261 AC
Varg
The march to Deepdown was quite a slog through the rugged land of Skagos, heading straight east from Driftwood Hall.
Behind him stretched his newly rebuilt warband, one hundred and fifty men at arms now proper grizzled veterans from the pass slaughter their mail fresh from the best looted iron.
His remaining huscarls rode close with their unicorns. He would need to find new men to restore the warband to its peak. He thought of a certain young man with a bow who had saved their arses.
Two hundred levies trailed behind raw recruits armed with spears and newfound chainmail, their eyes glinting with greed for Crowl plunder. Varg likely had the best-equipped levies in all of Skagos.
Before leaving, Varg's captain and lieutenants had squeezed secrets from captives taken after Ralf's fall.
Bound in iron and shivering, they had spilled everything under Torv's civilised torture, as he called it.
Deepdown was no grand castle, just a crude stone keep squatting near Skagos' eastern coast.
A single iron-banded gate guarded the entrance with a palisade above for archers. Inside a hall of warped planks housed the Crowl kin, their stores of fish furs and grain piled in damp cellars.
Varg wished he could starve them out, but this damned world weather meant every castle had stores lasting years. No way would he sit on his arse that long to siege a keep.
"Torv," he called. His scarred captain nudged his unicorn closer.
"How is my men morale?"
Torv responded
"Lads are ravenous, my lord. Veterans want blood for their comrades, levies want loot. You have a willing band, my lord."
Varg nodded. All was going to plan so far.
The march continued, the land growing wilder as they neared the coast.
By dusk, Deepdown bulk appeared. Varg halted his men on a low ridge, crouching to study the keep. Torv joined him, squinting through the gloom.
"Gate is the weak spot," Torv muttere,d pointing.
"Break it, and we are in. Archers will be trouble, though."
Varg's gaze traced the palisade, catching shadows moving, likely Crowl sentries.
"We have prisoners, though do we not?" he said, voice low.
"Common folk, not Lord Crowl blood, so their kin might not sway his loyal men. We will use them to distract while we strike."
Torv's grin widened.
"I think so too, my lord."
Varg straightened, mind racing. The prisoners, a handful of Crowl warriors, were not Crowl descendants, but they had kin inside, wives, brothers, and mothers.
In short, pure chaos. Varg knew Lord Crowl would not yield to peasant pleas, but their shouts could mask a bolder move.
He planned to drag them out at night chained and loud to draw eyes to the gate, then send huscarls to scale the palisade rear where the cliffs hid their approach.
If the shouts failed to soften the defence he would slit one throat at dawn to show he meant business.
"For a start, pick two prisoners," he ordered.
"Ones with kin in the keep to shout and stir trouble. Drag them out tonight to wail under torchlight. Meanwhile, ready ten huscarls to climb the cliffs back side when the sentries turn."
Torv nodded, turning to bark orders. Varg scanned the keep again, its silhouette stark against the fading light.
A frontal assault would cost lives. By using the prisoners as bait and hitting the palisade rear, he could split their focus and maybe crack the keep before the ram even swung.
He would still burn the place and loot it dry, but a softer entry meant more men walking away. He would have his levy meat shields charge first to soak up arrows.
The camp stirred through the night, men sharpening blades and checking mail under torchlight.
Varg paced restlessly as Torv dragged two prisoners forward, burly men with bruised faces but defiance in their eyes.
"Yell," Torv growled, shoving them toward the ridge edge.
"Tell your kin you are alive, or I will gut you here."
The first prisoner, a thickset man with a split lip, cupped his hands and shouted voice hoarse but carrying.
"Deepdown. It is Kael. I am alive, Stane has got me. Tod, you hear me?"
The second joined thinner his voice cracking.
"Torm, it is Ged. Tell Ma I am not dead."
Their words echoed, swallowed by the wind, but Varg saw movement on the palisade, shadows shifting, heads peering. Good. Let them get excited. Varg wondered how the old man was doing with his son's dead.
