Winter is Coming: House Stark Quest

It was a strange thing, not knowing what awaited you. You had grown used in the battles of yesterday to a certain excellent among your scouts, thanks in no small part to your mother's uncle and the band of Crannogmen he had made his own since your passage through the Twins. You knew nothing of the Targaryen invaders. Not where they were, nor what they intended. A tide of rumors seemed to come from every direction. They had sacked and burned Riverrun and Winterfell already (you snorted at such nonsense), or were not Targaryens at all, or planned to join with Stannis or Renly or the Greyjoys.

Un-bloody-likely.

And so you had marched. Uncertain but determined. Stannis Baratheon would rule over the Seven Kingdoms and no treasonous brothers or foreign wyrms would stand in his way. You would see him on the Iron Throne and wed his daughter as had been promised. And then your people could be safe.

---

The kneeling man was a dead one. Lord Beric Dondarrion had met his end at the hand of the Mountain. There had been too many accounts of the event for it all to be hearsay. Yet somehow here he was, with a few dozen men beside him. You recognized some of them, the survivors of father's guard. You had thought them lost.

"Your Grace," he greeted Stannis in a voice more tired than you had heard. On his right was a tall, fat man who wore a red cloak over his armor. On his left a boy with pale-blonde hair and strangely determined eyes. Thoros of Myr and Lord Edric Dayne of Starfall.

It was a fortuitous arrival. Not only because these survivors would join your ranks, not only because they had survived a great ambush and weeks in the Riverlands without friends, but because a Lord of Dorne was now in your custody. Ned Dayne would be treated with courtesy and respect of course, but none could deny he was a tool at this time.

Because the Martells were marching, and they did not pledge their loyalty to either brother Baratheon. Stannis had, on your council, sent the offer to House Yronwood. Betray the Martells, as they had again and again for the Blackfyres, and he would name them the Lords of Dorne. An elevation over their former foes few could resist.

Anders Yronwood had not resisted. He was not a rash or greedy man, you had heard from those who had known him, but perhaps the author was just too tempting as Prince Oberyn prepared to lead a host north through the Stone Way to support... someone. Obviously his so called nephew, whatever he had planned to say.

The Lord of Yronwood had prepared a trap for his liege lord's brother. To pin him in the Stone Way between the pass' walls and the host of the Bloodroyal. Instead the Red Viper had seen through his treachery and put a spear through the man's throat and set to finishing the job he had begun as a young man.

Prince Doran's firstborn son was Lord of Yronwood now, wed to his foster sister (the last of her House's main line).

---

Morale was low as you neared King's Landing. The Manderlys had dispatched their own fleet to reinforce Stannis' navy, but a storm had prevented any approach to the city by sea. And you still had not a clue concerning the whereabouts of the Greyjoys, Targaryens, and Martells.

And then you had seen it on the horizon. Smoke.

A great column of smoke so massive it could have swallowed White Harbor as easily as a bird swallowed a worm.

And beneath it a city in flames.

---

Outside the walls of what had once been King's Landing, you met with the court of Joffrey Waters and learned what had happened. You learned that Lord Kevan had received your offer and disregarded it. He had hoped, it seemed, that your host might meet with Renly's leaving you both sufficiently weakened for the city to hold.

The Queen had been equally disinclined. The dissenting voice had been King Joffrey himself. He had remembered the trial of Eddard Stark. He had remembered the fate of his grandfather's host, seen his uncle's ugly stump of a hand and no doubt pictured a similar disfiguration in place of his neck. And he had remembered House Stark's mercy.

And so he had ordered the city's surrender.

An order his regent and Hand had refuted of course. But by then it was too late. Word spread throughout the city that their king hoped to abandon them. That he wished to open the gates to another sack. Another rape of King's Landing, this one by consent of its monarch. That had been the start of the riots.

All of which might have been contained, if the King and his court had been in the Red Keep. But they had not been. Cersei had thought to present her son before the smallfolk to assuage their fears and dispel any "false rumors" of his wavering certainty. Seven Knights of the Kingsguard (including two newly named) had not been enough for the mob.

