Quick author's note
Guys, I really value your comments and that's why I won't keep updating chapter 0 with new images and information, because when I do that, I lose all the comments you made, and that is something I don't like. To solve this, I created a Patreon, and if you are interested, I will be posting images of the characters and things like that, there is only one advanced chapter there, but if you want to support me, drop by, and start following me and take a look at the chapter with the images, I just want to warn you, that there is a character there who hasn't been introduced yet, but if you still want to see it, take a look, there are only images anyway.
Just remove the space and put it on Google, I am sure you will find it:
patreon. com / cw/ DanLyn
Good reading
-/-/-
Chapter 13
Year 100 AC
POV: Denovan
Three days later...
As soon as we approached the valley that lies after the forest, we were intercepted by three men who were patrolling the perimeter.
"Denovan! You returned," said one of the warriors, lowering his spear, surprised.
I nodded with a tired smile.
"I am happy to see you..."
"But we need to take Halgar to the healer immediately," I cut in, pointing to the wounded man tied to Reed's saddle. "He is severely wounded."
The patrollers, who until then were paralyzed, sharing astounded looks between the huge black saber-tooths and the monstrous bear head tied to my saddle, quickly snapped out of their stupor and nodded.
"Yes, sir!"
They escorted us quickly for the rest of the way.
As soon as we crossed the wooden gates of the village, silence fell heavily over the residents. Guards, hunters, and villagers stopped what they were doing, tools forgotten in their hands. It was not every day that the Magnar's son, who had run away weeks ago, returned riding a colossal black horse, escorted by two saber-tooths, legendary beasts that many there had never even seen, and bringing Halgar, one of the village's most respected warriors, wounded.
The news spread like wildfire: Denovan returned escorted by black beasts and with Halgar wounded.
Sigrid was the first to run in our direction, her eyes shining with childish fascination upon seeing the beasts. But before she could say anything, the crowd parted abruptly. And from there emerged the real beast.
"Denovan, my son... I missed you," Valka hissed, approaching me quickly.
Just from the dangerously calm tone of her voice, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch! Stop pulling my ear, Mom!" I yelled when she did not hesitate to grab me by the ear as soon as I got off Breu, dragging me towards our house without the slightest ceremony or respect for my "triumphant return".
"You ungrateful son! How could you disobey me and disappear with the giants?! You are just a child, you are not even twelve years old!" she shouted, her face red with fury, the grip on my ear getting even stronger with every step.
"Mom, I... ouch! Careful with the tigers..."
"I don't care if you brought a fucking dragon! As punishment, you will not set foot outside this village until you become a full grown adult!" she ranted, pushing me into the central hall of our house.
Despite the warm and humiliating reception, I managed to ensure that Halgar was immediately taken to the healers. The two-day trip with a broken rib and bruises on his back was not easy for him, but he endured the journey like the veteran he was. I went to see the healer as soon as I escaped Valka's first lecture, and he assured me that, despite the brutal damage done by the bear, Halgar would be fine. He was tough to break. A few weeks of rest, strong willow bark infusions for the pain and some well-tied splints, and he would be ready for another. Or almost that. The bronze armor we forged had literally saved his life from being split in half.
That night, the atmosphere at home was a strange mix of tension and relief. The fire crackled loudly in the fireplace. My father, Sigorn, was sitting in his seat of honor, evaluating me with an undeniable gleam of pride and curiosity in his eyes. Valka still shot me deadly warning looks while serving the hot stew. Ulfar and Sigrid could barely blink, staring at Orion and Kali, who were lying in the darkest corner of the hall, gnawing on some huge bones I had brought from the road.
"So..." began Sigorn, his deep voice echoing in the hall, cutting the silence. "Halgar told me, before passing out from the herbs, that you found what he called a Giant White Bear."
"We did," I said, taking a sip of the hot broth and feeling the irreplaceable comfort of my home. "And we barely survived. There are things in this world that we can't even imagine, Father."
That was the cue for me to start recounting everything I did. I talked about the journey with the giants, the first contacts with the tigers, and the agonizing cost of dominating their minds simultaneously. And, finally, I detailed the battle in the frozen forest.
When I described the colossal size of the polar bear, a white mountain of scars and murderous fury that overshadowed even Breu, Ulfar's eyes widened.
"He took us by surprise. The ground shook just with his footsteps," I told them, using my hands to gesture the immensity of the creature. "He charged at Halgar and threw him against a tree as if he were a straw doll. The impact completely crumpled the bronze breastplate. If he hadn't been wearing that, his chest would have been crushed on the spot."
