When the news of total victory reached him from Eastwatch, Lynn sat in the King's Tower, frowning as he weighed how to take the North.
Maester Aemon had sent out dozens of ravens. Except for the ones traveling too far, most castles that should have answered stayed silent.
Only Ramsay Snow, bastard and acting castellan of the Dreadfort, bothered to reply. The letter was crude—full of cheap insults and empty threats—but it carried some unexpected news.
"Balon Greyjoy died in a storm? Red Wedding and Purple Wedding?"
Lynn handed the letter to Ser Denys with a surprised look, hoping the old knight could explain.
In these times even marriage had turned dangerous?
Ser Denys Mallister's face looked worse than when he had watched the Thenns butcher the Night's Watch brothers—despite the fact that the killers had also wanted him dead.
"The Freys and Boltons betrayed House Stark. They openly broke guest right at the wedding… King Robb is dead. If that's true, House Stark has no male heir left."
Ser Denys's hand shook around the letter. In that moment he looked older than ever.
"May the Seven curse them!"
The old knight was genuinely furious.
Lynn wasn't surprised House Stark still had friends in the Watch leadership. The Wall stared straight at the North, and the Starks had backed the black brothers for thousands of years with supplies and men. They even had a habit of sending second sons to take the black.
"Your Seven Gods don't seem to carry much weight, Ser."
Lynn's patience was thinning.
Compared to the so-called Seven, he put more faith in whatever force had guided his return capsule straight into the Three-Eyed Crow during the crossing—at least that one had actually caught the ship when the parachutes failed and saved his life.
"Your Grace."
Ever since Lynn brought back over a thousand suits of armor, Ser Denys had grown noticeably more respectful.
"If the letter is true, then Westeros has only three kings left. Joffrey Baratheon was poisoned at his own wedding. His brother Tommen will take the Iron Throne.
The Iron Islands have no king yet—no one's stepped forward.
The other two are you and the Stannis you just broke."
Before Ser Denys finished, Mance walked in holding another letter.
"There is no Stannis king anymore, Ser Denys."
He spoke loud and clear.
"Tormund hit Hardhome last night. He used inflatable seal-hide rafts and grappling hooks, boarded the ships, and took the whole fleet. Among the prisoners is a Lysene pirate captain named Salladhor Saan—the man who supplied Stannis with those ships.
The captives also include Queen Selyse, Princess Shireen, Hand Davos Seaworth, and every last sack of grain."
"Stannis is finished!"
Mance grinned wide and handed the letter to Lynn.
"That fat maester lost the ravens, so this one came by rider. Took a little longer."①
"Samwell isn't a maester."
Ser Denys grumbled. At this point he couldn't think of a single thing that could stop Lynn from marching south.
The arrogant fool Stannis had delivered equipment and a fleet straight into their hands.
King Robb Stark of the North was dead in a foreign land, his army gone. The North's fighting strength was thinner than it had ever been.
The Free Folk followed Lynn to the death and called him the voice of the gods.
Maybe the compromise the Night's Watch had been forced into really would become reality one day.
A new conqueror might be born right here.
Lynn read the letter and felt his mood lift.
This entire operation had been his plan from start to finish. A clean, total victory. That kind of satisfaction beat everything else.
He felt something new stirring in his chest—ambition.
"Thirty Lysene warships and one giant flagship, the Valyrian. Heh. Think selling them would buy enough grain for the Free Folk to last the winter?"②
Lynn smiled.
"Your Grace, your generosity is moving. But in my judgment, keeping those warships would bring far more value than any grain we'd get by selling them."
Ser Denys saw the tide turning hard in favor of the young "Son of the Stars" and offered honest advice.
The Night's Watch was supposed to stay neutral, but few ever managed it.
"The Free Folk don't sail, and Lysene pirates can't be trusted.
Tormund said if their crew hadn't gone ashore to hunt and stayed the night, we never would have taken the fleet."
Mance answered calmly—protecting Free Folk interests while giving sound counsel.
Lynn raised a hand to cut off their back-and-forth.
"A storm's blowing at sea. Tormund's still a few days out from Eastwatch. May his god watch over him.
No rush. I'll decide once I see them."
Then he turned back to Ser Denys with a deliberate smile.
"Ser, you come from an old noble house and you've seen a lot. Explain something to me—what exactly does it mean that House Stark has no male heir left?"
Ser Denys blinked, then answered without thinking.
"Robb Stark never had children. His brothers Bran and Rickon were murdered by that ironborn traitor. So yes—House Stark has no male heir."
When Lynn kept staring, the old knight continued.
"Originally it would have passed to Lady Sansa and her children. That's why the Lannisters married her to the Imp.