Joffrey had died quickly. And the fires had spread.

And spread and spread and spread. Spread until they had reached some remnants of Aerys Targaryen's legacy. You listened to Ser Jaime's story, gawking at the hideous burns which now covered most of his body. The Kingslayer had but one arm, but had grabbed his younger son and ridden so hard to safety that he had killed his horse doing so.

And he had left his sister to die to do so.

Tommen was unconscious, with a single ugly burn over his eye. It would never leave him, but he may live. The same could not be said of roughly one half of King's Landing's population. Hundreds of thousands of refugees would need to be located elsewhere or they would turn to banditry or starve.

Thus was the state of things when Ser Kevan Lannister (himself in decent shape although suffering from a twisted ankle and two somewhat mortified sons) formally renounced any claim of Cersei Lannister's bastards to the lineage of House Baratheon and surrendered the former royal court into King Stannis' custody.

As for the Kingslayer...

"Execute him," ordered King Stannis. "Whatever heroism he can claim, he is an oathbreaker and a traitor to every king he has ever served." You stepped forward, frowning. "A crime has had paid for with his hand, his sister, his son, and his skin. The innocents killed here today are on his head, just as those living are because of him."

[] You are right to execute him.
[] He should be showed mercy (write-in).

---

As King's Landing burned, the army of the northern kingdoms stirred. The city of kings had burned to ashes, taking the Iron Throne with it. More than that, almost three hundred thousand innocents had died screaming. Why? For the madness of the Targaryens. For the greed of the Reachmen, who had sided with Aerys then and with the usurper now. The usurper Renly, who had betrayed his oaths and his people to satisfy his inhuman greed. A greed he had learned from the pernicious and scheming Reachman.

The men marched. As they marched they sand a song of vengeance and heroism. The evil that threatened their country would be broken. They were the soldiers of Westeros, and Westeros was under the protection of King Stannis and Prince Robb (a title the men had adopted even if Stannis cracked a tooth to hear it).

Then had begun the defections. Lord Randyll Tarly had been first, accepting your offer when the Florents seemed too cowardly. Your spy had been found, confessing all under torture, but it had been too late as the Lord of Horn Hill and his army began to withdraw from Renly's host.

More would follow as news of King's Landing spread. Renly's host was horrified. They had never anticipated a tragedy of this scale, nor the masterful propaganda that had painted them as somehow responsible. The army began to bleed men. A small number at first, then dozens. When Ser Garth Hightower broke his ties to Renly and made for Oldtown with his father's men, the floodgates opened.

All while the Lord of Storm's End sat, paralyzed by shock and confusion. Frozen to the moment that Stannis' army slammed into a collapsing host which once had dwarfed any seen since the Dance. Renly did his best to rally the men, but they had been broken long before and the armies of King Stannis were beyond weakness. They had justice and faith on their side.

Hours later, you joined Stannis as he looked over two bodies found within the killing field. Lord Renly was handsome still in death, with the Knight of Flowers beside him. Among the captured was Ser Garlan Tyrell, Brienne of Tarth (heir to Lord Selwyn), Renly's former Queen Margaery, and a few dozen Lords of both regions.

"I do not know why my brother chose them over me, Stark. I do not wish to know what he thought as he died." His face was grim, even for him, and he would not meet your eyes. "I do not wish to look upon the Reachmen any further. See to it that the matter is handled. Then we shall move to crush the rest of our enemies."

House Tarly will be named the Lords Paramount of the Reach and Wardens of the South as per your promise (sucks to be a cowardly Florent shit who wouldn't join up), but the Tyrells remained in your custody. Perhaps the girl could wed Dickon Tarly (after a dose of moon tea). A part of you might feel inclined to mercy, for some members of the family and for some Stormlanders. A part of you also doesn't really care.

[] Write-In punishment for treasonous Houses, rewards for loyal houses.

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