CH7 Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards

20th day of the 6th moon, 236 AC. Unnamed village beneath Dol Guldur.

Harry patiently waited for everyone who had decided to set down roots around his tower to assemble.

"What's goin' on?" Someone finally demanded. "Why did you call us here?"

"A moon's turn from now at the soonest and two at the latest, this place will be attacked by a host of raiders." He replied bluntly.

"How many?" The same man asked, now looking a good deal more aprehensive. He didn't doubt Harry's words for a moment.

"Over six thousand." Although the majority of those weren't actual fighters.

That started up some fearful rumblings. There were only about five hundred of them here, with perhaps two hundred or so being fighters.

"What are we goin' to do?" A woman asked fearfully.

"Well, there's really only two things that you can do." Harry began casually, his lack of concern quickly getting all attention back to him. "You can take whatever you can carry and run, or you can fight."

"But how can we fight so many?" Another man demanded, clearly aggravated by the thought of just running, but not seeing any other viable option.

"I'll show you."

XXXXX

24th day of the 6th moon, 236 AC. Just outside Dol Guldur.

Sigurd abruptly stopped stomping on the snow and looked at all the people doing the same on both sides of the rocky hill on which Dol Guldur sat.

"We are narrowing the path." He said in realization, turning to stare at Harry who had been doing the same right next to him. "You are having us pile the snow on the sides of this hill to narrow the path."

Harry smirked and nodded. "Exactly."

He had refused to elaborate on why they were doing this, telling people to think about it instead. It wasn't that hard to deduce – the hill was only accesible from the southern side, so it made for an excellent defensible position. Albeit one that allowed no retreat.

"The enemy will have to come at us in small numbers." Sigurd continued, admiration now creeping into his tone.

"We're also going to splash water over it the night before they arrive, which is going to freeze and cover everything in a layer of ice." Harry nodded. "Control the battlefield and you control the battle."

Of course, he could have used magical means to do this instead of the far slower manual labor, but there was good reason not to.

There was not letting people get the idea that magic could be used to enable their laziness, keeping them busy because 'idle hands are the Devil's plaything' and all that, but perhaps the most important reason was...

"I'm going to get more snow!" Luna chirped, plopping herself into the sleigh that was also used as a sort of cart for carrying snow, and sliding down the hill. "Wheeeee!"

"Touched by the gods, that one." Sigurd muttered.

"You're not wrong, but mostly she just knows how to enjoy the simple things." Harry shrugged and pulled a snowboard out of hammerspace, jumping on it to chase after his squealing wife.

A man learned all sorts of things when he was immortal, even things he'd have sneered at when he was young. Like snowboarding.

XXXXX

1st day of the 7th moon, 236 AC. Dol Guldur.

Using dragonfire to forge weapons was hardly a revolutionary concept. The trick had always been in getting the critters to cooperate, something that the Valyrians had managed quite well.

The smithing techniques used in Valyrian weapons were also very refined, no doubt a product of milennia of practice. The magical properties of dragonfire were trapped in the metal masterfully. Although, Harry had managed to confirm that the common rumor going around that the steel was folded back on itself 'many thousands of times' was pure horseshit. There had been folding going on to be certain, but not nearly that much.

All in all, there was nothing terribly special about the blades. Good alloy, good technique, good spellwork, but nothing to get excited about from his perspective.

Except for one thing.

The Valyrian smiths had somehow managed to include a spell trigger that would allow the blade to be melted down and reforged without compromising the spells that went into its making. Now that was impressive. Reverse-engineering that bit of genius took quite some work, but it was worth it. A little tweaking of the parameters and he could pause the spellforging process instead of having to do it all in one go, as well as forge it into an easy shape and then reshape it into the final product.

That came in handy for his latest project. He hadn't made a new staff for himself since coming to this world, not really feeling the need, but this new thing he'd learned gave him a creative itch.

Weirwood was a very unusual wood to work with. When he had tried to make a wand out of it for Adrastia, it sapped strength from the dragon heartstring instead of channeling the magic it pulled from the wielder. This was because weirwood was a creation of powerful blood and soul magic, fueled by sacrifice and connected deeply to the earth. Even separated from a tree, it never truly died, so it couldn't be used as a magical focus in the traditional sense.

That got Harry thinking in a less traditional route.

