Chapter 24 — The March South
The mists clung low to the ground, curling around the legs of horses and the wheels of wains like ghosts reluctant to give up the land.
Dew beaded on mail and leather, clung to the dragon and direwolf banners like cold sweat. The sky was the color of wet slate this morning, flat and unmoving, and the sun had not yet burned through the river fog.
The host moved.
One by one, tents were struck and folded like the wings of sleeping birds. Fires doused. Lines formed. Orders passed from mouth to mouth, carried down the columns like river current.
The sound was subdued: hooves in wet earth, the low groan of oxen under load, the creak of timber wheels
We marched south. To war.
To our right, the Green Fork flowed sullen, flashing whenever the mist lifted. To our left, the woods thickened with every mile, pines and oaks crowding close to the road like silent watchers, every few miles we passed a farm or a small village or town, we traded silver for supplies in those places, you never had too much food. The path was narrow, muddy from last night's rain, and the weight of fifteen thousand men was turning it into a churned ribbon of muck and wood.
I rode near the center column, flanked by Cort and a pair of ravens fluttering in their cages. Ahead, Glover's men led the van, disciplined and quiet. Seeing the northern houses carrying my steel filled me with pride every single time. It worried me a bit that we had so much heavy infantry but if we could dictate the conditions of battle it would be the greatest advantage we had.
Further out, the Reeds had melted into the forest. I hadn't seen a green cloak in an hour, which meant they were doing their job.
Behind us, the baggage train groaned, grain wagons from Moat Cailin, siege engines on sledded wheels, and crude carts packed with sharpened stakes and barrels of pitch. A trio of smiths from the Moat rode alongside the oxen, muttering about axles and rivets and road wear.
Contrary to what most green knight though, command was not glory. It was weight on your shoulder. Mud and wheels and stomachs.
I watched every formation with a mind split into pieces, pace, spacing, signal flags, the distance between message riders, the quality of the grass along the riverbank. The host moved, but I moved inside it, like a wheel turning within a wheel.
"Reckon he'll come north to meet us?" Cort asked, his voice muffled under his cloak.
I glanced at him. "Tywin?"
He nodded. "Feels like a baited line, doesn't it? The lion sniffing upriver for blood."
I smiled, thin and dry. "I hope so. I've picked the ground for him."
Cort raised an eyebrow. "You've already picked a battlefield?"
"I picked five for now, more will come as we go," I replied. "He can choose the ones that kill him slow or the one that kill him fast."
He gave a short laugh. "Remind me not to play cyvasse with you, My Prince. But it will be a battle in and of itself to convince the lords to follow your strategy."
Further south, the mist was lifting, revealing low ridges to the east. I knew those hills. I'd ordered them mapped by my men and the wargs a week ago, studied their curves, their blind spots.
The approach to the mountains of the Moon was a good place to lead an army to the slaughter. I only needed to convince Tywin to follow me there…
But war wasn't a game. It was hunger. Chaos. Distance. Trust in men who might break, or tire, or panic.
And it was time.
My eyes tracked a hawk flying east through the trees, it carried signal flags from the Reed Warg scouts. Two flashes of green. Nothing hostile ahead.
One of my best ideas. If we could use wargs to communicate what was ahead we should never be surprised.
Behind me, the northern host extended like a serpent, thousands of feet, thousands of Speers, thousands of burdens.
Now comes the boring part.
Now came the march.
The trees thinned near a bend in the trail, where a low hill crowned with weathered stones gave just enough clearing for a breath and a view. The northern vanguard had halted briefly. Horses drank, men shifted their gear, and I took the chance to stretch my legs, and my spine, which felt half ground to powder after hours in the saddle.
Dacey Mormont sat cross-legged on a boulder, sharpening the pikes of her steel maze. She looked up, spotted me, and smirked.
"You're brooding again," she said.
I blinked. "I'm always brooding, my lady. It is what keeps this army marching."
"Aye," came Smalljon Umber's voice as he stomped up the hill, a leg of dried venison in one hand. "But he broods strategically."
Dacey grunted. "I've seen bears with more cheer."
"You are a bear," Smalljon shot back.
