NovelOnline Chapter 416 – Forces in the North Also Begin to Prepare.
Chapter 416 – Forces in the North Also Begin to Prepare.
[Chapter Size: 4100 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Arctic, 300 AC.
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The crows were not only flying through the south, but also advancing through the north, passing through the desert areas beyond the wall, until they found the most powerful kingdom in the world, centered around a giant sacred tree over 200 meters tall, taller than the wall at this moment.
Their wings entered its walls as they followed directly, one toward the Senate and the other toward the castle. Jon, obviously, had sent orders and a message, while the kingdom was also preparing to sail south in the coming days.
One of the crows first arrived directly to Brynden, at the Senate, while he was with Mance, one of the ministers, handling some issues related to the population, which had increased by more than ten thousand due to the people of Hardhome having accepted Jon's invitation to go to Arctic.
After what happened with Stannis, they finally decided to head north until they found the channel that connects Arctic to the sea and serves as the passage for ships, and after that, to follow to the left, going straight to the kingdom.
As soon as the kingdom's wall was finally found, they were approached by the men responsible for security, who took them to the gate, where the screening and registration process began, since Arctic documented everything with great rigor, even making drawings or detailing each person's appearance for later identification, while asking about each one's past.
They were also informed about the laws they should follow, along with instructions about the kingdom.
In any case, this process had already been happening for two moons, since when some men began to appear still living in the barren lands. Now that there was no more danger, they could live without fear of encountering White Walkers.
Even so, between living with what remained north of the Wall, after most of the animals had been killed by the shadowy creatures, or living in a self-sustaining city, the answer would always be Arctic, even if it meant kneeling and following orders and laws.
Now, Brynden took the crow's paper and opened it. There were some instructions that Jon had written and the situation in the south. Brynden, Mance, and the others would go north, and the letter gave a series of numbers that they should organize and resources they should take to the south.
All because of the report about the arrival of the freed slaves taken from the Iron Islands who would go north. At the moment Jon wrote that letter, he had not yet actually arrived in Blacktyde, but he still informed his intention and that there were around 250 to 300 thousand slaves kept in the Iron Islands.
He would send them north and would need a huge group of dwarf builders and resources to raise what would be the beginning of cities there. Which meant bringing wood, a lot of wood, since Jon would not be there to create an entire forest from which they could extract it.
The Gift had many forests, but it would be a shame to remove them, and the wood would not have the quality that Arctic had at the beginning of the city, before replacing wooden houses with stone houses. Even so, they would have to take Arctic's wood reserves.
There were also some instructions for Brynden.
"Any problem?", Mance asked beside him, curious.
"It's a letter from the king... The king has plans for the north. He has already sent as many letters from the maesters to the lords of Westeros, as well as guidelines that all the lords should have regarding Arctic's arrival and support Bran Stark of Winterfell."
"And those who don't support it?", Mance suggested.
"Well, I don't even need to say. However, the North is not foolish either. They have knelt to the Starks for thousands of years, they won't do differently. The Boltons are not in a good position at this moment. I am certain that whoever follows them will meet the same fate", Brynden said.
"Well, this conquest in the North won't seem very difficult..."
"And it won't be, but this will be an opportunity to bring the entire North to its knees for Arctic at once. They tried to 'rebel' in this war, and the result was not pretty. Anyway, I'll go to Bran, I've already seen that he is at the university. We'll start moving in the next few days, the army is already ready, we just need to take the resources that the king requests.", said Brynden.
"You can go to the castle while I get Bran, we need to handle this together, since we will be advancing together, I just want to review our strategy." Brynde said calmly.
"Alright." Mance said as they began to leave the senate.
In the last 2 and a half moons, all of Arctic's soldiers had already been preparing.
There were about 2000 ships at the port at this moment, which would hold up to 5000 ships in the future, relocated with equipment and resources, they would be divided into 2 types, while 500 ships were preparing to go to Essos, 1500 ships would go to Westeros.
It could be said that this is the largest fleet in the world.
Westeros was not the only thing occupying the king's attention, after all he planned to send men to assess the situation on the other continent. The ships had been held back until now to have the resource of a surprise attack in the west. At this point, it would not take long for the ships to finally be discovered in the coming weeks, so it was time for Arctic to finally move on its other fronts.
Now the idea was to resume the trade routes. These ships carried all of Arctic's products and some gifts, to be used if necessary, while the ministers Junly and Darius, being the ministers of commerce and diplomacy, they would be responsible for the renegotiations.
However, Braavos was a delicate situation and different from the rest of Essos. Jon had already spoken with Gavron, the minister of the treasury and finances of the kingdom, before, and aligned how the kingdom should proceed with him being away.