First came the forging of the blade. Given the proximity of the Land of Always Winter and the very real possibility that he might need a fire-aligned weapon, he couldn't afford to leave out that property of Valyrian steel. That might have been problematic without a dragon, but there were alternatives.

The magma flows in the planet's mantle, connected as they were to its molten core, were just as powerful, if not more so, than dragonfire and the Earthsinger Warren just so happened to go deep underground. So deep that even they hadn't explored all of it in thousands of years. Setting up a proper elemental forge to take advantage of the magma river he eventually tracked down in there was a bit tricky, but nothing he hadn't done before. Doing another Sauron impression was quite nostalgic really – he hadn't done one properly in centuries.

When he was done, he had a block of spellforged metal prepared. It was a very dark grey with veins of red running through it, reflecting both the material and the enchantments. Aside from the usual indestructibility, the metal was also powerfully fire-aligned and vampiric, drinking in any blood that it came into contact with.

Next was the staff. The Old Gods donated a long branch willingly in honor of their partnership. Harry considered it quite a sweet deal actually. All he had to do was protect the weirwoods, punish violators of guest rights and kill any slavers that entered the Old Gods' area of influence and in return they would cooperate with him without reservation.

Anyway, turns out that aside from hosting souls, weirwood also fed on blood and absorbed strength from it, which was why executions were carried out in front of them in the old days. Harry used that property to turn the staff into a sort of alembic with his alchemical know-how, using it to filter out the magical power of the blood it absorbed.

Then it was just a matter of reshaping the prepared metal into a blade and grafting it to the end of the weirwood staff. Bands of metal ran up the length of it, not only to firmly afix the blade in place and to give the already incredibly durable wood extra strength, but also to make sure that any blood that got splashed on it went through the purification and distillation process properly instead of messing the whole thing up.

The finished product was an eigth foot long white staff with bands of red-veined dark grey metal running up the length of it, the final seventy centimeters being a blade of the same metal with a deep fuller running down the middle. The headpiece was a red bulb gripped by what looked like weirwood roots. The magic purified by the alchemical process embeded in the staff would gather inside that red bulb in a ready state and make it glow, at which point it would be ready to be used up for a single supercharged spell before needing to be 'reloaded'.

Harry hadn't taken any pride in his ability to destroy since his late teens, but pride in his ability to create had never left him, so he was eager to show the bladestaff off to his friends and family.

"It is a mighty weapon." Sigurd proclaimed, impressed.

"Ah, speaking of mighty weapons." Harry said and pulled one of the random swords he'd taken from Valyria out of hammerspace. "You can have this one since I'm fucking your sister."

"Oi!" Sigrid protested, drawing laughter from the other women. She was clearly pleased by the gift given to her brother though.

Sigurd curiously drew the sword from its sheath and gasped at the distinctive smoky ripples of Valyrian steel. He had been around long enough by now to see examples of the magical metal and knew its worth.

"Thank you, brother." He finally managed to say.

"Club better." Mag rumbled, stuffing another huge spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.

He'd complained about being hot in the tower, so Luna had introduced him to the frozen confection and they'd been great friends ever since. It was uncanny how many friends she made over dessert.

"We'll see which is better by who gets the most kills." Sigurd laughed, looking quite keen on the idea of testing out his new toy.

"Why are men always so eager to spill blood?" Leaf mumbled, half-rhetorically and half-seriously...and all despondently.

"Humans are an inherently unreasonable species, I'm afraid." Harry shrugged. "It's both the best and the worst thing about us."

"How can being unreasonable be a good thing?" Leaf asked, puzzled.

Ah, so wise in one way and so blind in another.

"Because being unreasonable is at its core the inability to accept things as they are. In most cases, it leads to a lot of unnecessary anguish and suffering, but every once in a while it can result in something extraordinary." He explained, laying a hand on the diminutive being's shoulder. "Your people are content with the forests and the earth, but mankind is full of dreamers and madmen. We are always looking towards the next challenge and grow sick in spirit if there aren't any, just like you would if you had to live in a crowded city."

Harry believed it too. He had seen what happened when humanity was shielded from hardship, how it warped and rotted entire societies until there was nothing left to do except burn it away.

That was why he had no intention of simply killing the leaders of the approaching raiders and letting the rest tear each other apart in the aftermath, despite what he had told Brynden Rivers when he first came to Dol Guldur. He would have if it was just him and his family, but there were others to consider now, people who had done nothing to deserve the contempt inherent in treating them like helpless children incapable of fighting their own battles.