"And I'm still more cheerful than you."
I shook my head and sat on the edge of the boulder beside her. The Karstark brothers approached not long after Smalljon did, tall and stern, Torrhen squinting at the sun as if it owed him money, and Eddard with a face too young for the armor he wore, even if there were people much younger than he in the army..
Torrhen dropped a small satchel on the ground with a grunt. "Rations again. Salt pork. More bark than meat."
"It's the bark that gives it flavor," Harrion said dryly.
Eddard sniffed it and frowned. "Why does ours always smell like piss?"
"Because you've been carrying it in your saddlebag," I said without looking. "Next to your oil cloth."
He looked at me in horror.
Dacey barked a laugh. "Daemon Targaryen, Prince of the Seven Kingdoms Commander of Armies, War Planner, and Food Inspector."
"And an unpaid one," I muttered. "It's a wonder I keep showing up."
"You're staying for the company," said Smalljon, grinning through a mouthful of meat.
"No," I said. "I'm staying for the entertainment. I want to see which of you tries to cook next and burns down half the camp."
"That was once!" Torrhen protested.
"Once is enough when it takes out the latrines," Eddard muttered, face pink. "Gods the smell…"
Last week had been moved in the camp. A day for the stories after a few tent had gone up in flames in the Karstark section. We had spaced the tents better after that.
Harrion sighed like a man already too old for this, though he couldn't have been more than twenty-three. "Gods help us if the enemy doesn't get us. Food poisoning or flaming piss will."
"We could weaponize that," I mused. "Slip your stew into the Lannister bread wagons, Torrhen. Give the lions a taste of northern cuisine."
"They'd surrender within a day," Dacey said with a grin
The fire cracked between us. We were circled around it like old comrades, though most of us had only ridden south together a few weeks past. The air was thick with woodsmoke and the smell of roasting hare. The laughter softened the atmosphere, and for a moment, just a moment, it felt like peace.
"I heard a story from the Prince's Swords the other day," Smalljon said, leaning back on his elbows. "About your birth, Prince Jon. That your mother gave birth in the snow, sword in her lap, shouting oaths in the Old Tongue."
I arched a brow. "Impressive. Considering she died in bed after a long labor."
He shrugged, unbothered. "Never let truth ruin a better tale." Smalljon broke the silence with a grunt. "You ever going to tell us how you pulled off the Battle of the Whale?"
The fire cracked, and I didn't answer at once. The Battle of the Whale. It sounded poetic. Blood and ships. Easy to romanticize when you weren't the one doing the bleeding.
Dacey raised an eyebrow at me. "I heard it was a trap. That you drowned half a fleet without losing a man."
"That's a lie," I said quietly. "We lost good men. Mostly from the arrows. A few drowned. One fell into the water and a barrel came down on him according to Ser Myles."
Torrhen looked surprised. "Just a few? Against the Royal Fleet?"
"War galleys. Three of them." I stared into the flames. "Full of men loyal to Stannis."
"Still," Eddard Karstark rumbled, his voice a harsh growl. "You outfoxed them. Burned half their strength."
"Two thirds," I corrected. "It was a hard fight but the Boreal Star, my ship, had the height advantage, it turned the battle against the first galley that approached us into a siege and allowed to win against a superior force. Then came the other two."
Eddard Karstark leaned forward. "What did you do?"
Lets gamble, northmen are more understanding than most.
"I didn't do anything," I said. "The sea did."
"So are the stories true? You summoned a sea monster with sorcery?" Harrior asked.
They looked up. Dacey's eyes narrowed slightly. The decision to tell the truth or lie was made in a split second. This were my country men, they knew the old tales. It would make them trust me more after hearing the truth.
"Truth is," I said quietly, "I didn't just set fire to those ships as some say… I sunk one of the galleys with a whale."
Smalljon blinked. "You what?"
"A whale," I repeated, as if saying it twice would make it more believable. "Bull gray. Scar across the eye. It destroyed the ship."
Torrhen scoffed, but it wasn't mocking. More confusion than disbelief. "And where in all the gods' names do you find a whale?"
"You don't." I met Dacey's gaze. "You call it."
A pause. The fire cracked.