First, together with the two ministers, they would go to Braavos to speak directly with the keyholders and the Sealord about the resources Jon possessed — more than 8,000,000 gold coins deposited in the Iron Bank — an amount that allowed Arctic to hold a seat on the council and also guarantee influence in the bank's decisions.
Obviously, Jon of Arctic could not allow the Iron Bank to control a large part of Essos' economy and the world's loans. He had gotten his hands on a portion of the bank by placing his money there.
They knew this, but they would never refuse. After all, it was a lot of money at stake. First, he deposited 7,000,000 the first time Jon set foot in Braavos, and then another 1,000,000 through business and resources sent over time.
Braavos still remained the central point of Essos for trade and even for Westeros, not having a larger port. However, it was still necessary to check the state of his funds and deal with the matter of the Iron Bank, which had financed Stannis in the war, who was clearly against Jon, as well as the House of Black and White, which had been hired to harm him.
Even though Jon was not on good terms with the former King in the North, Robb Stark, Littlefinger, at the time, had paid to try to assassinate Robb in Winterfell and place the blame on Jon, trying to destroy any link between the North and Arctic, to prevent its strengthening. In the end, this failed, but the North still did not stop acting in a petty way, seeking a foolish independence.
Jon did not plan to act immediately. He only needed to understand how the conditions and the relationship between Arctic and the Iron Bank stood. He would act after dealing with Westeros as a whole and unifying the continent.
Depending on what happened, that giant over the city would not remain standing for long.
While three ministers would go to the sea/trade, three others would remain in Arctic: Seraphine, the minister of magic and arcane affairs; Kiera, the minister of justice; Haran, the minister of agriculture and Aemon, the minister of education.
Meanwhile, Thor and Ducken — the minister of artisans and the minister of war, as well as the general of Arctic — would head south with about 80,000 men, using most of the 1,500 ships.
Brynden and Mance would go north together with Bran, with about 20,000 men. Arctic had already recruited around 10,000 warriors in the last two months to strengthen the ranks. Today, Arctic's army had about 150,000 men, returning almost to the same strength as at the beginning of the war against the dead.
The schedule for the mobilization of the kingdom's army was as follows:
With the king, 20,000 men with 300 ships, attacking the western part of Westeros.
With the 3 ministers focused on trade, 20,000 men would go to Essos. But of those 20 thousand, only half would be troops. The others were men who handled the trade itself.
With Mance and Bran Stark, 20,000 men would go to the Kingdom of the North.
With Thor and Doran, 80,000 men would go to the eastern coast of Westeros, to attack King's Landing as the main army.
20,000 men would remain in Arctic with most of the Royal Guard. After all, even though the war had ended in the north and they were in a secure position, the kingdom remained cautious, knowing that anything could happen, internally or externally. The city itself had a guard of 10,000 men under Kiera's command, forming a total of 30,000 military forces to keep the kingdom safe and at peace.
Brynden walked through the city as he headed toward the university.
The city itself had returned to its pre-war fervor. It was not yet at the same level, but it was close. People had returned to doing business with one another, the university was functioning again, and once more the streets were full of people walking back and forth while talking and making deals.
The place continued to be full of children. Now that the men were leaving for war again, it was possible to see many mothers with their children, due to the kingdom's high birth rate in recent years. The older children, who had been born within the kingdom, were at most 11 years old; in the next decade, new workforce/military/intellectual forces would emerge from Arctic. Whether for the kingdom or beyond it. But these would be the first seeds of Arctic.
And now that the war against the dead had ended, it was once again possible to see many women beginning to form bellies, making the birth rate explode once more.
Brynden could not help but smile as he walked along with the guards through the streets. He remembered the decades when that place was nothing but a frozen desert; it had become something he could never have imagined even in his wildest dreams, when he was trapped among those roots to survive, in the sacred tree when it was only 20 to 30 meters tall, with only a few children of the forest as his company.
The kingdom had been created and would now grow explosively until the end of this century. Jon and he had made projections that, now that there was no longer the constant risk of infant death, and considering that the women of the north beyond the Wall naturally tended to have many children — as had been happening for thousands of years, when they expected few to survive —, all now had the conditions to raise their children in a much better environment than that of the old tribes and hostile surroundings.
In addition, there was assistance: a medical center in the city where all the healers attended to the people of Arctic, accessible to anyone, since it was funded by taxes. Thus, everyone had access to care. At least for now, since Jon would release the healers' center for someone to manage and would grant permission to build more of them.
Given this, the projection that he, Mance, and the king had made was that, on average, a woman would have between seven and eight children, with it being very likely that many would have a dozen or more children.