XXXXX

6th day of the 7th moon, 236 AC. Dol Guldur.

Harry observed quietly as the fighters among those who considered him their leader enthused over their new gear. There hadn't been time to get too fancy, but the padded cloth armor and long steel spears were already far more than they'd ever had. There wasn't enough yet for everyone, but there would be before the enemy arrived.

Everyone had been working hard to prepare. Bragni and his mini-apprentices on the weapons and anyone that knew how to sew on the armor. Harry had only used alchemy to provide the materials.

"Alright, you've got your new toys, now you need to learn how to use them properly." He said abruptly, instantly grabbing everyone's attention.

"We know how to use spears!" One man chortled. "Just stick 'em with the pointy end!"

"Yes, that is the most basic function of a spear." Harry retorted sarcastically. "But none of you twats have any idea how to fight as a unit and you're going to need that if you want to survive against an enemy that outnumbers you."

"Sounds like southron nonsense." Another man grumbled.

Seeing all these proud fools murmuring in agreement, Harry pulled his quarterstaff out of hammerspace. "Is that so?" He asked rhetorically and pointed out the loudest group. "Your four, attack me."

They exchanged dubious looks, but gamely gripped their spears and advanced on him.

Harry came at them from an angle so that they got in each others' way and smacked aside the spear thrust from the only one that could attack, following it up with a hard hit to the shin.

As the first man collapsed, the other three quickly reposition so that they could better attack him, but Harry was already dancing around the fallen man, once again getting one of them alone. This one received a hard thrust of the quarterstaff to his chest, sending him stumbling back into the other two.

One was hit by his compatriot full on and they had to disentangle themselves, but the last one was only grazed and did no more than stumble. But it was enough, and he received a hard smack to the wrist before he could regain his balance.

Another cue stick style thrust to his chest sent him stumbling right back into the two men that had only just managed to get back on their feet.

Harry simple stared at them as they picked themselves up, one limping and his shin bone probably cracked, one with his wrist definitely broken and two that were still fine, but gripping their spears too tightly with the knowledge that they couldn't win.

"That'll do." He dismissed them and turned to another foursome. "Now you four, step together. Side by side."

It took some time to get them to stand together properly and not drift apart, but it was eventually accomplished.

"Earlier, you each stood apart, allowing me to separate you, but now..." Harry began and slowly tried to angle around the for spearmen. They clumsily turned to face him as a single unit. "I can't attack directly with a wall of spears pointed at me, and I can't wedge them apart if they move as one."

"But you didn't even try." The one with his wrist broken complained.

"Of course I didn't." He retorted irritably. "It's just a demonstration. They don't have the training to actually fend me off just yet. The point of this was to show you that what you consider to be 'southron nonsense' are merely the realities of war, and those are the same for everyone. Four men acting on their own are less effective than four men acting together. I won't force you to learn if you don't want to, just like I won't force you to bring weapons and armor into a fight, but I'm telling you that you'll live longer if you do."

Explained that way, they stopped grumbling and agreed to learn. The free folk might have an almost pathological disdain for order and discipline, but they knew that they were badly outnumbered and they wanted to live.

XXXXX

There were three distinct groups of free folk targeting Dol Guldur.

The first and smallest were led by Straga Sharptooth, a cannibal of the ice-river clans that had gotten fed up of living in the desolate and barren lands west of the Frostfangs. He had led a few hundred of his people into the northern parts of the Haunted Forest through a lesser known mountain pass. They had survived the winter by eating whoever they attacked. Now Straga had gotten it into his head that he would get magic powers if he ate the heart of the Sorcerer of Dol Guldur.

Harry had to applaud his ambition, if not his intelligence.

The second group numbered approximately one thousand and usually hung around the Antler river to the northwest. They were led by the unfortunately named Calder the Cockless. His nickname was a result of being born with hermaproditism rather than mutilation. And he did actually have a cock, it just happened to be hilariously tiny. He also had similarly tiny breasts and an aborted attempt at a vagina.