"You're serious," she said.
"I am."
The others were watching me now, the laughter gone. I could feel the weight of their eyes.
"You asked how I sank their ship. I didn't. He did." I tapped two fingers lightly to my temple. "I was inside his skin. I guided him to the hull and told him when to strike."
Smalljon muttered something under his breath. Harrion leaned forward, but didn't speak.
"You're a warg," Eddard said at last.
I nodded. "Yes."
"That's… not supposed to be possible," Torrhen said.
"Most myths are based in a grain of truth." I said.
I reached out with my mind, gentle and deliberate. The bond was shallow, thin, but present after working on the bird for a week, there was no struggle. I could feel the wind under the crows wings, the shape of the trees like veins below.
I extended a hand, palm up, without looking. "Hold still, Dacey."
"What—"
The crow landed on her shoulder with a soft flutter of feathers and a curious caw.
She froze.
Smalljon gaped. "Gods!"
Dacey slowly turned her head, staring into the bird's beady eyes. "It's watching me."
"It's wondering if you're edible," I said, deadpan.
"Go away bird! I don't want to end up like Crowsfood Umber!" She squeeled as I chuckled.
The bird cawed again and flapped off her shoulder, vanishing into the trees.
Silence returned. Deeper this time. The kind that makes a man look inward.
"I didn't choose it," I added. "It was always there. I hid it because most men fear what they don't understand. But the old blood runs strong in the North. And in me."
Dacey crossed her arms. "You would trust us with this?"
"I just dropped a raven on your shoulder. If that doesn't say trust, I don't know what does."
She smiled, a real one. "Fair."
"You've earned it," I said. "All of you. You are the future of the North. The Southerners would decry me if they knew, call me a witch, there are already rumors. But you understand, don't you?"
Harrion stood and tossed his stick into the fire. "It doesn't make you a monster, Jon. Just a stronger northman."
Torrhen nodded. "Stranger, maybe. But we already followed you across half the Riverlands. A whale's just one more surprise."
Eddard simply grunted. Approval, maybe.
I looked at them all, quiet. "Thank you."
"We'll thank you when the war's won," Dacey said. "And maybe after you warg into a cook and make something edible."
The laughter that followed was light. Warm. Real.
We fell into an easy silence then. Below us, the camp stretched in ordered lines. Far off, a raven wheeled in the air, then vanished behind the trees.
"Still think we'll beat him?" Dacey asked, softer now.
"We won't beat him," I said. "We'll bleed him, bend him, bury him in his own pride. It'll take time."
"And if we run out of time?" Harrion asked.
"Then we'll fight him anyway," I said. "And make him regret every mile he ever marched north of the Trident."
The silence that followed wasn't uneasy. Just Northern.
Around me, a circle had begun to form. Trusted eyes, steady hands, voices that challenged and refined my judgment. A clique loyal not just to Daemon Targaryen or Jon Stark, the man, but to a vision we were bleeding toward together.
The forest deepened as the sun rose above the mist. By midday, it burned faintly through the canopy, filtering in shafts of pale gold that cut across the Kings Road. Men muttered about the closeness of the trees, the silence of birds, the way the woods seemed to watch.
Then a shape moved.
One moment there was nothing. The next, a boy in green and brown stepped from the underbrush as if the trees had given him up.
Mud crusted his boots and face. His cloak was stitched with bark and moss, his hair braided back with reeds and leaves. He could've stood at a man's shoulder and vanished in plain sight.
The courier said nothing. Just knelt, unrolled a damp scrap of parchment, and flattened it against a nearby rock. The ink bled in places, but the map was clear enough: strokes of charcoal marked ridges, brush, river paths, and the little red dots spoke plainly.
Movement. Enemy scouts.
"Lannister outriders, your grace." he said in a whisper that barely stirred the air. "Two dozen or more. Searching north and east. Hunting blind."
I knelt beside him, studying the terrain. They were probing, testing our lines like a blade across skin. Outriders a hundred miles north of their army.
"The beasts felt them before we saw them," the boy added. "Wolves restless. One stag dead near the river. The air's off. The lord says the lion is waking."
I nodded. "And we'll lull it back to sleep."
