Jon Snow carried his more quietly.
"Do you still want the Stark name?" Lucion asked.
Jon seemed surprised by the question.
For a while, only the fire answered.
"I used to," he said. "Badly. When I was younger, I thought a name could fix everything that felt wrong. Then I went to war and learned men can die with good names and bad ones just the same."
"That is not an answer."
"No," Jon said. "It isn't."
A movement near the command tent drew both their eyes.
Tempest had lifted his head.
Cinder stood up from her napping spot.
The two direwolves turned east at the same moment.
No command had been given. No sound had reached Lucion's ears. The camp remained mostly still, men sleeping or murmuring near low fires. Yet both wolves stared into the dark beyond the hills as if something had called them from miles away.
Jon stood slowly.
Lucion did not, though his hand moved near his sword before he realized it.
"What is it?" Lucion asked.
Jon's expression had gone still.
"I… do not know, i just have this nagging feeling that something is coming."
A moment later, a raven came out of the night.
It flew low over the camp, black wings beating hard against the pale moon. One guard shouted and ducked as it passed over him. The bird wheeled once above the maester's tent, then dropped from sight.
Tempest rose.
Cinder gave a low sound in her throat.
From the tent, Alaric Stark stepped out fully dressed, the Crown of Winter atop his brow, Ice in its sheath on his back, as if he had not been sleeping at all.
Lucion looked from the wolves to the king.
Jon said nothing.
Somewhere near the maester's tent, men began calling for light. The raven had come from the east. Lucion knew that much by the direction of its flight, and suddenly he found himself thinking of Tywin Lannister, of the army beyond the rivers, of the war that had seemed so large it could swallow the whole realm.
Alaric walked toward the maester's tent with Tempest and Cinder falling in beside him.
No one told the wolves to follow, they simply did.
Lucion and Jon rose and went after them, completely unprepared for the news brought by the raven.