Sansa said, "What?" Bran nodded and told her, "Arya is going to need control of the western half of the North. This enemy is going to make the Ice King look like a pushover. Sansa Arya has been fighting them for months now. She knows what's coming, and we have to make it possible for her to help us be ready. They hurt her, Sansa. " I'm not sure the houses in the North are going to like having a new half-warden Bran." Bran really looked at her, like 'three-eyed raven' looked at her and said, "Tell them it is that or we all die, Sansa. We only have about 7 years after Arya returns to get ready for them."
A few weeks later, King Wen came to the estate with about 20 wagons loaded down. First, he met with Arya and Elanor; he had ten strange-looking people with him. He introduced them as swampkin. He said they came to Thrain about ten years ago as children, as the Zon had wiped out their people. There were 6 men and 4 women, and one of the women looked into Arya's eyes, and Arya heard her voice inside her head, "We mean you no harm, and we only wish to survive and aid your fight against the Zon. Please take us with you; we can aid your communication among ships at sea." From the look on Arya's face, King Wen said, "I see she has made contact with you. It's a bit shocking at first. They can do all kinds of things that may aid you. If you are lost and one is with you, the others will know where you are. They can all contact each other and relay messages. You may yet find them quite useful, but they mainly want their people to survive. Like the sandkin and stonekin... survive."
Arya almost cried when he said that, a king admitting that they all might not survive. The swampkin knelt and swore fealty one by one into her head; she nodded after each. Then the king presented them with 30 thunder boxes; only 26 were very large. He said, "We call them smoke flowers, and these are all that were made. I invested all the gains from the raid into their quick production, and I will not have them used here to capture the Zon. Upgrades were made to the ammunition and powder systems, but I am sure your men will learn about all that. I suspect Gendry, Thomas, and the other young man will wish to devise mounting systems for them and practice a good bit. Anyone who had any part in their making or the powder's making will be shipped far to the west, along with many of my family members, in the hope that they might survive there. We are doing what we can to keep the Zon in the dark about this, though eventually they will understand. When you get home, young miss, please speak highly of some of what you found here; your people should not have the idea that we were all monsters." With that, he bowed and bid them goodbye, and none of them ever saw the fine king again.
Thomas, Gendry, Mangana, Yéye, and the stonekin forge masters all marveled at the smoke flowers. Thomas said, "Look inside the flower's mouth, see those lines that swirl towards the opening? I bet that spinning it makes the shot fly true. Truly, these are marvels of production; we must devise a platform for them to rest on. One that can be aimed up and down and swiveled from side to side, then locked into place. The whole platform will need to be able to push back far enough to reload it and tamp the powder home. Let's get the carpenters on this. I will draw up some plans."
The Zon general who was supposed to lead the invasion of Aman was shocked when they entered their city. Not a single soldier was alive, and everything was stripped from the castle... everything. They had to drag one sunken ship from the port entrance and then haul another out and repair massive damage to its hull. The only ship still afloat was leaking like a sieve by the time it limped back into port. The damage to the walls and the castle was extreme; it looked like some great beast had ripped holes in them. He put his 2000 troops to work repairing the walls and castle because there were no slaves left anywhere to use. He even had to send troops into town to requisition food to feed his men. All of this went into his report to his superiors; he requested all new staff and called off the planned invasion. The Zon were going to have to rethink who their enemy was... and what he was capable of. This was beyond belief.
Sansa told her advisors, "Well, we are going to need a road of stone built towards Arya's new port city on the Ice Bay, and it best be done before winter sets in. Bran says she will need it shortly after spring, and that brother of mine is always right. It's not much fun being left home to do all the work while your sister gets to run off to who knows where, gadding about." The advisors nodded and went to work.