Benita bathed inside, then changed into the new-style guard uniform.
A pair of finely made knee-high boots. Black trousers—tight-woven, deep in color—hugging her long legs. Her tall figure was wrapped in a fitted jacket, with soft padding across the chest shaping a proud line—full of rise and sweep…
It was a bit like those women in black from old films.
Especially if she put on sunglasses.
Domeric couldn't help thinking that as he lay lazily on a long bench, legs stretched out, giving himself a comfortable stretch.
The midday wind wasn't cold—there was even a hint of warmth in it, brushing away the stale heaviness at his side.
Sunlight filtered through leaves and fell across the bench in scattered patches, dappling everything in shifting light and shadow.
Benita came over, turned sideways, and nestled close. Her hands settled on his shoulders, gently pressing, slowly increasing pressure.
Her pale-gold hair drifted in the breeze, and her freshly washed skin carried a soft, faint scent.
It really was a good feeling.
Warm sun overhead, a clean wind,
and a compliant personal bodyguard at his side—
For a moment, Domeric almost forgot he lived in the Seven Kingdoms—forgot the coming storm that would overturn the realm.
But time like this never lasted.
King Robert would soon arrive at Winterfell with half his court, to persuade his old friend Eddard Stark to become the new Hand of the King.
In Domeric's eyes, whether Lord Eddard chose to ride south to King's Landing or stay planted in the North, Domeric had a plan for both.
If Eddard went south as in the original story—determined to uncover the truth of Jon Arryn's death—then Domeric would volunteer to accompany him as the future son-in-law, riding with the Stark party.
Right now, with Jon Arryn dead, Stannis Baratheon—"the second stag," who had lost his ally—had already withdrawn to Dragonstone.
That left two major power blocs in King's Landing.
Queen Cersei, backed by House Lannister, held a significant share of power simply by being queen.
And Renly Baratheon, backed by Storm's End and the Reach's rose lords, also carried real weight at court.
Renly couldn't match the Lannisters alone, but if he allied with Eddard Stark, it wouldn't be impossible to fight.
Eddard had lost so catastrophically in canon for two simple reasons:
First: he was stubbornly naïve—he rode into King's Landing with barely fifty men, basically delivering himself to the knives.
Second: he was too gentle, underestimated the brutality of political struggle, and lacked any experience with palace coups.
Domeric could cover those fatal gaps as "family."
To Domeric, controlling King's Landing had massive strategic value.
In the War of the Five Kings, the capital barely mattered beyond the Battle of the Blackwater.
But in reality, King's Landing mattered more than almost anything.
Whoever held the capital held the initiative in the war.
Tywin Lannister's biggest advantage—why he could stare down everyone else and still come out on top—was that he held King's Landing firmly.
Because King's Landing wasn't just the greatest port and the richest city in Westeros—
It was the symbol of supreme legitimacy.
Robb Stark's ruin—beheaded at the Red Wedding, his wolf's head sewn on, wolf paws stitched to his limbs—wasn't just Walder Frey's betrayal.
It was that Robb had become strategically trapped.
He couldn't crack the Westerlands. Winterfell fell to the ironborn. The Neck was threatened. Retreat routes tightened. Surrounded on all sides.
Frey and Roose betraying him was predictable.
Robb's failure had many causes, but from a pure strategic standpoint, his greatest mistake was abandoning the prize that mattered—King's Landing—then going west to chase coin and slam his head against hard castles.
Tactical victories couldn't save a strategic error from the start.
…
In Domeric's model: seize King's Landing early, "hold the king, command the lords," and you gain the initiative.
Once Robert died, House Baratheon's capital faction would hesitate for a moment.
At that time, Tywin would still be in the Riverlands, and Cersei's real muscle in the city would be mainly the City Watch—the Gold Cloaks—plus a small Lannister presence.
Six thousand at most.
So Domeric believed it was worth making a play.
Of course, he wouldn't do what Eddard did—walk into a slaughter with fifty men.
He had already secured rights to a wooded tract near a town outside King's Landing, where a camp had been prepared—large enough to hide several thousand soldiers.
When the coup moment came, the army would surge out, take the city, and then… who lived and who died would be decided by steel.
Plans never unfold perfectly.
A "plan" exists because reality throws "accidents" at you.
Still—this was a gamble worth taking.
"Master… why do I have to wear this?" Benita pointed at the new uniform, visibly awkward.
"Because if you keep wearing that one hooded robe every day, I start getting tired of looking at it," Domeric said helplessly.
"Tired of looking at it…?" Benita had never heard the phrase before, half understanding, half not.
Domeric didn't bother explaining. He suddenly handed her a cloth pouch.
"Try this."
Benita pulled out a dark lump, examined it for a long time, then parted her lips and took a cautious bite. Her brows knit.
"What is this?"
"Marching ration."
Domeric smiled. "Chew more. Tell me what's in it."
Benita chewed a while. "Salt… fat… sesame… minced meat… and cooked flour."
"Good." Domeric nodded.
It was basically the local equivalent of a compressed ration: high salt, high fat, high calories.
"One ball like that can cover a meal. In war, it's useful. Imagine this—your enemy's still boiling a pot, and you're already charging with one of these in your mouth. What does that battlefield look like?"
"That sounds… kind of fun," Benita said, lips curling in a small smile.
Then she awkwardly tried to make conversation. "The sun's nice today."
"It is," Domeric agreed. "The North doesn't get many days like this."