I tapped three marks on the map with a gloved finger.
"Send word. Guide them north-by-east, here, past the oak rise. Then kill them all."
The boy grinned, all teeth and dirt. "No fires. No mercy?"
"No fires," I said. "And no mercy. Tell your lord I wish to speak to him soon."
He nodded and vanished without a sound.
Cort appeared from behind me, bow in hand, watching the underbrush. "The Crannogmen sure are useful for this."
"They are incredible, if it wasn't for Ghost I would not know he was coming. They will bleed Tywin every step he takes when he starts marching toward us."
Behind us, I heard the low creak of wagons, the distant clink of armor. The main column still marched south, oblivious to the ghosts in the trees.
I turned to my map, quickly sketching a three-pronged maneuver.
I needed to bleed him.
Every man Tywin lost in these woods was a man who wouldn't lift a sword later. Every delay was a meal wasted, a horse lamed, a courier slowed. Every time he shifted troops to defend against ghosts, he showed me where he was weakest.
Every mile I can bleed him of men and time… I thought, watching the trees ripple in the breeze, …is a mile I control the war. And another hour of time Robb has to destroy Jaime's army.
The woods belonged to the North with the crannogmen there. And the North did not forgive.
Howland emerged from the mist like a thought made flesh, short, lean, his reed cloak clinging with river-wet moss. In his hand, he carried a bundle wrapped in oilcloth.
"Your Grace," he said, voice low and even, with no need for preamble. "The fourth party is gone. Five men, two horses. Same as before."
I nodded. "Any survivors left to tell Tywin our position?"
"No throats left to scream with this time as you ordered," Howland replied calmly. "We left one hung from a willow, though. They will find him and be scared."
I exhaled slowly. There was no pleasure in it, only the weight of another calculated cruelty. "And still they come?"
Howland's eyes narrowed. "Less boldly now. He sent a rider east. Your guess is as good as mine whether he reached Tywin with the Wargs going wild on the scouts."
"How many wargs ride with you, Howland?" I asked, softly now.
There was a pause. Howland lowered the bundle to the ground, inside it, I saw a ruined Lannister helm, split and bloodstained.
The wargs were my knife in the dark, Howland's ghosts scattered through the trees. We had shaped them into a signal web. Green for safe, red for scouts, black for an army on the move. Simple, but faster than horns or couriers, and deadlier too.
They were no soldiers. They were wild-eyed boys and girls with beasts that loved them like kin. Little shadows that slit throats in silence and left no riders alive to tell tales. Tywin's men rode north and simply vanished, swallowed by mist and mud. If one ever crawled back, it was broken, reeking of fear.
Howland had turned them into a guerrilla host, and I had given them purpose. They were patient, ruthless, and unseen. The land itself fought for us through them, and with every rider they cut down, Tywin bled just a little more.
"Four and forty wargs," Howland said at last. "Most of them young lands."
I looked away for a moment. Into the trees. Into the mist. There were a few crows in the trees looking at me and I wondered if they were Howland's Warg's.
"They will be useful in the march to come," I muttered. "I need Tywin to bleed before I face him. One thousand cuts before he sees my face."
"You're bleeding him already," Howland said. "But blood in the trees is slow. It takes patience."
My mouth twisted. "Patience is a luxury right now, if Tywin catches our army we will be outnumbered."
Howland knelt, scooping mud in his hand, letting it run between his fingers. "This land remembers. Even when men forget. We have time. You gave us time by building that bridge."
I looked down at Howland. There was no arrogance in his voice, only cold certainty.
I nodded once. "Lead them deeper. Give them ghosts. Let them lose sleep. And if any try to light a fire—"
"No one lights fires in the Neck if he is being hunted," Howland said. "Not twice."
Ghost growled low, a shadow in the brush. My hand fell on his head.
"Then burn them quietly," I said. "And Howland… I want you to hide a warg near the Twins I want every letter that reaches that castle copied and brough to me."
We will use Frey's swords and spears, and when they betray us, we will use it against them too.
"I will see it done. A couple of them know their letters."
Howland stood, and without a sound, vanished into the mist.