Valka stopped stirring her plate, her breath caught, her anger momentarily forgotten by the retrospective fear of almost having lost her son.
"I had to draw the beast's attention away from Halgar. I went at him with the axe and managed to cut deep into his ribs. But he was too immense, the layer of fat and muscle stopped the blow, and he came after me. What saved us was teamwork," I pointed to the falcon sleeping on an improvised perch near the ceiling. "Horus came down from the sky like a black arrow and sank his talons right into the bear's eye. Blinded the beast at the exact moment he was going to crush me."
I took a dramatic pause, seeing that everyone was paying absolute attention.
"While the bear roared in pain, Kali and Orion sprang into action. They bit his heels and tore his hind tendons, making the monster lose its balance. That gave Halgar enough time, even wounded, to strike the back of his neck with his axe and paralyze the creature. I finished it by cutting its throat. The blood painted the entire snow red."
There was a heavy and amazed silence in the hall. Sigorn gave a lupine smile, a mix of ferocity and paternal pride, and slammed his heavy hand on the wooden table.
"A true hunt of legends. You survived a giant bear, Denovan. Brought its head as a prize and, as if that weren't enough, you got what you wanted, the saber-tooths. The Old Gods truly walk with you."
"Am I still grounded?" I asked, looking at Valka with my best innocent smile.
"Until you're thirty," she retorted dryly. But the harsh tone did not hide the deep relief in her eyes. She was happy that I was alive and in one piece.
Later, when the house was already plunged into the silence of dawn and only the embers illuminated the hall, I stayed awake polishing the blade of my Leviathan, a habit I built on the trip while waiting for sleep to come.
I felt a presence and saw Sigrid approaching silently, wrapped in a thick fur blanket. She sat beside me, crossing her legs and staring intently at the embers.
"That bear... the story you told. It must have been terrifying... but I wish I was there with you," she murmured, her voice low so as not to wake the others.
"It was the moment I came closest to death," I confessed, not trying to seem the invincible hero. "I was lucky."
She nodded, remaining silent for a moment before looking into my eyes. There was a raw determination in them, a spark I knew very well.
"Novan... I need your help," she said. "With Wind Wing."
"What happened? Did she get hurt?"
"No. It's me." She hesitated, pulling the blanket closer to her body. "Since you left with Halgar, I have been having dreams. Dreams where I am not in my bed. I am in the sky. I feel the absurdly cold wind cutting my face, I see the treetops passing by too fast, I see the village from above, small. I see exactly through her eyes... the same way you described you had years ago."
I smiled internally. Her strong blood was awakening. In the books they call them "wolf dreams", but here they were falcon dreams.
"That is incredible, Sig. You are connecting to her mind. The bond is forming naturally. I told you it was only a matter of time."
I was truly happy for her. This proved my theory: the Magnar's family has Warg blood, a strong magical lineage, perhaps as strong as the Starks of the South.
"But it's only when I sleep! Or when I take those little exhaustion naps after training," she retorted, puffing in frustration. "When I wake up, the feeling disappears instantly, and she goes back to being just a bird looking at me from the perch. I don't want it to be just a dream. I want to do it like you. I want to skin-change whenever I want, awake and conscious. I want to control it."
I looked at my sister. She was always obstinate and proud. If magic was in her blood, she would master it even if by the brute force of her will.
"It's not that simple, Sig. It requires a lot of concentration, patience, and emotional control. And you know that patience isn't exactly your greatest virtue," I teased, giving her a light shove on the shoulder.
She shoved me back, a bit harder. "I'm being serious, you idiot."
"I know," I sighed, adopting a more professorial tone. "And you have already taken the most important step. The dreams mean that the barrier between your minds is thin, almost nonexistent. Wind Wing has already accepted you. Starting tomorrow, I will teach you to break that barrier while you are awake. We are going to turn you into a true skinchanger."
The smile she gave me was bright, fierce, and full of expectation, rivaling the heat of the fireplace embers.
"Now go to sleep, I was almost going when you arrived."
"Hmm," she nodded, already getting up. "Rest well, Novan..."
Two years later...
Year 102 AC
From the top of the roof, if I followed my vision to the north, I saw only an endless white immensity. But, focusing ahead, it was possible to see the dark forest, the place that would take me to the East coast — the easiest path for my goal.
The dreams with the serpent never stopped. They decreased in frequency, yes, but now they were very lucid. I managed to get a real notion of that creature's size. Earth's Titanoboa was absolutely nothing when compared to the scale of that ice serpent. If I walked along the coast where it rested, I would certainly recognize the terrain.