The Purple Wedding wrecked that plan.
According to the Bolton bastard's letter, the Imp and Lady Sansa are now accused of murdering the king. They probably won't live long.
As for the other Stark girl—nothing since her father was executed. Likely dead."
Ser Denys shook his head and sighed.
Lynn caught Mance's eye. Both men thought the same thing at once—that "idle piece" they had left on the board.
"Not quite, Ser Denys."
Lynn leaned back in the wide chair.
"House Stark's bloodline isn't gone. Lord Eddard still has a living male heir—and he's standing right in front of you."
Ser Denys looked confused for a second, then understood.
He spoke with clear displeasure.
"Jon Snow swore his life to the Night's Watch. That oath is unbreakable. It ends only in death."
Mance snorted.
"Ser Denys must be going blind. I'm standing right here. Did I die?"
"You—!"
Ser Denys trembled with rage. If he hadn't handed his sword to Nymo before entering like always, the old man would have drawn steel.
Lynn hadn't expected the knight to cling so hard to the oath.
The Night's Watch vow sounded noble, but words were just wind—like the old saying.
History was full of black brothers who broke their oaths. Mance's stories were better than most novels.
And the Watch was packed with criminals. Except for a handful, they had no honor left to lose.
Put on the black and every sin vanished. It was just lifelong prison plus hard labor.
① Footnote: Samwell Tarly is still just a steward, not a maester.
② Footnote: The thirty Lysene ships and the giant flagship Valyrian were captured at Hardhome along with Stannis's entire fleet.
Author's Note (Chapter split due to length)
Some readers might complain that Castle Black fell too easily last chapter. Fair point. Here's why it happened that way.
In the books the Thenn force that hit Castle Black was only about 120 men, and several died just climbing the Wall. Jon Snow also escaped on horseback midway through (Summer helped him kill a few Thenns) and gave the castle a full two-day warning. That let the Watch prepare properly and even pull in villagers and whores from Mole's Town to help defend.
In this story I raised the Thenn numbers to 200. More importantly, the main wildling army outside the Wall pulled almost every defender up onto the ice. (In the books Mance arrived late, so the castle fight and the Wall fight were separate. The show combined them.) That created a perfect surprise attack on an unprepared garrison.
Quick comparison:
Canon version
Roughly 40+ black brothers plus 20–30 villagers (including the whores), all behind prepared defenses and fire traps that killed plenty of Thenns… versus just over 100 Thenns.
This version
200 disciplined, battle-ready Thenn soldiers… versus a dozen or so raw recruits with zero warning. Their best fighter, Donal Noye, got trapped in the iron cage and captured before he could do anything.
So the easy victory was realistic.
In the books the only reason the Thenns didn't overrun the place was Mance's stupid decision to let Jon go with the wildlings, which let the kid escape and sound the alarm. Without that warning, Castle Black still would have fallen.
Here's the relevant passage straight from A Storm of Swords, Jon's chapter:
> Every day after the march, the Magnar called him over with sharp, clever questions about Castle Black—its garrison and its defenses.
> Jon lied where he dared, pretended ignorance elsewhere, but Grigg the Goat and Errok were right there and knew enough to keep him careful.
> Too obvious a lie would give the game away.
> The truth was grim. Aside from the Wall itself, Castle Black had no defenses—no palisade, no ditch, not even an earthen rampart. The so-called "castle" was nothing but a cluster of wooden towers and stone keeps, two-thirds of them collapsing or ruined. As for the garrison, the Old Bear had taken two hundred men on the ranging.
> How many had returned? Jon had no way of knowing. Perhaps four hundred remained, most of them stewards, builders, and boys still in training, not rangers.
> The Thenns were hard fighters, more disciplined than most wildlings—and that was exactly why Mance had chosen them.
> Against them stood blind Maester Aemon, half-blind steward Clydas, one-armed Donal Noye, drunken Septon Cellador, deaf Dick Follard, "Three-Finger" Hobb, old Ser Wynton Stout, and the boys who had trained with Jon—Hake, Toad, Pyp, Aemon, and the rest. Their commander was the fat, red-faced Lord Steward Bowen Marsh, acting castellan while Lord Commander Mormont was away.
> Edd the Mourner had given Marsh a nickname: "the Old Pomegranate."
> "One day when you're in proper battle you'll be glad to have him," Edd said in his usual gloomy voice. "He'll count the enemy for you. He's a living abacus."
> If the Magnar took them by surprise, it would be a slaughter. The boys would die in their beds before they even knew what was happening.
That's why in this version the Thenns rolled straight over the place. No warning, no prepared defenses, and the best fighter on the Wall got bagged in a cage before he could lift a finger.