"Keep watch but no fires. We move at dawn."
The camp darkened. Varg lay in his tent. Deepdown was too far to hold too deep in Crowl land to tame. He would raze it, strip it bare, and haul everything to his budding port.
Oh, how he wished he had a raven network now.
Dawn broke. His men-at-arms locked shields, spears bristling while levies clutched their weapons behind.
Huscarls mounted unicorns. Varg rode at the front Torv beside him the green weirwood banner snapping above.
He raised a fist, and the men roared "Ura," a thunderous cry that shook the ridge.
It must have been intimidating for the depleted Crowl forces, fewer than a hundred by the captives' count, to hear such a shout from his three hundred and fifty men.
Before ordering the advance, Varg signalled for the prisoners to shout again.
Kael and Ged stumbled forward, voices ragged. Torv men hauled them close to the gate torches flaring to show their fear while ten huscarls slipped toward the cliffs rear silent in the dark.
No answer came, only arrows hissing down, one grazing Ged's arm. Varg nodded grimly and raised his hand. A huscarl slit Kael throat blood spraying as he fell the sight meant to break their spirit.
He waved the men forward shields up against the expected arrows. The warband surged levies as the meat shield first. Arrows hissed from the palisade, splintering wood and piercing mail.
A levy screamed an arrow in his arm, collapsing as comrades trampled past. Another fell a shaft through his chest, blood bubbling.
"Ram" Varg bellowed. Men hauled a felled pine, its end sharpened, and slammed it into the gate. The iron bands groaned, wood splintering. Arrows fell thicker, felling another levy; his shield clattering as he choked on blood.
Then chaos struck from within, a shout from the palisade rear where Varg huscarls had climbed, unseen knives flashing as they cut down sentries. Below, flaming oil barrels rolled from the cliff's base by hidden Crowl fighters exploded near the ram, searing levies' flesh and scattering the line. Varg cursed that the Crowls had rigged traps expecting a siege, and now his men burned.
"Push through," he roared as smoke stung his eyes. His plan was teetering, but the rear breach gave hope.
"Harder." The ram struck again, cracks spreading.
Then, chaos shifted. Shouts erupted inside the keep panic. The gate shuddered not from the ram but from within. It creaked open, revealing a knot of Crowl men, faces pale, axes lowered. A woman stood among them, older, her voice trembling.
"You killed Kael, you bastard," she said, eyes wet but fierce.
"We yield to save the rest."
"Bind them," Varg said, voice cold. Huscarls surged, clapping irons on the turncoats who bowed their heads in the mud.
The gate stood wide Deepdown heart bared.
Varg charged inside boots pounding the courtyard packed earth. Crowl defenders a thin line rallied near the hall axes raised in a desperate stand. No noble led them, just a grizzled fighter chanting a Skagos dirge to rally his kin to their fight raw and personal, not for lordly glory but for survival a fire Varg respected even as he crushed it.
His men-at-arms swarmed, spears thrusting, shields bashing. A Crowl warrior lunged an axe swinging, but Varg parried with his sword then drove it through his chest. Blood sprayed the blade, sliding free with a wet rasp. Another charged, screaming, only to meet Torv's axe, his head splitting.
The siege was brutal but clean. Crowl kin men and some women fell in heaps, their blood soaking the dirt. A few threw down their weapons, begging mercy. Varg spared them, nodding to chain the survivors.
"Thralls," he barked, wiping his blade.
The hall was a wreck. Varg strode through huscarls at his back, the air thick with smoke and death. At the far end on a crude throne of iron sat the old greybeard Crowl lord unyielding resolute. No guards flanked him; they were either dead or fled.
Yet he sat back straight, one hand gripping an axe across his lap, the other resting on the throne arm as if he still ruled.
Varg halted his men, fanning out their boots and scuffing the floor. The Crowl lord's gaze locked on him unblinking, a faint smile curling his lips.