At least in this first moment, while the older generations were still adapting to a new way of life. Most likely, this would begin to decrease, remaining around three or four children in the next century, between 400 and 500 after the Conquest.
Even so, the city would support it very well, bustling within its structures, able to house up to 10,000,000 people and still expand further.
Obviously, its structure would have to change, but this would be done over the following decades, in addition to other cities that would be created outside Arctic, still in the region beyond the Wall.
In any case, Brynden had already arrived at the university, walking through and observing its functioning, with children carrying books or their bonded animals from one side to the other.
He easily found Bran, who was talking with other children, accompanied by their own animals, all having Warg connections. Jojen and Meera were also with him. Only Rickon was absent, probably at the castle — Brynden did not look for him.
Meera had also managed to awaken her abilities after the initiation potion that enhanced Warg abilities and awakened them; she had a dog with her, as her familiar.
"Lord Brynden," Bran immediately stood up upon seeing the minister and his current teacher in the mystical arts of greensight.
"Bran, we need to talk to prepare for the coming days. Can you come with us to the castle? Your cousin, Your Majesty, sent a letter. Mance is also waiting for us there," Brynden said.
"Alright, I'll go," Bran replied.
"Alright, Bran. Good luck in the south, man. Finish them off!" The students, still in their university uniforms, said with a brief smile.
Jojen and Meera followed him. All of them wore the same academy uniform, a blue cloak with Arctic's symbol, highlighted in bluish white.
Bran had a crow on his shoulder, one he had chosen in the forest within the walls in the last moon. This was not his first bonded animal — after all, he had already had Summer — and, objectively, he had acquired a bird in Winterfell. Unfortunately, the animal had been killed by the ironborn when they conquered Winterfell.
Thus, they headed toward the castle, with some dragons passing above them. Enchanted, they looked at the sky, seeing the queens making their daily flights directly from the castle, with their dragons — not yet very large for the courtyard at the moment.
Seryna was on one of the castle's balconies some time before seeing Rhaenys and Daenerys taking off with their dragons; she was actually in her room, with a sound coming from inside it.
Joy Hill, her lady-in-waiting, was there, playing a harp, a musical instrument she had learned to play in Casterly Rock, which Jon had given her. And she ended up leaving it in Seryna's room because she was always there.
Aemon was Jon's second son with Seryna, having 1 name day and 4 moons; he loved listening to Joy, and was sleeping to the sound, while the blonde continued playing and Seryna also enjoyed the melody while looking at the courtyard from her room's balcony.
She was watching the courtyard while Daenerys and Visenya prepared to mount their dragons, checking the saddles and greeting the beasts.
Her thoughts could not help but linger on Jon. Thinking about how he was now and the longing she felt for her husband.
She heard the bedroom door open and close. There were only a few types of people who could enter her room without asking permission first: obviously, her husband, her children, the queens, or her lady-in-waiting.
Small footsteps came, but Seryna knew it was not her son, who was a bit more noisy. And Loki was in her line of sight down in the castle courtyard at that moment, watching the dragons with his siblings.
She saw her son Aemon's wolf being attacked by two wolves, one measuring 2 meters, while the other was 1 meter, a little larger than Aemon's direwolf.
"Look at me," said a young female voice, arriving right in front of her.
Seryna looked at Lyanna, wearing a black dress with the Targaryen symbol stamped below the neck. She gave a childish giggle.
"You look beautiful," said Seryna, before looking at the person coming right behind.
It was Ygritte, as she approached holding a baby in her arms, also wearing a black cloak with the Targaryen symbol as a brooch.
"Look at this, it seems the two dragon queens ordered clothes for all the children," Ygritte said, approaching with a package of black clothes at her side.
She handed the package of clothes to Seryna and went to stand beside her on the balcony, also looking down, while Daenerys and Rhaenys talked, touching their dragons as they prepared to mount them, as they did every day.
There were also many children there — besides Loki, there were Jaehaerys and Brandon, as well as the dragon queens' babies, Visenya and Aegon, held by the queens' ladies-in-waiting — watching the women mount their dragons, something they loved to see, since they were forbidden to fly due to their young age.
There had been some attempts by these children, when they tried to climb onto the wings, but Jon had already foreseen this. Especially in his absence, knowing very well that Lyanna was rebellious enough to try something reckless like that, he had placed an order in the dragons' minds. Even without a direct bond, he forced this with his powers, almost like a consensus, revealing that their riders could die if they were not ready to fly.
The dragons themselves, despite yearning to dance through the skies with their riders, were still capable of understanding the danger of this at their age.
Loki's three dragons lived in the courtyard, along with Lyanna's two dragons. They were just not there at that moment because they had gone to fly a little south of the kingdom.
Now, turning her attention back to the clothes, Seryna could not help but look at the package made for her children.