Poor Calder didn't make it to adulthood with all his marbles intact due to his deformity and the abuse it attracted. Normally this wouldn't be terribly notable outside of the fact that he'd somehow managed to survive it at all, but his particular brand of madness resulted in him being significantly more attuned to the gut feelings sent to him by the Old Gods than average, which had allowed him to lead his group of free folk through the winter with great success. He'd gained a reputation for being magical himself due to his uncanny ability to find food and shelter and the power had gone to his head, which was why he was now hellbent on sacking Dol Guldur.

Harry knew for a fact that the Old Gods had tried to tell him that an amicable relationship between them could only benefit his people, but the freak of nature wasn't that good at interpreting the feelings sent to him. Everything was still colored by his preconceived notions and he understood it as being a good idea to attack.

The final and largest group by far was the remains of Raymun Redbeard's army and whoever else they'd attracted/absorbed in the decade since his defeat. They generally hung around in the southern parts of the Haunted Forest and were now led by Raymun's younger brother Ronan, nicknamed the Red Raven because the bards had needed something that rhymed with 'craven'.

As one might imagine, Ronan was a tad bitter about having a reputation as a coward simply for doing the sensible thing and running away from a fight that was already lost. He was basically attacking to prove he wasn't a coward.

The stupidity that a wizard had to put up with sometimes...

Anyway, the Stark party hadn't been bothered by them solely because Harry's magic and their dryad escort had ensured that they would miss each other. There was no such thing preventing the aformetioned three groups from interacting...

Harry had been mildly interested in seeing whether they would kill each other and spare him the trouble, but it didn't happen that way.

Calder ran into Ronan first. Convinced he had the favor of the gods, the hermaprodite challenged the far more experienced warrior to a 'winner takes all' duel, which he lost decisively. Ronan could have killed him then and there, but he'd learned a thing or two about leadership from his charismatic older brother and knew that controlling Calder's people would be far easier done through the man/woman, so he had turned the still shellshocked self-styled prophet into a subordinate.

Some time after that Straga came onto the scene. Seeing as nobody liked a cannibal, even other cannibals, he was far more cautious than Calder and engaged in a series of hit-and-run skirmishes with Ronan's far larger force. Usually he would have fled, but the lure of eating a sorcerer's heart was too tempting.

It took Ronan nearly three weeks to pin him down, but he didn't kill him when he finally did. The ill-fated invasion of the North had taught Ronan the value of disposable troops as well, and there was nobody quite as disposable as cannibals, so he had demanded Straga's surrender instead.

The figting had only a minor impact on enemy numbers, so the odds still stood at approximately 15-1 if only the warriors among both groups were counted.

XXXXX

12th day of the 8th moon, 236 AC. Dol Guldur.

Sigurd might have come with 'urgent' news of the impending attack, but it still took a very long time after his arrival by Harry's reckoning before anything really started happening.

Aside from the time it took for everyone to even get close to Dol Guldur and the drama that led to them becoming a single force under Ronan's leadership, the approaching 'army' had problems. Communication, logistics, organization and a lot of other things that were of vital importance to an army on the march were...well, bad. Incredibly, terribly bad. The free folk could survive in the harshest of environments and find food in places that anyone born south of the Wall would swear on the lives of his children didn't exist, but they were a quarrelsome bunch and could barely go an hour without getting in each other's face.

Compounding this situation was the fact that it wasn't even an army in the conventional sense, but more of a ragtag collection of clans and families. Sometimes they didn't move for a week or more, and when they did it had to be done through snow and boreal forest. It was a small miracle if they managed a few miles per day.

But they did eventually make it.

Perhaps Ronan and his little army found it strange that they hadn't encountered anyone in the surrounding forests. Perhaps they were wary.

Regardless, they poured from the shadows of the tree line in the pre-dawn gloom, roaring battlecries as they swarmed over the growing village.

Battlecries that quickly petered out when nobody came out of the houses, and investigation revealed nothing but bare stone walls inside the dwellings. Everyone had been long since evacuated to the tower, along with all their possessions.

"Daft cunts." Sigurd scoffed in amusement. Unlike the others, he also had his old shirt of bronze discs over the gambeson.

"Scouting is important." Harry hummed in agreement. "But it does seem like they're getting their shit together now."

Indeed, a small section of the invading horde had split off and was now charging for the tower.

"If they're so eager to die, then we'll be happy to oblige. Right, lads?" Sigurd roared at the men.

They roared back a confirmation, slamming the butts of their spears into the densely packed snow.

"Ah, it appears they've discovered the ice." Harry commented drolly as the sound of cursing reached them from below.