"So" the old man said, voice steady deep, "my rival thrall born whelp comes to my hall. You have got my son's sword, I see."
"Indeed," Varg said, voice low. "Taken after he bled out in the pass. Fitting I bring it here."
The old man laughed a harsh bark that echoed off the walls. His knuckles whitened on the axe, but he did not rise.
"Fitting. You are a Stane bastard picking at corpses. My boy was worth ten of you, and you will mark my words: you will be destroyed."
Varg's lips curled. The old man's pride was unbroken even now. He could almost admire it if it were not so futile.
"Ralf thought he could play me under your direction," Varg said, pacing a slow circle, eyes never leaving the Crowl lord.
"He thought he would trap me on your orders. He died screaming because of you. And your men killed my father years back, cut him down like a dog. Now I avenge him too. You will join them soon."
The Crowl lord's smile did not waver. He leaned forward, axe shifting slightly, his voice dropping to a growl.
"Is that all, boy? Yes, you won. Kill me, burn this hall; it changes nothing. But I know one thing that will make me die happy: this world will eat you up. It always does the ambitious types those who want more and more. That desire of yours will lead to your death, boy."
Varg stopped towering over the throne, Ralf's sword heavy in his grip. The irony burned sweet the father facing the son blade defiant to the last.
"Your subjects are chained," he said, voice cold. "Your hall is mine. Your name ends today. My revenge is complete."
He raised the sword and swung Ralf's sword, slicing through the air, but the Crowl lord axe flashed up, parrying with a clang that sparked in the dim light.
The old man's grin held fierce and unyielding. Varg struck again harder, the blade shearing through his neck. Blood sprayed, and the lord fell dead across the throne.
Then, Varg tilted his head as if speaking to the sky.
"Here, Father, I have kept my promise. Now fuck off."
His huscarls shifted, awaiting orders. Varg's gaze swept the hall, catching a faint whimper from a side chamber. He nodded to one of his men, who kicked the door open, revealing the last of House Crowl's blood women and children huddled together, eyes wide with terror. No men just mothers clutching their young sons and daughters no older than six winters. The boys stared with small fists clenched while the girls clung to their kin faces streaked with tears.
Varg stepped closer. The women shrank back, but one older woman spat at his feet, her voice shaking.
"You have taken everything, Stane. Leave us be."
He ignored her eyes on the children. The boys with their clenched fists and defiant stares might one day dream of vengeance. That was a risk he could not afford. The girls, though three of them barely old enough to weave, could be useful. Marry them to his sons, weave the Crowl name into his own, or hold them as leverage for future trades. Their fate could wait.
"Take the daughters," he ordered, voice flat. "Chain them with the rest. The women, too."
Huscarls moved, scooping up the girls who wailed as they were torn from their mothers. The women screamed, clawing to reclaim their children, but Varg men silenced them, dragging them out.
The boys stood, frozen eyes burning with hate. Varg met their gaze cold and unyielding, then turned away.
"See to the boys," he said quietly, his tone final. A huscarl nodded grimly; the matter would be handled out of sight.
Varg strode out. The Crowl line was gutted. Yet a hollow ache gnawed at him.
"Not a bloody psychopath but this feels like shit" he muttered to himself.
Later
"Scorch and plunder, empty the cellars, the stores, the treasur,y" Varg ordered. "Loot every scrap."
His huscarls moved boots thumping as they hauled barrels of salt fish grain and furs from below, piling them for the carts.
"Burn it," he ordered, striding out. Torv shouted commands, and torches flared. Flames caught the hall walls, spreading fast on dry timber. Smoke billowed thick and black as the fire roared, consuming Deepdown's heart.
Varg watched from the courtyard, heat stinging his face, satisfaction settling deep. House Crowl was finished.
His men looted with ruthless precision. Cellars yielded barrels of salt fish grain and furs hauled to carts by newly captured thralls. Weapons, axes, spears swords clattered into piles alongside dented helms and mail.
