Winterfell “gazed upon the old Lord of the Tides with eyes as grey and cold as a winter storm, and said, ‘By whose hand and at whose word, I wonder?’ For the savages had come for blood and battle, as we would all learn shortly, to our sorrow.”
The good septon was not wrong. Others had started this war, Lord Cregan was heard to say, but he meant to finish it, to continue south and destroy all that remained of the greens who had placed Aegon II on the Iron Throne and fought to keep him there. He would reduce Storm’s End first, then cross the Reach to take Oldtown. Once the Hightower had fallen, he would take his wolves north along the shores of the Sunset Sea to visit Casterly Rock.
“A bold plan,” Grand Maester Orwyle said cautiously, when he heard it. Mushroom prefers “madness,” but adds, “they called Aegon the Dragon mad when he spoke of conquering all Westeros.” When Kermit Tully pointed out that Storm’s End, Oldtown, and Casterly Rock were as strong as Stark’s own Winterfell (if not stronger) and would not fall easily (if at all), and young Ben Blackwood echoed him and said, “Half your men will die, Lord Stark,” the grey-eyed Wolf of Winterfell replied, “They died the day we marched, boy.”
Like the Winter Wolves before them, most of the men who had marched south with Lord Cregan Stark did not expect to see their homes again. The snows were already deep beyond the Neck, the cold winds rising; in keeps and castles and humble villages throughout the North, the great and small alike prayed to their carved wooden god-trees that this winter might be short. Those with fewer mouths to feed fared better in the dark days, so it had long been the custom in the North for old men, younger sons, the unwed, the childless, the homeless, and the hopeless to leave hearth and home when the first snows fell, so that their kin might live to see another spring. Victory was secondary to the men of these winter armies; they marched for glory, adventure, plunder, and most of all, a worthy end.
Once more it fell to Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, to plead for peace, pardon, and reconciliation. “The killing has gone on too long,” the old man said. “Rhaenyra and Aegon are dead. Let their quarrel die with them. You speak of taking Storm’s End, Oldtown, and Casterly Rock, my lord, but the men who held those seats were slain in battle, every one. Small boys and suckling babes sit in their places now, no threat to us. Grant them honorable terms, and they will bend the knee.”
But Lord Stark was no more inclined to listen to such talk than Aegon II and Queen Alicent had been. “Small boys become large men in time,” he replied, “and a babe sucks down his mother’s hate with his mother’s milk. Finish these foes now, or those of us not in our graves in twenty years will rue our folly when those babes strap on their father’s swords and come seeking after vengeance.”
Lord Velaryon would not be moved. “King Aegon said the same and died for it. Had he heeded our counsel and offered peace and pardon to his foes, he might be sitting with us here today.”
“Is that why you poisoned him, my lord?” asked the Lord of Winterfell. Though Cregan Stark had no personal history with the Sea Snake, for good or ill, he knew that Lord Corlys had served Rhaenyra as Queen’s Hand, that she had imprisoned him on suspicion of treason, that he had been freed by Aegon II and accepted a seat upon his council…only, it would seem, to help bring about his death by poison. “Small wonder you are called the Sea Snake,” Lord Stark went on. “You may slither this way and that way but, oh, your fangs are venomous. Aegon was an oathbreaker, a kinslayer, and a usurper, yet still a king. When he would not heed your craven’s counsel, you removed him as a craven would, dishonorably, with poison…and now you shall answer for it.”
Then Stark’s men burst into the council chambers, disarmed the guardsmen at the door, pulled the aged Sea Snake from his chair, and dragged him to the dungeons. There he would soon be joined by Larys Strong the Clubfoot, Grand Maester Orwyle, Ser Perkin the Flea, and Septon Eustace, along with half a hundred others, both highborn