Fucking Crannogmen. They are so cool…
The fire in the center of the command tent hissed as someone tossed in a wet log. Sparks spat, smoke curled, and the shadows of the North danced on the canvas walls. The distance to Twins host had shrunk to seventy miles according to the wargs so it was time to discuss strategy with the lords.
Greatjon was already halfway through a skin of wine, his beard damp with it, voice loud enough to stir the trees. "I say we press west again and build another bridge here. Strike at Riverrun with Lord Robb, the old lion will never expect that!"
"No," Rickard Karstark said, folding his arms across his chest like a stone gate. "Every mile Tywin marches north is another mile between his host and Jaime's. Let him come to us and them we give battle!"
Maege Mormont was sharpening a dagger with one knee up on a crate, looking between them. "You boys always want to ride and shout and die. This is a hunt, not a battle."
I let them speak. Let them burn the air. These were proud lords, proud voices. Let them clash in smoke before I brought steel.
When I finally stood, the firelight caught on my breastplate. Silence followed, slow and begrudging.
"We are not here to fight battles," I said. "Not yet at least, Tywin outnumbers us by quite a bit. We are here to control the board."
Greatjon snorted. "You sound like a maester."
"No," I said, looking him in the eye, "a maester would argue and ask. I am telling you, Lord Umber. This I what we will do."
That shut him up, for now.
I stepped closer to the map pinned to a slab of bark and stone. "Tywin wants a clean field. He wants banners and drums and a name for the songs. We will not give him any of that."
Maege gave a curt nod. "He rides heavy. Let him sink in the mud and fear the trees."
"Exactly." I pointed to the river forks. "His scouts are already dying. His outriders don't come back. He sends another hundred men into the fog, he'll lose eighty and find nothing but whispers."
Galvart Glover grunted. "You want to break his nerve."
"I want to own the timing of our battle," I said. "Every hour we slow him, Robb gets closer to Riverrun. If we force Tywin to move early, we do it on our ground, not his."
Greatjon scratched his chin. "And if he sits?"
"Then he sits. With a bleeding flank and broken nerves. His men won't sleep. They'll start turning on each other in the dark as we keep hitting them."
Maege grinned, all teeth. "I like it."
Karstark said nothing, but I saw the flicker in his eyes, a grim approval. A plan that didn't waste lives for pride.
Greatjon finally spoke, lower now. "All right, lad. You've got the wolves stalking. What do you need from us?"
"Discipline," I said, meeting each of their eyes in turn. "We strike and vanish and make him follow us as we do that repeatedly. Until I say otherwise. Do not worry my Lords, you will get your battle."
I paused.
"When it's time to kill him, you'll know. Until then, we hunt."
Dusk swallowed the forest whole.
From the ridge above the march, I watched the mist rise off the river like ghosts called by old blood. It clung low and heavy, turning the Green Fork into a glimmering serpent. Trees loomed in the fog like giants frozen mid-step. Ten paces out, and a man might vanish entirely.
Good. Let them vanish.
Below, the Lannister outriders crept forward in a crooked line. Nervous and slow after a hundred f them never came back. Cloaks damp, swords already drawn. I counted heads, twenty-five, maybe thirty. No more than the fifth probe this week.
They were learning. Too slow.
Ghost stood beside me, breath quiet, ears forward. I kept one hand on his fur, grounding myself. Even from here, I could feel the tension in the air, the taut silence before the arrow's whisper.
It came like breath.
One shaft. Then a wet cough. A fall.
Another arrow. Then three at once.
The line broke almost immediately. A horse reared, screaming. Men shouted, too loud, too many directions. One tried to run back the way he'd come and vanished into a trap pit disguised under the leaves. I didn't need to see it to know; I'd ordered it built.
Then the Reeds came.
Spears stabbed from hollows. A dagger slid out of shadow and back again. Greencloaks danced among the trees like they were born from bark and mud.
Then the wargs tore in.
I felt them in my mind before I saw them. Their horses throw the men off. The wolves that followed weren't large compared to ghost, but they were hungry and fast. A Lannister archer barely turned before his throat vanished.
The column collapsed in on itself. Men trampled each other trying to escape. One tried to light a torch and took an arrow through the eye for the trouble.