In this span of two years, I spent most of my time divided between the heat of the forge and the cold immensity seen through the eyes of my crows, Muninn and Huginn. As soon as I arrived at the village, I sent Huginn to fly east, mapping the settlements of the wildling clans towards the coast to help Muninn.
From what I realized over time, Muninn had an impeccable geographical memory, but Huginn did not. I needed to actively memorize the paths he took, while Muninn recorded the world as a living map in his own mind.
But Huginn had another much rarer talent: he talked. And talked with a frightening perfection. Ulfar said that when the crow arrived at the village the first time, he almost fell backwards with the clarity of the bird's voice imitating humans. He would be the perfect messenger, impossible to intercept, intelligent as only my bonds could be, and could still speak, reasonably, in case he had the bad luck to be captured, nothing would happen, he wouldn't have a letter or anything like that, he would seem like a normal crow.
Muninn would be my map, and Huginn my voice in this conquest.
"Get down from up there, Denovan!" shouted Ulfar from the courtyard.
"I just have to think of you and you appear. I am starting to get scared of my super heightened instincts," I said jokingly, nimbly sliding off the roof of the house and landing on my feet in the snow.
"Yes, yes, Mr. Black Beast..." he retorted with an amused tone, using the nickname the villagers gave me. But his expression quickly turned serious, showing that the matter was important. "What do you need me for, Ulf?"
"Come with me. I wanted to talk about something important with you."
I followed by his side. In these two years, Ulfar, now seventeen years old, looked like a grown man. He had lost any remnant of childishness, closely resembling our father. He was already a tall warrior, bordering on 1.85m.
I had also grown absurdly in this time. I was tall and my muscles were strong and incredibly dense, giving me the build of an agile warrior, not a heavy brute. I was already almost the same height as Ulfar, and that scared me a little. If I kept growing like this, what size would I be when I reached adulthood?
Orion and Kali also grew, becoming just a bit larger than a standard saber-tooth tiger, but their black fur made them intimidating. Their intelligence was far superior to that of any common animal, but all my bonded beasts were like that, so I was already used to it.
I accompanied Ulfar in silence. When I saw that we were heading to the stables, I asked:
"You know I'm keeping my promise to our mother, right? It hasn't been exactly two years since I've been grounded, a few weeks are missing."
"I talked to her. She allowed it this time, as long as we don't go too far. Just get your horse and come," said Ulfar, in a tone that brooked no refusal.
I looked at him, confused. What did he want to talk about that couldn't be said in some private corner of the village? Why so much ceremony?
I nodded and went to Breu's stall.
"Let's go for a run, friend. It's been a long time since we left the valley, hasn't it?"
The gigantic black horse let the air out through his nostrils, excited, and lowered his head for me to put the harness on. Besides the tactical training we did inside the valley, simulating mounted battles, we hadn't made any big excursions.
A few minutes of fast riding later, Ulfar and I stopped on a high hill that gave a panoramic view of the entire Thenn village and the surrounding valley. The cold wind hit our faces. Ulfar kept looking forward before speaking.
"Why do you want to leave the Thenn Valley so much?" he asked seriously and directly, catching me by surprise.
When I opened my mouth to respond with the same adventurous excuse as always, he cut me off, turning to face me.
"That never made sense to me. And don't come at me with the excuse of looking for creatures or following the will of the Old Gods. That might convince Father, or at least he pretends it does, or the others who don't know you so well, but for me, who has known you forever, it doesn't wash, the same goes for Valka, and maybe Sig, she just doesn't comment on it with you."
He pointed to the village down below, where the smoke from our three forges rose to the skies.
"What is undeniable is that you know a lot, Denovan. Much more than you should. You taught us how to make steel, improved our way of cooking with those stone pots, brought the idea of breeding reindeer, forged our armor and weapons, changed our training... You have done a lot for us in a short time. So why not continue here? Why not make the Thenns, right here in this valley, what you called the Eighth Kingdom?"
Ulfar took a deep breath, his eyes searching mine with genuine incomprehension.
"If you want to build something grand, in a place you haven't even seen yet, like the coast, you have no idea of the absurd work it will take. Why not stay and build it here? Our home is safe. You have no logical reasons to go far away and risk everything."
While looking at Ulfar and carefully listening to his words, I let his questions echo in my mind.
Why go? Does it make sense to leave? What is the true reason?
The answer was on the tip of my tongue. It was simple, cold, and realistic.
"I never wanted to abandon the Thenns, Ulfar," I began, my voice as calm as the wind surrounding us. "But we are trapped here. The Wall prevents us from growing to the South. The lords of Westeros call us savages. And you know what? It's not just because we are direct descendants of the First Men that they hate us, nor just because we live in the extreme North."
