Chapter 91: The Karstark Oath
The news from Karhold caused an uproar before the ink on the first reports had dried.
Karhold had not fallen by siege. It had not been stormed. It had not been burned. Lord Alfie Karstark had ridden out with one hundred guards and chests of wealth, passed the coalition lines, entered Arthur Greyoak’s command tent, and sworn allegiance directly to him.
Not to Winterfell.
Not to Bran Stark.
To Arthur.
The North reacted exactly as any land full of proud, wounded lords would react. Badly, loudly, and with many references to ancestors who were safely dead and therefore spared the inconvenience of solving the present.
Greatjon Umber was furious for half a day, then admitted that Karhold’s men would be useful at the Wall and settled for calling Alfie a slippery old bastard whenever the matter arose. Lady Maege Mormont said less, which made what she did say more dangerous. Several smaller lords muttered about tradition. Others, with more sense or fewer soldiers, asked how many Karstark spears would join the march.
Winterfell sent a letter.
Maester Luwin’s wording was sharp enough to shave with. In Bran Stark’s name, he demanded explanation for why a house accused of oathbreaking, Bolton alliance, and armed resistance had been allowed to bypass Winterfell’s justice and place itself under the protection of a southern lord.
Arthur’s reply was brief.
The dead were moving beyond the Wall. Bolton had been destroyed. Karhold had submitted, yielded records and wealth, surrendered Bolton remnants, and placed its men under coalition command. Legal disputes, oaths, and old blood would be addressed after the living had secured the right to keep breathing.
It was overbearing.
It was also difficult to argue against without sounding like a man who preferred paperwork to survival.
The Karstark reorganization began the next day.
Grey Shadow took custody of letters, ledgers, and suspicious men. Flio’s clerks counted coin and jewels with the weary patience of people who knew numbers did not care about pride. Smith’s officers inspected Karhold troops one company at a time. Men fit for the Northern Campaign were separated from those better suited to guarding roads, hauling supplies, or returning to farms before hunger did what swords had not.
A portion of the Karstark force was folded into the coalition under close supervision. Not trusted. Used. There was a difference, and Arthur had no intention of confusing the two because a man had knelt prettily in his tent.
Lord Alfie accepted each loss with the face of a man swallowing stones.
Cregan Karstark bristled often. Robett watched more and spoke less. Arthur preferred Robett. Men who knew when not to speak usually had at least one working part of the mind.
Karhold’s surrender cleared the eastern road.
Oath Keep, formerly the Dreadfort, became the coalition’s rear anchor. Its stores were cleaned and counted. Its walls were repaired. Its worst chambers were broken open, burned, or sealed. The name had not yet settled on men’s tongues, but names often began as orders. Given enough repetition, even a cursed place could be forced to answer.
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From the western coast came reports of Ironborn raiders.
They were scattered bands, not the great strength of Pyke. Arthur’s earlier work with the Ironborn had contained part of the threat, but the North’s shores were long, poor, and tempting. Some raiders claimed no loyalty to Euron. Some claimed too much. The difference mattered less to the villages they burned.
Arthur sent detachments west with northern guides and Battanian light infantry. Their orders were plain. Drive off raiders. Burn boats if necessary. Rescue captives. Do not waste the main army chasing every kraken with a knife and a bad idea.
The Wall mattered more.
That truth spread through the camps day by day.
At first, many soldiers had treated the White Walkers as rumor, old tales turned useful by commanders who needed unity. Then the Night’s Watch messengers arrived with more reports. Villages beyond the Wall gone silent. Rangers missing. Corpses found wrong. Men who did not burn properly. Animals fleeing south. Wildlings moving in greater numbers, not raiding but running.
Fear changed flavor.
Bolton had been human fear. Ugly, familiar, manageable. A man could understand flaying even while hating it. The dead beyond the Wall were something else. They made men look north at night and listen too closely to the wind.
Arthur used that.
He gathered the commanders at Oath Keep.
The map covered three tables now. Moat Cailin. Winterfell. Karhold. Oath Keep. The White Knife. Last Hearth. The western coast. The Wall, long and pale in charcoal lines, stretched across the top like the edge of the world.
“Our rear is not safe,” Arthur said. “It is safer. That is enough. Oath Keep holds the east. Karhold is under command. Winterfell is allied. The Riverlands road remains open. The Westerlands continues supplies through the Neck. The Ironborn will be contained by detachments and local forces.”
He pointed north.
“We march to the Wall.”
The words silenced the room.
Even men who knew the plan felt the weight of hearing it declared.
“Smith will command the center. Kator takes the advance guard with Battanian scouts and northern guides. Beland holds the left column and keeps pressure on any Ironborn movement near the western roads if needed. Lord Alfie’s men will march under supervision in the second line. Umber and Mormont forces will coordinate with the northern houses still gathering.”
Greatjon grunted. “Last Hearth will send what it can. Men there know the land.”
“Good. We need land knowledge more than pride.”
“Hard to find one without the other in the North,” Greatjon said.
“Then bring both and keep the pride from blocking the roads.”
Maege Mormont gave a short laugh. Several men pretended not to hear it. Command tents were safer when pride had places to hide.
Arthur continued, “Old Harth’s first obsidian work will not be ready in large numbers. What we have will go to scouts, officers, and men most likely to face the dead first. Dragonglass must be treated as more valuable than gold until proven otherwise.”
Flio looked pained. “Gold at least does not shatter if dropped.”
“Gold also does not kill White Walkers.”
“Very inconvenient of it.”
A few men smiled. Not many. Enough.
The plans continued deep into the night. Rations, road repair, horses, sledges, medical wagons, spare bowstrings, winter cloaks, fuel, salt meat, grain, and the endless list of things armies needed before they could go somewhere dangerous and die in an organized fashion. Alwin’s clerks would have wept if they had been there. Perhaps they were already weeping somewhere else with ledgers. That was their battlefield.
By dawn, the camp was moving.
Banners rose.
Battanian green and wolf marks. Stark direwolves. Mormont bears. Umber giants. Karstark sunbursts, now watched carefully. Riverlands colors. Westerlands gold. A dozen histories that had no business marching together except that death had become persuasive.
Arthur stood on a rise outside Oath Keep and watched the columns form.
The castle behind him no longer bore the flayed man. The stake where Ramsay’s head had hung stood empty now. The head had been taken down after enough men saw it. Symbols had work to do, but leaving them too long made them rot into spectacle.
Smith came to stand beside him.
“The men are ready.”
“No,” Arthur said. “They are moving. That is different.”
Smith accepted the correction.
Arthur looked north.
Somewhere beyond the Wall, the enemy waited in cold that did not care about banners, debts, bloodlines, or claims. Westeros had spent generations teaching men to kill one another over crowns, honor, marriages, old insults, and pieces of land. Now all that talent would be asked to serve the living. It was almost funny, in the way a grave could be funny if one was tired enough.
Behind him lay Moat Cailin, Winterfell, Oath Keep, Karhold, and all the compromises made to bring the army this far.
Ahead lay the Wall.
Arthur pulled his cloak tighter and gave the order.
The Northern Campaign began again, this time not toward a traitor’s castle, but toward the edge of life itself.