Women and children, kin of the fallen, were chained; their cries were ignored. Some men too weak to fight joined them, bound for Driftwood Hall pens. Varg ensured nothing was missed. Every scrap would fuel his port his city to be.
Beyond the keep, villages waited hovels of fisherfolk and trappers loyal to the Crowls. Varg sent his men to round them up.
"Take everything," Varg said to Vilk, his lieutenant.
"People livestock tools. Tell them they are being relocated to Driftwood Hall. If they resist, thrall them or kill them."
Vilk nodded and rode off. By the end, carts rolled in laden with bleating goats, sacks of grain, and stubborn peasants in irons. Around the burning Crowl keep the surrounding villages stood empty. Varg left nothing.
During the sacking, Varg slipped away with loyal huscarls to the keep rear where a lone weirwood stood likely the Crowl family tree, much like the Starks had theirs.
The carved face stared accusingly, but Varg felt only hunger. This tree was wealth more than Deepdown stores more than its iron.
"Axes," he growled. His huscarls' faltered eyes flicked to the tree superstition gnawing their guts. Varg's glare silenced them.
"Now."
They obeyed axes biting deep chips of flying white wood. The tree groaned sap weeping like blood, but Varg swung himself. It took a while, but the weirwood fell crashing to the earth. Varg stood over it, chest heaving, triumph burning hot. One down. More to come.
He ordered the trunk cut into chunks wrapped in sailcloth and stowed in a cart marked as grain sacks.
"Vilk, you take this to the cog alone," he said, voice low.
"Hide it below the furs and tell the crew it is my personal trade stock. No one else knows."
Vilk nodded.
Back in the courtyard after the looting was done, dozens of carts groaned under their loads captives shuffled in chains, heads bowed. Loot piled high, even animals dragged along. Varg warband nay horde formed up in a long single line.
Grinning, Varg broke into song, his voice rough but loud, cutting through the wind.
"Where there is a whip, there is a way."
The men paused, puzzled, then laughed, joining in.
"Where there is a whip, there is a way," they bellowed off-key but fierce as they marched from Deepdown ruins.
Torv sang too his growl, butchering the words, and even the levies tried their voices thin but eager. The absurdity of singing whips while dragging thralls only sharpened Varg's grin.
The keep burned behind them, a pyre visible for miles. Varg did not look back. His eyes were on Driftwood Hall, his port, his future.
Deepdown wealth its people its stores its weirwood would fuel his first trade voyages east. With House Crowl gone and House Magnar weakened, he would have breathing room at home.
The march home was slower, carts creaking under their burdens, captives stumbling or trying to escape in the mud. In total, thousands made up this caravan horde. Varg rode at the front, Torv at his side, huscarls guarding the train.
The levies sang his song now and then, spirits high despite the rain. Victory turned boys into men. He would reward them well ale loot maybe a thrall for the best.
Driftwood Hall finally rose its walls, a comfort to Varg. The gates opened, and his warband poured in cheers, greeting them from the keep folk. Servants scurried to unload carts stablehands took hundreds of new unicorns perfect for a proper cavalry unit.
Varg strode to the hall.
Sana, Frelga, Eina, and Em, awaiting their faces a mix of relief and hunger. Frelga's belly was bigger, Sana's eyes sharper the twins softer but eager. His sister Erin lingered behind, her gaze steady. Life was good.
"Girls, I am happy to say House Stane has just become the premier house of Skagos," he said.
"This," he slapped a pack of jewellery onto a table, "is yours."
Frelga whooped, rushing to grip his arm, her wild grin infectious. Sana's touch was lighter, her smile sly while the twins pressed close murmuring praise. Erin nodded, a faint smile breaking her reserve.
Varg sank into his weirwood chair, ale in hand, their warmth around him. The hall buzzed with men feasting, servants hauling loot to keep the keep alive with victory. He sipped, eyes drifting to the hidden cart outside where his weirwood lay. One tree down, hundreds more.
Long 3k chapter today. No updates on weekends.