Chapter 32. Stony Sept.
The road back to Stony Sept showed Arthur what victory had not erased. The eastern Riverlands had been torn open by Lannister raiding. Burned villages, empty fields, corpses by the roadside, smallfolk moving without direction because home had become ash. The closer they came to Seagard and the lands patrolled by Mallister men, the more order returned, but even there refugees were moving north and east, looking for walls, food, and someone with a sword who did not immediately demand everything they owned.
Newroot had become one of those places. Refugees had gathered near the village because the militia patrolled the roads and the Battanian banner meant bandits were killed rather than negotiated with. Near the ruins of Wend Town, survivors had begun returning to rebuild. Arthur was pleased to see it. Newroot's grain, furs, timber, and ale needed nearby markets. Selling everything in distant Seagard wasted time, wagons, guards, and luck. A rebuilt Wend Town would make the whole region stronger and cheaper to manage.
Upon returning, Arthur restored order quickly. Several small gangs had tried looting under cover of war and refugee movement. He crushed them before they became ambitious. The lesson spread faster than mercy would have. Newroot was not an open purse. It was a place under protection, and protection meant teeth.
Only after that did he enter the repaired stone chamber inside Stony Sept that served as his hall. Calling it a lord's hall would have been generous, but humans loved titles, and the system seemed willing to tolerate the insult. There, Arthur counted the gains from the Whispering Woods and Riverrun.
The loot came mostly from captured weapons, armor, horses, coins, and personal valuables taken from prisoners or collected from the battlefield. Much of it was inconvenient to carry or redundant, so Arthur sold it through the system store. The prompts flashed one after another until the number finally stopped and the wealth column read 104,000 dinars.
Arthur stared at it for a long moment. One hundred thousand. House Lannister truly was filthy rich. A single ambush and relief battle had produced more wealth than months of careful trade. If he had possessed enough cavalry, he might have been tempted to follow Robb into the Westerlands and turn gold mines into a career path. Temptation, fortunately, was not yet command.
Then came expenses. Newroot's monthly maintenance, including farmers, militia wages, building upkeep, tools, food support, and repairs, cost around 8,000 dinars. Military upkeep for the current force of 156 men cost around 20,000. With supplies, pensions, equipment damage, and irregular rewards, the fixed burden approached 30,000 dinars per month, and would rise.
Arthur rubbed his brow. "No wonder lords are always fighting, taxing, and marrying their children to strangers. An army is a pit with a mouth."
Advancement was worse. Many soldiers had gained enough experience to promote, but promotion required coin and equipment. Upgrading all eligible men would cost at least 50,000 dinars. Power had a terrible habit of presenting itself with an invoice.
Arthur opened the Buildings category and found another answer wearing the shape of another expense. The Workshop Construction Blueprint cost 5,000 dinars and could be selected by type: blacksmith, brewery, textile mill, woodworking shop, and more. It required stone, wood, food, workers, armed traders, and guards. After calculating, Arthur found the full cost would be 17,200 dinars.
It was not small, but Newroot produced good grain, and alcohol was close to currency in wartime. Men drank to celebrate, mourn, forget, and prepare to kill. A brewery was not romance. It was economics. He chose the brewery, because apparently civilization was built on grain, yeast, and men trying not to remember their lives.
The site was placed near the Blue Fork wharf. The blueprint turned to light. Resources vanished from storage, workers and guards appeared, and within days a proper brewery rose near the water, with warehouses, a small shop, and guarded storage. It looked modest. It smelled profitable.
A Battanian caravan followed soon after: twenty wagons, thirty armed personnel, carrying grain, furs, and the first barrels of Newroot ale. Its first successful trade at Riverrun brought over 20,000 dinars in profit. Arthur read the prompt twice, and for a moment, battlefield glory seemed deeply overrated.
If one village, one brewery, and one caravan could do this, then a network of workshops, trade roads, guards, and raw materials could become something far stronger than a single warband. Farming, production, trade, and protection. A quieter conquest, but perhaps a better one.
He calmed himself quickly. The brewery depended on Newroot's grain. Output was limited. Roads were dangerous. One successful raid could burn years of planning. Expansion needed caution, not drunken enthusiasm wearing a merchant's hat.
Over the following days, he reorganized the army. Kator's performance earned him promotion to Battanian Oathkeeper, a heavy infantry captain. Noli and Horgos advanced into elite guerrilla fighters. Beland became a Battanian Veteran Sickleman. Holk, the old Young Wolf captain, became an Alpha Wolf Warrior. The ten Noble Youths became Noble Warriors, his personal guard. Many Volunteers had died, but the survivors hardened into skilled fighters, Clan Warriors, Raiders, and Sicklemen. Of the fifty Young Wolf Warriors, twenty survived and became Old Wolf Warriors.
The total force stood at 156 men. The quality was much better, and the monthly cost became much worse. Arthur looked at the expense column and felt a familiar pain behind his eyes. Growth, construction, soldiers, workshops, caravans, all of it demanded coin. Where did coin come from? Farming, trade, and war.
He walked to the window and looked west. The Westerlands lay there, rich with Lannister gold and burning under Robb Stark's campaign. Farming mattered. Trade mattered. But sometimes the fastest money still lay on the battlefield. The trick was making war serve him without letting it swallow him whole.