Chapter 24 — Odin, the Poison-Tongued Strategist
When Brienne was led away, a heavy silence settled over the chamber.
Jaime snatched up his goblet and knocked back the cheap wine in a single pull, as though the sharp, sour burn might drown the agitation and guilt roiling in his chest.
Roose Bolton's pale gaze shifted back toward Odin, though he said nothing.
He was waiting.
Waiting to see how this supposedly sharp-minded farmer would handle the awkward fracture he himself had engineered.
Because yes—the trap had been deliberate.
Holding Brienne as a hostage wasn't truly necessary for Roose. He had already weighed the future benefits of returning Jaime intact and aligning himself with Tywin Lannister. The hand that held the scales had settled quite firmly.
But Odin—
Odin made him uneasy.
Not fearful—no.
Uneasy.
The kind of unease a man feels when confronted with something he can't measure or control.
That unshakable calm, that air of someone who understood more than he should—it stirred Roose's instinct to reassert dominance.
He wanted the reins back in his hands.
So he pried the fragile party apart and waited to see if Odin would crack—
or whether this "friendship" was worth more than Odin claimed.
Under Roose's quiet scrutiny, Odin finally moved.
He leaned forward out of the shadows, and for the first time the dancing firelight revealed his face clearly.
There was no panic.
No anger.
No urgency to repair bonds torn apart moments ago.
Not even triumph at their fragile agreement.
Only stillness—
as though the uproar had been nothing more than an inconsequential ripple across a deep, motionless lake.
"Lord Bolton."
His voice carried no detectable emotion—if anything, a hint of casual ease.
"Before we depart for King's Landing with your letter of safe passage, I believe there is… one more matter of business we might discuss."
Roose's brows lifted—amused despite himself.
Odin wasn't pleading for Brienne.
Wasn't demanding she be released.
Wasn't even pushing him to seal their arrangement immediately.
No—
he wanted to talk business.
Intriguing.
"I'm listening," Roose murmured, settling back in his chair, pale eyes fixed on Odin with a predatory curiosity.
Odin laced his fingertips together on the table, voice even and unhurried:
"Our previous agreement stands. But I am a man who prefers solving potential… inconveniences for my partners."
"It builds trust—and trust lasts longer than parchment."
A faint pause.
Then:
"For example… when the southern war subsides and you return north with your loyal armies—how might you reclaim Moat Cailin from the ironborn with minimal losses?"
Roose's spine straightened before he could stop himself.
Even his pupils tightened.
Moat Cailin.
The choke point of the North.
The gate through which every army must pass.
And currently held by the ironborn—stubborn as barnacles, vicious as rock crabs.
Exquisite victory elsewhere would mean nothing if Roose returned home only to stare helplessly at his own front door.
And this—
this farmer—claimed he had a solution?
Roose said nothing, but Odin read him cleanly—insight cutting like a scalpel.
He continued, smoothly:
"Moat Cailin is impregnable not because of walls alone, but because of the swamps that hunger for the careless."
"Assaulting it head-on would only bleed your northern soldiers dry and feed the marshes with heroes."
Roose gave the faintest nod—
yes, he knew this.
"So we do not attack it," Odin went on calmly.
"We let it rot from within."
Roose repeated the word quietly, tasting it:
"Rot…?"
"First," Odin said, raising a finger, "you surround the fortress on both sides—cut every path, sever every supply line."
"Moat Cailin hasn't been properly held for centuries. There are no storerooms stocked for siege, and the ironborn never carry much food when raiding."
"Soon they will starve—and hunger breeds unrest."
Reasonable. Expected.
Roose inclined his head faintly—this was already in planning.
But then—
"Second," Odin continued, "at night, send voices to the foot of the walls."
Roose frowned.
"A night assault? No army has ever—"
Odin chuckled softly.
"No, my lord. Not an attack. Something far more… efficient."
"Children."
Roose blinked.
Odin's gaze sharpened:
"Children with bright, clear voices—singing ironborn songs."
"Every night. Beneath the walls."
For the first time, Roose's composure wavered.
"To what end?"
Odin's smile was razor-thin:
"Imagine ironborn starving in the cold—shivering behind damp stone."
"Their bellies empty, their bodies exhausted."
"And through the night…"
"the voices of children calling them home."
His words dropped like stones in a frozen lake.
"They will remember their islands."
"Their families."
"The salt wind and the sound of waves."
"They will ask themselves why they die in a swamp for a ruin that was never theirs."
"And longing, Lord Bolton…"
"longing will gnaw at them faster than hunger ever could."
Jaime shivered.
In his mind's eye, he saw himself imprisoned in Harrenhal again—
weak, starving—
and every night hearing Casterly Rock's songs echoing through the dark.
He wasn't sure he would have survived it.
Roose, too, felt something stir—
something close to admiration.
For the first time, his pale face betrayed real emotion.
"Remarkable," he murmured.
Not a compliment—
but the closest thing a man like Roose Bolton would ever give.
It was a plan that bypassed force entirely and struck straight at the most fragile part of human nature—
fear, longing, doubt.
It would fracture the ironborn from within, leaving them divided, paranoid, and unable—or unwilling—to fight.
Odin… what a terrifying man.
Yet Odin clearly felt their shock was still insufficient.
He tapped a knuckle lightly on the table, jolting Roose Bolton from his thoughts, and delivered his final, most horrifying stroke—
the true killing blow.
"Step three… we manufacture a plague."
A beat of stunned silence.
Then—two simultaneous outcries:
"A plague?!"
One from Jaime.
One from Roose.
In a world with crude medicine and superstition thick as mud, the word itself was synonymous with doom.
And Odin had said it as casually as someone suggesting salt for supper.
They stared at him, appalled.
Odin lowered his gaze slightly, letting half his face slide back into shadow. The hint of a smile curved his lips—cold and merciless.
His voice dropped, slow and deliberate, like poison dripping from a blade:
"After a week of siege, when their rations are stretched thin and nerves are threadbare… that is when we begin."
"We collect a few carcasses—livestock, or better yet… human remains. Bodies dead of fever."
"At night, using light trebuchets, we deliver them over the walls."
He paused—long enough for the horror to sink in—before continuing:
"And we contaminate their water source in the same way."
Odin's eyes found Roose Bolton's, dark and cutting:
"Within three days, they will notice the signs—fever, vomiting, strange lesions and boils."
"They won't understand the cause. They will not blame sickness or contagion."
"No… they will blame the gods."
A hard swallow echoed in the chamber.
Jaime's breath hitched. A chill climbed up his spine like an icy hand, settling between his shoulder blades. His green eyes widened with something close to terror.
He had known war.
Known ambush, deceit, impossible odds.
He had been outplayed before, at Whispering Wood.
But this—
This was cruelty of another breed.
A strategy so ruthless and precise that even a kinslayer like Jaime felt his blood run cold.
It was brilliant.
It was monstrous.
It was Odin.
Even Roose Bolton—fell silent for a long time.
His pale eyes fixed on Odin, unblinking.
The man who flayed others with his own hands found himself confronted with a method so venomous, so cleanly efficient, that he hesitated.
And still, Odin pressed forward—voice low, hypnotic, irresistible:
"It is the most effective way, my lord—simple, direct."
"Once fear takes hold, they will turn on each other like cornered animals."
"For the last drop of clean water. For one untainted corner of shelter."
"Trust will rot faster than their bodies."
His tone sharpened to a decisive edge:
"I guarantee it—within days someone will throw open the gates, begging for mercy and cures."
"Or… we wait. Let them destroy themselves from within."
"Then we walk in—unchallenged—and take possession of a fortress filled with corpses."
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