The year was 294 AC, four years since the ravens carried Robert Baratheon's gold north, and the Neck had changed.
Moat Cailin stood reborn. No longer a scattering of black basalt ruins half-sunk in the mire, it rose as a fortress of grim purpose: twenty towers rebuilt in straight, unforgiving lines, curtain walls of layered stone and compacted earth rising higher than Winterfell's own. The causeway through the swamps had been widened and fortified, with murder holes, ballista emplacements, and gates that could seal the North from any southern host. Cregan had seen to it personally, sketching plans by torchlight in the command tower—Roman discipline in the bastions, Greek angles to deflect siege towers. The fever swamps still guarded the flanks, but now the Moat was a blade pointed south, not a broken shield.
Cregan Stark, now nine namedays and tall for his age, had claimed it as his seat. His father had granted the title quietly: Lord of Moat Cailin, Castellan of the Neck, heir to a new branch of House Stark. But Cregan had chosen a different name for his house when the banners were raised. House Lupus. The wolf, but black as night, with spear and gladius crossed beneath it. His words: We Shall Die But In Glory. Ned had raised an eyebrow at the Latin echo, but said nothing. The North remembered old tongues, even if they came from a boy's strange dreams.
From Moat Cailin, the port had grown. A mile south along the causeway's edge, where the swamps gave way to firmer ground near the Fever River's mouth, Cregan had ordered walls thrown up. Not the haphazard timber of most Northern holds, but stone quarried from the hills and barged in—high curtain walls encircling a burgeoning town. They called it Lupus Port for now, though the smallfolk whispered Black Wolf's Haven. Docks stretched into the river like fingers, built to Greek pattern: long, narrow slips for triremes that could ram and outmaneuver any Ironborn longship. Warehouses rose beside them, glass windows glinting in the weak sun—his own make, blown in small furnaces fed by charcoal from the wolfswood.
The city filled quickly. Villages from the Neck and the bogs sent families seeking work: masons, fishermen, farmers drawn by promises of steady bread and protection. Cregan had laid out streets in a grid, Roman-style, with covered sewers running beneath—stone channels sloped to carry waste to settling pits far from the wells. No more fever from fouled water; the smallfolk marveled at it, calling it sorcery until he showed them the simple fall of levels and gravity. Farms ringed the walls: potato fields spreading wide, hardy kale and turnips thriving in the cold, glasshouses trapping heat for herbs and early greens. The brewery thrived too—vodka barrels rolling out to ships, "Northern Fire" fetching high prices in White Harbor and even Braavos.
Trade came from Essos. Ships from Pentos first, fat-bellied cogs laden with spices, silks, and Myrish lace. Then Braavosi galleys, sleek and watchful, their captains eyeing the new port with merchant greed. Cregan met them in the great hall of his keep at Moat Cailin, black armor gleaming—his personal suit, forged to his measure: segmented plates like a Roman lorica, but darkened to midnight, with a wolf-pelt cloak. He spoke plainly, offering vodka and soap in trade for iron, dyes, and books from the Free Cities. Half the crown's debt—the portion Robert had sent for the repairs—he paid back early, ravens carrying sealed chests of gold south to King's Landing. "The North remembers its debts," he told the maester who carried the message. "And we pay them."
The army grew with the city.
His standing force numbered ten thousand now, drilled relentlessly in the yards beyond the walls. Two thousand archers—all Cretan style, recruited from sellswords who had drifted north or trained locals in the old ways. They carried composite bows of horn and sinew, arrows fletched for distance, and small round shields for when the lines closed. Light on their feet, deadly from afar.
Two thousand Greek pikemen—long sarissas in tight formations, walls of spearpoints to break charges. Twenty-five hundred hoplites, armored in bronze-scaled corselets and large aspis shields, drilling phalanx until their feet bled. Twenty-five hundred legionaries, gladius and large rectangular scuta, Roman discipline in every step: march, countermarch, testudo under simulated arrows.
One thousand heavy cavalry—Greek lancers in the old style, armored riders with kontos lances, trained to charge in wedge and shatter flanks. They wore scale over mail, horses barded lightly for speed.
And the elites: six hundred in all, three hundred Wolf Hoplites and three hundred Wolf Centurions. Pure black armor—plate and mail blackened with oil and soot—wolf-pelt capes flowing from shoulders. They never left Moat Cailin unless Cregan himself rode to war. Their barracks were within the central keep, their drills endless. Cregan had mastered both styles himself: hoplite spear and shield in the morning, gladius and scutum in the afternoon, until the movements blurred into one deadly flow.
Militia hoplites patrolled the streets of Lupus Port—citizen-soldiers in simpler gear, spears and small shields, keeping peace and manning walls against bandits or wildlings. In war, they would swell the ranks.
A maester had come unbidden from the Citadel—Luwin's recommendation—young and curious, named Walys. He brought ravens for both Moat Cailin and the new port, black birds trained to fly between them. Cregan mostly stayed at Moat Cailin, the strategic heart, but rode to Lupus Port every fortnight to inspect the walls, the docks, the training fields. The men cheered him as "the Black Wolf," half in jest, half in awe.
Catelyn had visited once, riding south with an escort. She walked the clean streets, saw the sewers, the glasshouses, the black-armored men drilling in silence. "This is... southern," she said, voice tight. She still lit candles to the Seven in her chambers at Winterfell, still prayed before weirwoods with quiet reluctance. Cregan knelt with her at the heart tree when she asked, red leaves whispering above them. He believed in the Old Gods—the weirwood faces watched, ancient and patient—but he did not argue faith with his mother. "The North endures," he told her. "In our way."
She left uneasy, but proud.
Then came the time skip—the turning of seasons until the autumn of 298 AC.
Cregan rode north to Winterfell at his father's summons. Robb was sixteen now, broad-shouldered and easy with a sword. Sansa dreamed of knights, Arya chased cats with a wooden practice blade. The royal visit loomed; Robert Baratheon was coming north, Myrcella's betrothal papers already sealed in wax.
But first, the hunt.
They rode out into the wolfswood—Ned, Robb, Jon, Theon, and Cregan at the rear with the household guard. A deserter from the Night's Watch had been caught; Ned would see justice done. The man knelt in the snow, trembling. Ice rose and fell. Clean. Quick.
As they turned back, the hunt found something stranger.
A direwolf bitch lay dead, stag antler through her throat. Around her, six pups—grey and black and white—whined in the snow. One for each Stark child. Robb claimed the grey one. Sansa the gentle white. Arya the fierce runt. Bran the climbing one. Rickon the smallest. Jon the all-white albino, apart from the rest.
Cregan stepped forward last. In the litter's shadow lay another: black as pitch, eyes open and red as fresh blood. It did not whine. It stared.
He knelt, extended a hand. The pup sniffed, then pressed its head against his palm.
"The gods give gifts," Ned said quietly, watching.
Cregan lifted the black direwolf. It was heavy, warm, alive. "This one's mine."
The pup growled softly, a sound like distant thunder.
Cregan smiled, thin and sharp. "Shadow," he named it.
The Black Wolf had his pack now.
And the game was only beginning.