Chapter 52 - Taking Action
The House Bolton had once been the Red Kings of the North. They were bitter enemies of the House Stark for generations before eventually bending the knee.
But bending the knee did not mean that the old hatred between them had disappeared. The practices of the Flayed Man still remained strong within their house.
They were one of the people I disliked even in the stories. My first impression of Roose Bolton in the First Council had not been any better. After gaining the Greenseer and Warg powers, I have monitored them and the result was that I now hated them.
And I knew what would eventually happen in the near future.
The Boltons would betray the Starks. They would wait for the right opportunity and then strike when the North was at its weakest.
I could not allow that to happen.
But I also could not simply walk into the Dreadfort and accuse them of something they had not yet done. That would only create suspicion.
I needed to deal with the problem quietly and decisively.
For now, I focused my vision on the Dreadfort.
The fortress was already awake.
Soldiers moved through the yard. Stable boys were bringing out horses, while guards walked between the buildings. Everything appeared normal but there was something different about the place.
It felt grim. The land itself carried a darkness which seemed to have seeped into the depths of the earth and every stone of the fort.
The Dreadfort had been the seat of the Red Kings for thousands of years. Blood had been spilled here for generations. Even from a distance, I could sense something strange in the land.
I felt as if there were faint echoes of the dead that was still lingering around the fortress.
I will have to ask Leaf about this later. Or, perhaps Emma would know more.
Death was closely connected to the House of Black and White and she might understand what I was sensing better than anyone else.
But that was something for another day. For now, I had an important task at hand.
My attention moved toward the stables. A small group of soldiers came out from the fortress.
At their head was a man I recognized immediately.
Roose Bolton.
His pale face was difficult to forget. He moved with the calm and controlled manner I had heard about in the stories and rumours.
I had been watching his movements for some time, so I already knew his schedule.
Today, he was going on a patrol around his land.
The soldiers soon brought the horses forward.
Roose mounted his horse, followed by the other men behind him and soon the small group left the Dreadfort.
I waited patiently for the right moment. I wanted them to be some distance away from the fortress. So I waited till they were a little far out of the immediate vicinity of the fort.
The roads were emptier as they slowly left the fort behind and soon the horses were moving faster. Then they began to gallop.
That was when I decided that it was time and chose to act.
I focused on Roose's horse and extended a small thread of my consciousness toward it. The connection formed almost immediately.
A strange sensation passed through me as I was now inside another living creature and could control it.
But the horse was still in control of its own body. I was currently more like a passenger, observing through its senses while gently influencing its actions.
I could feel the movement of its muscles, the rhythm of its breathing and the ground passing beneath its hooves.
I guided it slightly. As they approached a bend in the road, I made the horse become suddenly restless and spooked.
It was startled and reared as a natural reaction.
Roose Bolton was not prepared and was caught by surprise. He lost his balance as the horse had its front legs lifted and he fell from the saddle.
The fall itself was not enough to kill him. That was not the plan.
I immediately shifted my connection.
I left Roose's horse and reached for the horse which was directly behind it.
The second connection was just as smooth a the first one.
The men reacted quickly. They were experienced riders and as Roose fell, they began pulling their horses away to avoid him.
But I controlled the horse behind him for one brief moment. I made it continue forward instead of turning away.
The horse passed directly over Roose Bolton, stepping on his neck. I felt the cracking of his neck and spine beneath the horse hooves.
The entire event took only a few seconds.
The men immediately dismounted.
"Lord Bolton!"
They rushed toward him. At first, they believed he had merely been thrown from his horse because of its sudden movement.
But in the next moment, they realized something was wrong.
Roose Bolton did not respond to their calls.
The captain knelt beside him and quickly checked for the signs of life. A moment later, his expression changed.
"My lord is no more."
The men stood frozen around him. They looked at their now dead lord and were confused and shocked. Nobody understood what had happened.
One moment their lord had been riding with them.
The next moment, he was gone.
There was no enemy they could fight with or avenge him. There was neither an arrow nor any ambush.
Nothing that could be little reasonable.
It just looked like a tragic riding accident.
That was exactly what I wanted. I wanted his death to look like an accident without getting any innocents hurt or blamed. As a lord of the North, it would have raised questions of assassination if I killed him in the fort, even if I would have made it an accident.
So, I had decided that he would have to be done in by an accident, in front of many witnesses so that there wont be any allegations of foul play in the future.
I watched for another moment as they hurried to take Roose Bolton's body back to the fort before withdrawing from the horse.
Then I reached toward the sky, where a falcon was circling above the forest.
I connected with it and slipped into its body.
The world immediately changed. Everything below became clearer.
From above, I could see the road, the soldiers gathered around their fallen lord, the horses moving nervously and the distant walls of the Dreadfort.
Nobody suspected anything. No one knew that I had been the one responsible for this accident and was still watching.
I remained with the falcon for a while, observing the soldiers as they were returning to the fortress.
I was relieved that both of my objectives had been completed. Firstly and most importantly, Roose Bolton was dead.
Secondly, as far as everyone would know, he had died in an unfortunate accident.
I slowly released my connection and slowly woke up from the weirwood network. I have dealt with one of the major problems and removed before it could become a greater one.
Now I only had to make sure that there was no loose ends.
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End of Chapter 52 - Taking Action