This was the result of the insistence of the two dragon queens to preserve Targaryen culture within Arctic's royal family, Seryna saw no problem with it. After all, the children had Targaryen blood like their father.
"Well, I'll have Loki wear this for dinner," Seryna said and gestured for Joy to come closer and take the package to store it for later.
"Mom! Mom!", Laena began to squirm in Ygritte's arms.
"Calm down," she said, setting the girl on the ground. She ran to Seryna, hugging her legs over the dress, while Lyanna began to laugh.
"What are you doing?" Seryna said in a gentle tone.
"You know she clings to everyone, she's greeting you...", Ygritte commented, watching Laena touch the child's head. A smile full of tenderness came from the redhead.
Seryna turned her attention back to Lyanna. "Why aren't you down there with Loki? You never miss their flights." she asked curiously.
"I see it every day... I just wanted to see how I look wearing the dress. I'm beautiful, aren't I?" Lyanna said smiling, moving the dress from side to side, wanting to show herself, without any shyness, she was quite direct.
Seryna just let out a small laugh. "You are as beautiful as a princess of Arctic. Your father would love to see you." she added, which brought a blush to Lyanna's little face. Her weak point was clearly Jon, she loved her father.
"Daddy, daddy!", Laena's voice came again urgently.
Rhaenys looked down. The girl was asking for Jon. She turned her gaze to Ygritte, who lost her smile instantly.
The older ones already understood about Jon's absence, even though they complained about missing him, but all the children had begun to say their first words — "daddy" and "mommy" — during the last three or four moons. However, even though Jon had said goodbye to each of them and tried to explain that he would be away for a while, all the children still asked about him with a desperate tone, to the point of asking if Jon had gone away forever.
Jon, despite being in the middle of the war, had remained present at least every other day with the newborn children during the fight against the dead. But now he had definitely been away for two moons, and the children had begun to feel his absence.
"Your father is fighting a war, like a hero." Seryna said with a somewhat sad smile as well.
"What is... a hero?", the girl asked curiously.
"A hero is someone who protects us, defeats bad people and monsters, he saves the world, our kingdom or our family!", Lyanna answered immediately, touching her sister's head in Seryna's arms.
"That protects us... and fights bad people and monsters...?" the girl repeated, stuttering with some difficulty, but learning to speak very quickly. She would not even be two years old yet, and would already be speaking fluently — a common trait among the princes of Arctic, with proper education from the cradle.
"I already told you about this in dad's armor room. There are paintings about them in the hall, with the swords he used in each fight!", Lyanna said.
Ygritte picked up her daughter Laena and took her inside the room, giving a smile to Joy. "Can you take care of him as well?", she asked, as she placed her on the bed beside her brother Aemon, who was now beginning to wake up.
"Of course." Joy nodded.
"Laena, stay here with your sister. The music is very beautiful, don't you think?", Ygritte said, as the girl nodded.
"Aemon! Aemon!" Laena began to shout for her brother, forgetting the sadness of having asked about Jon earlier.
Ygritte returned to the balcony while Lyanna was talking with Seryna. "But you know... I also miss dad," she murmured, with a sad tone.
"He was sailing to the Iron Islands. In the last letter, he said he had already conquered the northern coast," Rhaenys replied.
"I heard that from mother Rhaenys..." Lyanna commented. It was normal for the children to call the other queens mother or aunt.
"This war will still last a few more moons. I just hope Jon is here for the birth of your two children," Rhaenys said.
The truth was that Jon had ended up leaving two of his wives pregnant on the last night he was in Arctic. Both Hiyori and Val were expecting more children.
Obviously, he still did not know this when he traveled south, but through the animals he always used — a wolf or even a dragon — he could take over their minds, observe his wives and children, see how they were.
It was at that moment that a crow interrupted the conversation on that balcony, landing on the edge of the railing.
All of them looked and could not help but be surprised. "It's Jon!", Seryna replied, with joy.
Jon could be present through the eyes of animals, and he even had some crows that imitated human speech, but it was not the same as a letter — not being able to form complete sentences, only a few words.
"Well, let's see what our husband is up to in the south," Ygritte said, watching Seryna smile as she took the letter and gently stroked the crow's feathers before going inside.
"Look, a letter from your father," Lyanna said to the two children.
Her son had already woken up with his sister's arrival on the bed, so why not listen to everything together? They sat on the bed to see what Jon had for them.
At the same time, the two dragons advanced into the sky, after Daenerys mounted her saddle and set off to take another flight over the city and the kingdom.
Some time later, Brynden arrived together with Bran Stark and the others to talk, since in the following days, the armies and 2 thousand ships would depart to the sea.
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