He got up from the bench and stretched. "Since the weather's good, I'll show you something interesting."
…
"Come on. It's right up ahead."
Domeric pointed toward several low hills in the distance.
They urged their horses forward, riding hard.
When they climbed a hill, the wind carried a harsh, constant clanging—
Clang. Clang. Clang.
It was the Lonely Hills' armor workshop.
Looking out, they saw a wide, orderly spread of buildings. That metallic pounding came from within the complex.
It looked like a small town that had risen from bare ground—rough, crude, but powerful in its own way, with a stark, brutal beauty.
Benita suddenly spotted a wide canal cut from the Last River, feeding into a nearby valley. Water roared down like a waterfall.
Below it, huge waterwheels turned slowly.
The wheels weren't refined—each rotation came with heavy grinding noises.
A belt mechanism connected the wheel to a tall building, and from inside came a rhythmic pounding—
Like hammers striking iron.
"What is that?" Benita blurted, unable to hide her curiosity.
"A water-powered forge hammer." Domeric couldn't help sounding pleased.
The famous "water hammer," made real by his own hands.
The parts weren't fundamentally different from the usual setup—he'd simply swapped animal power for water power, and the construction was much rougher.
But for Domeric, as long as it could beat metal into usable blocks, it was enough.
He wasn't a machine engineer. Most of the fine points were built by common sense.
"The waterwheel turns the big wheel—slow but strong. Inside, the smaller wheel spins faster…"
"Master… you built all of this?" Benita looked at him with open admiration.
"No. I gave the idea. The person who actually made it—"
"That wasn't my genius," a loud voice interrupted from ahead.
The Lonely Hills' master smith, Donal Noye, approached with a few apprentices. "I built it exactly the way you told me to, my lord."
"You did well," Domeric said in a lord's tone, offering the encouragement that mattered.
"It's what I'm supposed to do."
Months ago, Noye had told Domeric that if he wanted Noye's continued service, he'd have to help Castle Black deal with the wildlings beyond the Wall.
Now nearly a hundred thousand wildlings had been dragged to the Lonely Hills as labor.
So Noye had to keep his promise and keep working.
Under the smith's lead, Domeric entered a warehouse stacked with armor.
On one wooden frame hung a new pattern.
The helmet was built from two plates riveted together, the upper plate overlapping the lower. It allowed airflow, but the join was double-layered—harder for a blade to slip into.
A feather stood atop it, absurdly proud, like the helmet believed itself invincible.
Mail at the joints was thickened and integrated into the plate sections, so a soldier could wear it as one system instead of two layers—cutting weight.
The most labor wasn't the major plate pieces, but the linked mail sections at the connections—especially the skirt. Plate used more iron, of course.
This was the highest-defense style common to Westeros: plate as the core, mail supporting joints and less critical areas.
Full "tin can" plate harness was still beyond what most workshops here could reliably produce, and far too expensive.
"The new armor defends well," Noye explained. "The old leather and mail don't stop arrows consistently. Plate is far better against sharp steel…"
Compared to the gold-rich lions of the Westerlands and the wealthy roses of the Reach, the North was poor and cold.
Most soldiers wore leather or mail. Even nobles rarely fielded plate.
Robb Stark's victories in the War of the Five Kings had come from tactics and northern brutality—not superior equipment.
In harsh lands, men grew harder and less afraid of death. One northern soldier could often handle several southern ones—especially Reachmen.
In canon's Battle of the Green Fork, Roose Bolton led sixteen thousand northmen in a night attack against Tywin's host—and still lost, bleeding nearly six thousand men.
Why?
Tywin was ready, yes.
But also: the equipment gap was real.
Northmen mostly wore leather and mail. Lannister troops fielded mail and plate.
That half-generation of gear mattered most in infantry clashes—and Roose had brought mostly infantry.
Domeric didn't expect to out-armor House Lannister.
But he couldn't be left behind, either.
He studied the sample and nodded in satisfaction. "Monthly output?"
"If we focus on nothing else, about eighty suits."
"Not enough. Double the scale. I want at least one hundred fifty a month."
"With manpower, it's doable," Noye said, nodding. "There are dozens of workshops up there—most already dedicated to armor."
…
After the armor, Domeric and Benita rode out.
Before long they reached a market area without walls.
From a distance it looked like a military camp—rows of crude structures.
But up close the dirt road was crowded and loud: people selling goods, ale, bread… stalls everywhere.
There were even performers by the roadside, with a crowd shouting, "Good! Good!"
A noisy mess.
In an agrarian age, outside noble castles, dense markets were rare. People lived scattered, because most survived by farming.
Benita watched everything with bright interest. "How did a market like this appear here?"
Domeric walked beside her, leading his horse casually.
"This used to be wasteland. The market only appeared a few months ago.
The armor workshops brought in smiths and apprentices—people who don't farm.
So their food, clothes, and daily needs have to be bought with coin.
A market grows naturally from that."
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GAME OF THRONES: SECRETS BENEATH THE DREADFORT
🏰🩸 GAME OF THRONES: SECRETS BENEATH THE DREADFORT 🩸🏰
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📢 DARK SECRETS RISE IN THE NORTH! 📢
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Beneath the Dreadfort, old horrors stir.
Power, bloodlines, betrayal, northern cruelty, and buried secrets wait beneath one of the most feared castles in Westeros.
❄️ The North remembers.🏰 The Dreadfort hides.🩸 And some secrets should have stayed buried.
Uncover what lies beneath before anyone else does.
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