I pointed to the barren landscape beyond the valley.
"It's because of our way of life. The Thenns still live well compared to the others, yes, but we don't have enough people to be an important force in the world. And even if we had the population, we couldn't sustain it. We have no resources. We have no food."
I looked directly into his eyes.
"The True North is poor, brother. The small plantations we created, and now the reindeer herds... all of this is on a small scale. Survival, not a kingdom or even a city. But if I rebuild Hardhome, if I raise a real port on the east coast... we can have maritime trade. Sell what the North has in excess. Furs, bones, Thenn steel ores, amber... even pure ice, if they pay for it."
I let the idea sink in before continuing.
"We can trade that for food from Essos, for knowledge from Pentos or Braavos. We may be strong warriors, Ulfar, but to the rest of the world, we know nothing. What brings true power to a people isn't just the brute force of their arms. If it were so, the mammoths or the giants would be the lords of the world. If it were just pure power, it would be the legendary dragons of Valyria reigning forever. But it's humans who rule."
I walked a few steps with Breu, feeling the magnitude of what I planned.
"Humans are ingenious, adaptable, and that's why we dominate. But we, the peoples beyond the Wall... to the South, we are the 'dumbest'. We are just two-legged animals to them. And that is why we are where we are. It doesn't matter if we are disciplined Thenns or savage Hornfoots; if we keep fighting amongst ourselves over pieces of ice and living isolated in valleys, we will never have a real future."
My voice took on a darker tone.
"Children die of cold and starvation in winter. And not just ours; all the clans in this frozen desert suffer from it. While in the South, they have resources in abundance. But we don't need to march against the Wall and die on the swords of the Night's Watch to take those lands, as so many Kings-Beyond-the-Wall tried and failed. We need what they have on the other side of the narrow sea."
"A kingdom," I summarized, the word sounding heavy in the cold air.
"Unified people. We need to trade with the East. And if they don't want to negotiate..." I shrugged, a predatory smile emerging "...we can take it from the other side of the sea. If we attack mercenary cities or ships in Essos, they won't send armies marching through this desert of ice to hunt us. The Wall protects us from them too. But stay hidden here forever? If I do everything I know only for the Thenn Valley, everything will be in vain in the grand scheme of things."
I returned close to him, my black horse contrasting with the white snow.
"I may know how to manufacture steel and a few innovations, but compared to the knowledge of the outside world, I know nothing. They have scholars who build immense castles, maesters who can cure diseases that would kill us in days. We need this knowledge. We desperately need it."
Ulfar looked at me with wide eyes, understanding finally dawning on his face. The scope of my plan was much larger than he ever imagined.
"Father once told me he wanted me to be the Magnar in the future," I revealed calmly. "But I won't do that. The title, the leadership of this valley, and the Thenn people... all of this will be yours, brother."
He opened his mouth to protest, but I raised my hand.
"My ambition will not be fulfilled here. I will unify the North, in a few weeks, as soon as the two years I promised Valka are over. I will go from clan to clan, subjugate them or convince them to join under my banner. I will found a New Hardhome. We want knowledge and sustenance, brother. We have been hungry and cold for thousands of years. It is through the port that we will start changing our history."
He continued to look at me in a stunned silence.
"Do you understand now, brother?"
"..."
I sighed, thinking I had spoken too much.
"I understand," Ulfar finally said, his voice hoarse, shaking his head in disbelief. "You've thought far, far ahead... Maybe the kneelers of the South are right about us in some things. Maybe we are rustic and not as educated as them. But we have you. And they don't."
He gave me a wide, proud, and sharp smile at the end.
"Indeed. And I will count on you when the time comes to march," I said.
"At any moment, brother. Send me one of your birds, and all the might of the Thenn people will march to stand before you. It is a promise..." he pounded his fist on his chest "...of the blood of my blood."
I murmured, amused and deeply grateful for his loyalty:
"We will be the greatest, brother. It's a promise. I will show them I am not just a crazy dreamer. Two hundred years from now, the maesters of the South will have to write books to try to understand the importance of what we did here."
"I have no doubts, Novan... You will be a legend told around every campfire in the North."
I looked at the white vastness, my eyes focused far beyond that continent.
"Not just at the campfires, Ulf. One day, I will show you everything there is to see in this world. Ships that cover the horizon, castles that touch the clouds... and, who knows, maybe even dragons."
"All of this, so we can see more than stone and snow..."
-/-/-
Thank you for reading :)
Leave your opinion in the comments, and if you liked it, leave power stones it motivates me to keep writing.
Release dates will be Sunday.
I hope you liked it, see you in the next chapter.