52 My Besto Friendo
Early 283 Spring
"The Ned does not sound like he is very happy with us." Bucket announced his thoughts after I finished reading a missive from our new overlord aloud for the convenience of my illiterate comrades.
Bucket's frown mirrored itself on many nearby faces as confusion knocked about in their simple minds.
"The Ned does not believe we have accomplished what we have reported." I interpreted the terse order of recall to my companions assembled in the hilltop keep of Hayford Castle.
Over three turns of the moon stomping on the enemy every sennight or so left even our most veteran campaigners battered and fatigued, in dire need of rest, recovery, and maintenance. Despite injury, losses, and equipment failure morale remained extremely high. The campaign cleared out pretty much all of the Royalist forces between the Godseye and Kingslanding. Both Riverlands and Crownlands felt the full might of my Greensight and Skinchanging, and though not as flashy as dragon riding, my First Men magic was proving nearly as effective when applied to conquest.
I looked over to the Winterfell rider awaiting our confirmation of the orders and told him, "It'll take a fortnight for our forces to remobilize. Too many injured, and too much work for the smiths."
The man swallowed down any insistence on behalf of his Lord Stark and nodded.
"You'll leave on the morrow with my response." I dismissed the man with a flick of my hand and returned my attention to my fellow lords in this army.
"That letter accuses us as liars in all but plain words." Galbart huffed and scratched his bandaged forehead.
"What we've done is beyond the abilities of other men." I let the accusation roll right off my shoulder and tossed the inflammatory missive behind me, "How's the Ned to know that we are the greatest fighting force in the world? That we succeed where all others fail? So what if he does not believe what his eyes have not seen? Do we not carry with us the banners of our defeated foes? Their signed and sealed declarations of surrender?"
My rousing round of rhetoric rallied and restored the mood like a good alliteration, but a tension remained as our forces recuperated and re-equipped. While some of the pressure for the repairs were offset by captured equipment, the general low quality and unskilled hard use left much work for the camp smiths, tailors, and cobblers. Cobblers always had work in my army. One of the few things I have managed to 'uplift' over the years is combat and working footwear.
While yuppies may extol the virtue of toe to heel walking in barefoot shoes, the precarious traction of simple leather footwear put me on my ass a few too many times in this life for me not to wrack my brains about possible solutions. Though I am someone who could forget a math course I got high marks in by the next semester, I'd worn enough boots in my life to reasonably reconstruct that advanced technology. Through my own trying efforts guiding a Bear Island cobbler and his apprentice I created a multi layered leather sole with hobnails in a half-sole and the heel stack. Praise me, for I overcame great hardship working with people barely smarter than cats and dogs to bring the future to the people. Truly, a generous heart beats in my noble chest.
Selling, gifting, or negligence that causes Bear Island Boots to enter the possession of non Bear Island natives comes with an automatic death sentence via crucifixion and the appropriate scourging, beating, and walk of shame that method entails.
I've only needed to do it a handful of times for the message to sink in.
The secret importance of boots is shocking. Foot and ankle injuries on the march are incredibly common, and in high intensity situations such as a forced march or pressured retreat can be near universal. Though often non-critical these injuries lower marching speed and combat performance, and are largely preventable by twentieth century advances in footwear that rely on critical thinking rather than advanced materials or tools.
The increased traction and rough terrain performance is nearly a superpower on the battlefield, and while now a curiosity, will receive increased attention after this war when our achievements become common knowledge. Fortunately for me, footwear will be the last place anyone will look, and by the time similar boots achieve broadscale adoption, my grip on this world will be ironclad.
By the time our march to Riverrun came due, a new rider arrived directing us to Stoney Sept where what's left of Jon Connington's host closed in on the recovering Robert Baratheon. We wouldn't make it, the distance too great and including two choke points in the form of bridge crossings over the Godseye River and another across the river coming down from Tumbler Falls.
Though we missed one of the two climatic battles of the Rebellion, our absence didn't change the outcome; in fact, the Battle of the Bells was an even more decisive victory for the rebels due to the greatly depleted and demoralized enemy host. More importantly, rather than drown trying to swim across the treacherous Blackwater Rush at it fastest coming down from the mountains of the Westerlands, Jon Connington's escaping army needed to flee east on the exact path we marched west on.
We encountered the enemy forces at mid day after they'd crossed the Tumbler River. We could have marched to meet them and hit them during the crossing, but instead took up a moderately advantageous position on the path. We didn't need the crossing to pull off a near flawless victory.
The look of despair on Jon Con's face when his battered and exhausted host encountered my fresh and ready army reached anime levels of emotional breakdown. Rather than even entertain the possibility of a parley, Jon Con yanked his sword out and began the charge by example, also known as the Jon Snow method of battlefield leadership. Like Jon Snow, somehow his army committed to the suicidal charge, and unlike Jon Snow, the knights of the Vale aren't waiting off screen to deliver them from their idiocy. The staggered and unorganized blitz into the waiting lines of my formation provided little pressure for my hardened soldiers.