Sigurd chuckled, seeing the raiders slipping as they tried to rush up the hill. Despite the dire situation, there was something terribly funny about seeing your enemy stumbling into each other like a bunch of fools.

Once the attackers picked themselves up, they ascended the hill in a more cautious manner.

Just like there had been no formal declaration of war, there was no pre-battle parley. These first ones were the most vicious and aggressive of the Red Raven's men, with most – but not all – being cannibals. Their intent was to rape, kill and plunder, and they had no use for niceties. Drunk on the feeling of invincibility they got from being part of a far larger army, they recklessly charged upwards.

Harry readied his bladestaff, not feeling particularly concerned. Although he seemed to only be dressed in a rather thick set of dark pants, long-sleeved shirt and a cloak of shadowskin, there was a suit of enchanted plate and chainmail armor hidden beneath it, which made him basically invulnerable to anything except strikes to the head. However little threat he felt from this silly attack, there was always the off chance of someone getting lucky and it was better to be prepared. Not like it impeded him in any way, seeing as it was enchanted to be light as a feather.

The attackers slowed slightly in their ascent upon getting a proper look at the wall of spears waiting for them, but they were far too deep in their bloodthirst to reconsider the wisdom of pressing onward.

From his position on the left side of the formation, Harry used his bladestaff like a spear to stab at the first moron who'd thought that charging upwards on slippery ground against a prepared defensive position was a good idea. People that stupid shouldn't be alive, so this felt kind of like a public service to the world at large.

It quickly became a bit routine. Stab, pull back, wait for the next one. Occasionally, he would have to watch out for enemy attacks, but his weapon generally had far greater reach. He was aware of his own side's bloodthirsty roars and the palpable excitement that gripped them at the almost completely one-sided slaughter, but he didn't personally feel it. Getting sucked into group emotions had always been something that just didn't happen with him. It made him quite the killjoy at parties.

Don't these people have anything better to do? He wondered sourly as he stabbed another screaming idiot in the throat, glancing at the steadily brighter glow of the staff's headpiece.

The reasons for keeping any obvious use of magic down to a minimum were still valid, but this really was getting terribly tedius. They hadn't even brought any archers or anything.

Meanwhile, his side did have archers, among whom were all of the women that had insisted on being part of the battle.

Harry hadn't needed any of Adrastia's suggestions to relegate them to that role. Bows may require more upper body strength than most melee weapons, but having a mixed-gender fighting force was a disaster waiting to happen. Even putting aside the fact that women were less suited for combat in every conceivable way, the instinctive monkey-brain reaction of men to seeing the women of their tribe die next to them was reason enough to keep them out of it as much as possible.

He wasn't going to point that out to the free folk, but he didn't think he would need to. Women were highly likely to gravitate away from physical conflict as soon as it became a viable option. Most of them at least. There were always statistical outliers.

Another bloodthirsty roar made him frown. The tide of attackers wasn't slowing down. Were they too stupid to be affected by morale? Or were they just not seeing how badly this was going for them?

Time to bring out the big guns then.

"Mag." He said softly, magic carrying his voice to the giant in question. "Your turn."

Standing next to the archers, Mag the Mighty picked up a large-ish boulder from the stack of large-ish boulders and hurled it over their heads, right into the attackers.

Loud crunching noises and screams rent the air as the big rock acted like an improvised bowling bowl, shattering bones on a good half dozen people before stopping.

Another boulder followed the first and the attackers finally grasped that maybe they should rethink their strategy.

An eruption of cheers followed as the bloodied remains of the enemy ran back to the bottom of the hill. There was a stream of blood steadily trickling down the ice and the narrow path was full of corpses. They had been so certain of an easy victory that their morale had held far longer than it should have.

A quick look told him that casualties on their side had been minimal. A few injured and only one dead. Not bad at all considering that these men weren't exactly Spartans and had only about a month of training.

Sigurd ambled over to him, having been positioned on the other side of the formation. He was breathing deeply from a mix of exertion and exhilaration.

"That was easy." His sort-of brother-in law said with a wide grin. "I thought you were full of shit with all your talk about 'tactics' and 'discipline', but maybe there's something to it. Have you led armies before?"

"Not like this." Harry shook his head, resting his bladestaff over a shoulder. The bulb at the end had a noticeable glow to it now. "Where I come from, the bow and spear had long since been replaced by more powerful weapons, but I did read enough about it to have a pretty good idea."