It was over in less than a minute.
Silence fell, thick as the fog.
The Reeds melted back into the trees. Only a few groans remained, and soon even those stilled.
Cort stepped up beside me, bow still in hand. Below us, the last shapes twitched and stopped.
"Was that the whole column?" one of the crossbowmen near him muttered.
Cort shook his head. "So it would seem."
I said nothing.
My eyes were still on the mist ahead, on the deeper dark, where I imagined Tywin's main vanguard crouched, wondering why his men hadn't returned.
He'd feel this one. They'd find the bodies, those they could find. Most would just disappear.
Let them question the woods. Let them fear every branch that creaks. I wonder if I can make him as mad as my grandfather from paranoia before this is done.
Behind me, boots on damp earth. I didn't need to turn.
"Howland," I said.
He crouched beside me, no louder than wind through reeds. Mud up to his knees, green cloak blending so well it made my teeth itch.
"Fourteen down to the west of here, we found another scouting group," he murmured. "One left alive. Limping."
I frowned. "I said no survivors."
"He didn't run. We let him go."
A pause. I glanced down.
"You let him?"
Howland's mouth twitched. "Scared men tell better stories. He'll ride back screaming about ghosts and wolves and eyes in the trees, of Dragon Banners."
I considered that. Then nodded.
"A message, then. Fine."
That should be enough to get Tywin to start moving.
"How are your men?" I asked.
"A Warg took a graze, but she's alive. We sent her back to camp to rest."
I turned back to the forest. The last torch flickered out below. The Lannisters were coming, we were meeting more and more outriders as the days passed.
"Tell your scouts to fall back two miles before dawn," I said. "We'll bait the next column farther in."
He nodded once, and vanished into the mist.
Cort watched him go. "So… we're ghosts now?"
I looked down at Ghost and smirked. "Yes."
The prisoner was dragged in front of me by two grim-faced rangers a few days later, mud streaked across his bloodied face, but his green eyes still burned with defiance. Young, maybe no older than nineteen. The kind of boy who thought courage was louder than caution.
They bound him to a post just outside the tent, the cold wood biting into his wrists. Around him, a ring of silent faces, northern men with harsh lines, ready for judgment, yet holding their tongues.
I crouched to meet his eyes, lowering my voice. "You've come far from home."
He spat, and it landed near my boot. "Not far enough, Dragonspawn."
The word hung in the air, sharp and deliberate. I let a slow smile curve my lips. "Dragonspawn, mm? You carry your lord's words well. And you think you know who I am?"
His eyes flickered with anger, but I kept my tone light, like a teacher entertaining a foolish student. "Your men have been probing our woods."
He snorted, the edge of scorn unmistakable. "Trying to find where you hide, bastard!"
"Do you?" I leaned in just a little, voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "Tell me, when your lord sends his scouts, how many go? And do they always come back?"
He hesitated, flicking a glance toward the guards, then back to me. "The old lion is coming bastard! He will kill you all!"
I straightened. "Tywin's moved north, then?"
That confirmed what the crannogmen were saying.
He sneered. "You'll burn, Dragonspawn."
I smiled wider, letting the insult slide like water off steel. "Dragons don't burn, little soldier."
Before I could press further, Cort appeared at the tent flap, breath heavy from the cold march.
"Reed says Tywin's burning the woods," Cort said with a crooked smile, "trying to smoke out the crannogmen."
A ripple of laughter broke through the gathered men. The idea of Tywin Lannister coughing through smoke and dodging silent hunters was enough to raise their spirits.
I returned my gaze to the prisoner, my voice calm but sharp. "Let him burn what he will. He won't get anything but bad lungs from it."
The prisoner's face twitched, fear or contempt, I couldn't tell. I stood then, circling him slowly.
"Men of the North! Tywin Lannister is coming for us! Will we hide our heads in the sand or will we give him War!" I cried out.
"War! War! War!" Came the response.
"What do we do about this one, Prince Daemon?" Maege asked.
"Get rid of him, he has already told us what we needed." No place for mercy in war. "Now we start rearing the Lion north."
Tywin won't know what hit him.