My calvary wing rolled over them from my left flank, and without their calvary to screen the charge, their entire force shattered under the bear led sweep. Despite possessing the largest host we encountered, the Royalist Army provided the least resistance on the battlefield, and felt more like pushing down an army of children or the elderly, and with their destruction in the field we crushed the might of the Crownlands and what remained of their allies in the Riverlands.
Jon Con didn't make it out of this second disaster, the man fought like a rabid dog and we put him down like one. The other notables in the host threw in the towel with little resistance, realizing that zeal and desperation failed to carry the day very early into the short battle. Anyone not immediately killed in the cavalry charge surrendered, and we captured thousands of small folk who joined their leaders in surrender.
Honestly, they should have just let Jon Con charge alone, but I won't complain about another opportunity to tear it up atop Ser Fluffles the Bold. I'd really come into my own as a warbear rider over the months on campaign in the Riverlands and Crownlands, and honestly found the experience addictive. It's hard not to feel like a god atop my psyker controlled two ton beast tank. That and near local limited omniscience might give a man a complex.
After taking oaths from the small folk we sent them on their way home sans weapons. Its a lot harder to turn to banditry without the tools of the trade. I may not have the greatest human rights track record - honestly my ESG score would start a worthless online campaign to stop me back home - and I may find slaughter incredibly fun, but I'm not a rabid animal. I can gift mercy quite often, especially now that I can know for sure if it will come back to destroy me or not.
We resumed our march after dispersing the last of the non-ransom-able prisoners. My forces arrived at Stoney Sept as the Rebel Army recovered from their much harder encounter with the Royalists. The town itself is another large population center of the Riverlands, and they suffered for the cause greatly during Jon Con's desperate search for Robert, though the man conducted himself with far more restraint than this world is used to. The worst he did was throw those he harbored suspicions of in hanging cages. One might feel that the man didn't deserve to die, that his comportment earned him a share of mercy, and I might feel that way myself, but its best not to leave a true fanatic like that alive. The world is better served by a good man dying before he can become a bad man.
The Vale, North, Riverlands, and Stormlands had tens of thousands of men cooling their heels after the big fight surrounding the town, and my own forces rejoined with the Freys added eleven thousand more in more or less good shape for future fighting. Even with my supernatural strategic and tactical capabilities, the price for victory is still paid in blood. I just know how to minimize that price, and so I kept my men well away from the others in the camp, as disorder and dysentery appeared the fashion of the day. How could it not in a mixed army this large? Even if I took over discipline before the first tent went up, shit happens. Its easier to spot every traitor's action than every idiot's screw up in the Greensight. The former at least has a finite capacity.
Despite the squalor, my nobles and I needed to make our way to the heart of the tent city where the big wigs camped out. We brought with us our banners and behind them the banners of everyone we defeated, and we needed a lot of men to carry those. They trailed behind us for nearly a hundred yards like a single file parade. The pompous display made my companions feel uncomfortable, but my face is thick and made of granite.
Ned Stark wore his distaste of the pageantry openly, but the bandaged Robert Baratheon risked his wounds reopening again with how hard he applauded. Between Robert and Ned, only one man smelled of profit. Our future King looked haggard from his rough recovery in Stoney Sept, but still big and strong like my boys. If not for our more profuse body hair and wider shoulders it would be hard to tell a Baratheon from a Mormont these days without stripping him down and looking for hog balls. Not that the famed Targaryen bastard line lacked in male equipment, just that my line carries with them the wobbling burden of my testicular magic.
"Wipe that sour puss look off your face, Ned!" Robert barked at his best friend, "If I had bannermen that showed up to the war camp like them the war would already be over!"
"I'm not taken to such ostentatious shows." the Quiet Wolf declared in his typical even tone.
"One of these days, Ned. You're going to wake up and choose to live a little." Robert side eyed his boy, "I hope I live long enough to see it happen."
The beating heart of the rebellion clapped me on the shoulder and smiled, "C'mon Mormont, we've got wine and time. Tell us how you came by all these."
What proceeded was a few hours of basically me repeating various cycles of we marched here, we took castle X, we marched there, we ambushed lord Y. Real gripping stuff that had the assembled peers on the edges of their stools. By the end of it, Bobby B clapped me on the shoulder again and nodded.
"Even with the scouts reports and the proof I've seen…" he growled and drunkenly drawled, "I'd still believe you more if you told me you tiddy fucked the Maiden herself."
"I think I deserve a good tiddy fuck after conquering a third of the Riverlands and most of the Crownlands too." I informed the man who looked me in the eye and nodded slightly as if finding a brother to his soul, as if he experienced a flashback to some slice of life scenes that never happened.
"Aye!" he shouted then pointed at a random Storm Lord, "You, bring forth the wenches with the biggest tiddies! Bring them all, and bring more wine!"
I returned Robert's shoulder clap, affirmed in my estimation that this man is the greatest king Westeros never deserved.
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