"You and your books." Sigurd grumbled. "You read too much."

"And you read too little." He retorted with a smirk. It wasn't an untrue statement, seeing as the Thenn didn't actually know how to read yet, despite his sister's attempts to teach him.

Sigurd glared at him for a moment before barking out a laugh.

"What are you two cunts gigglin' about?" Hala demanded, stomping over to them from the archer group with Ash trotting right behind her. Despite the aggressive tone, there was a hint of humor in her expression.

She was the only one of Harry's women participating in the fighting, the others not being of a combative mindset. Even the towering Ava preferred to stay out of it if given the choice.

"We were talking about how fat your arse was getting." Harry said with a completely straight face.

Sigurd looked at him like he was insane and pointedly took a step back.

"Fat?" Hala repeated with a dangerous look in her eye. "I'll show you fat!"

Harry laughed as he deflected the punch designed to knock his teeth in and gave the angry woman's rump a good squeeze as she passed by him.

Sigurd just shook his head and sighed. His life would have been a lot less crazy if Sigrid had ended up with someone from Thenn the way she was supposed to. Not as interesting though.

XXXXX

Ronan Redbeard was angry. He was always angry these days. Dealing with a stupidly bloodthirsty cannibal and a madman had that effect, but in this case he was more angry about dumb cunts doing exactly what he told them not to do!

Listening to the survivors of the ill-fated first attack on the Sorcerer's tower told him plainly that this wouldn't be an easy fight despite the vast difference in numbers, but Straga still roared his insistence that they should just charge up the hill and overwhelm them.

Calder was as useless as ever, muttering something incomprehensible under his breath.

"Start hacking up that fucking ice." Ronan ordered and glared up the hill. "I'm going to talk to him."

"What for?" Straga sneered, baring his sharpened teeth. The fool had filed them into points, probably thinking it would make him look more intimidating. Ronan thought it just made him look more like the cave people, who did the same thing.

"Because I feel like it!" He barked back, glaring the cannibal down.

"When speaking to a sorcerer, it is best to have one at your side." Calder declared self-importantly. "I will accompany you."

It was a struggle to keep from scoffing. The only magic he'd seen from the freak so far had been the ability to take a piss with a cock as small as his.

"I'm goin' too." Straga grinned. "I like to look a man in the eye before I eat him."

Ronan could hardly wait for the day that he could kill these two twats without their followers causing trouble.

Still, they tied a pine branch on a spear and waved it as they walked up the slippery slope, a sign of truce among the free folk.

The Sorcerer walked down to meet them with a woman, a Thenn and a fucking direwolf of all things walking at his side.

To Ronan's eyes, the man looked southron with his shiny black hair and hairless face. And his dark clothes gave him the look of a crow, except for the striped shadowskin cloak about his shoulders.

The woman almost looked southron herself if not for the armored furs she was wearing. Her hair was just as shiny as the Sorcerer's, although not quite as dark. The direwolf stood at her shoulder, so she was probably a warg.

The Thenn looked like any other Thenn. Blue tattooes covering his face and wearing armor of bronze discs.

"Good morning." The Raven Lord greeted them with a smirk, his tone full of mocking courtesy. "What can I do for you boys?"

"Sorcerer." Ronan ground out, the sheer arrogance of the magic user getting his blood up in only a few words. "You've seen our army. You know you can't win. Join with me and we can bring down the Wall together."

He felt, more than heard, the way Straga shifted next to him, but the cannibal remained blessedly silent for now.

"Still the same fool, Redbeard?" The Thenn scoffed. "Your brother made similar boasts to my father more than a decade ago. I can see why he wasn't impressed."

Ronan startled. This was the Magnar's son? What was he doing here? Were the Thenns allied with the Sorcerer?

"You say that I know I can't win, but do I really know that?" The Sorcerer cut back in, unnaturally bright green eyes full of amusement, as if he had a funny secret. "And what makes you think I want to destroy the Wall? I rather like it where it is, keeps all the really annoying people down south."

"Then I'll eat your fucking heart." Straga said with an evil leer, which he then shifted to the woman. "Is this your woman? Maybe I'll take her for myself after I eat any children you gave her."

The woman let out a shout of rage and threw herself at the cannibal, punching him in the eye so hard that he almost spun around as he fell to the ground.

The direwolf growled deeply in its throat, but subsided when the Sorcerer placed his hand on its head.

"Back where I come from this would be called 'instant karma'." He said, amused.

What the hells is karma? Ronan wondered.

"I'll cut your guts out and leave you for Harry's crows, you cannibal fucker!" The woman continued to rage, looking as if she was barely holding back the urge to jump forward and continue kicking the shit out of Straga.

The cannibal got up, holding a hand to his head and glaring from his single uncovered eye.

"What did you do to me?" He demanded.

"Just a little petrification spell to keep you from moving." The Sorcerer replied, still amused. "You sounded so desperate for a punch to the face that I didn't want you to miss out on it."

Ronan had to admit that Straga really had been asking for it. He was lucky to still be alive, truce or no truce.

"The magic you use belongs to the gods." Calder spoke up, half-mad eyes opened widely. "You have to die so that it may return to them, and we will be the ones to do it!"

"Keep your moth shut, Calder the Cockless!" The woman spat, obviously still furious. "Can't fuck a woman, so you spend your time spewing shit? Do us all a favor and go kill yourself."

Calder swelled with outrage, looking as if he was about to retort, but then...

"Shh." The Sorcerer hushed and both Straga and Calder fell completely silent.

They started clawing at their throats, as if to set their voices free. When that failed, they looked ready to attack, but a simple raised finger from the Sorcerer froze them in place. Only their eyes still moved.

"What a tiresome couple of brats." He sighed in exasperation.

"We should kill them." The Thenn said darkly. His reaction to Straga's threats hadn't been as explosive as the woman's, but he was clenching his fist as if gripping a sword.

"You'll have your chance, Sigurd. The journey of their lives is almost complete."

Ronan came out of his surprise at the show of magic and firmed his expression into a glare to hide his sudden uncertainty. "If you won't join with me, then you'll die. Your magic can't stop us all."

"You seem awfully certain about what my magic can and cannot do." The Sorcerer mocked, unimpressed. "If you think you can make me bend my neck where so many others have failed, then go ahead and try, but heed this lesson well: when the weak court death...they find it."

And then they turned around and walked back up the hill without another word. Straga and Calder unfroze a moment later, falling gracelessly to the ground.

Ronan felt the niggle of uncertainty grow. The Sorcerer had shown no fear or worry, did not even seem to be taking this attack on him all that seriously. Of course, he could just be a good liar or simply that arrogant, but...

No matter. He had come too far to back out now.

XXXXX

Ronan was more clever and patient than the vast majority of free folk – he knew that charging up a narrow, icy trench and into a wall of spears was a bad idea no matter how overwhelmingly the numbers were in your favor.

He had his men break up as much of the ice as they safely could to make their footing more certain, but that still left the portion of it that was in arrow range, and it did nothing about how narrow their path was. The snow had been packed together so thickly that it would have required a pickaxe to destroy.

"They're goin' to climb up the sides." Hala said quietly, staring down the eastern side of the hill at the raiders below. The north of the hill was a sheer wall of frozen rock, suicidal to try climbing, but the eastern and western sides were more forgiving.

"Yep." Harry nodded unconcernedly.

"You got some kind of magic trick to stop them?" Sigurd asked. "Free folk are good climbers, and I don't think we'll be able to fight off another attack from the front if they come at us from the sides at the same time."

"There are spells I could use, but I'm not going to." Harry said. "If Ronan wasn't so fixated on overwhelming us, he'd realize that he could use his superior numbers to simply tire us out. We called it 'saber rattling' where I come from, and it basically means presenting a threat of attack to force us into a state of constant preparation. With how badly we're outnmubered, he could rotate his men to rest them, and we would have no choice but to stand ready in case they actually attacked. Within a day we would have either been too tired to actually fight or been forced to attack ourselves, sacrificing our only real advantage to do so."

"Then what are we goin' to do?" Sigurd asked with a frown.

"When a position becomes untenable, you abandon it." Harry shrugged.

Quite honestly, the only reason they had fought in the open to begin with was because he wanted to get them blooded. It advanced Adrastia's schemes to turn him into a leadership figure, this was true, but it was a minor issue. Having all these people hiding in Dol Guldur while he used his magic to break the attackers would have far more troublesome consequences down the line in his opinion.

Plus, he had a little scheme of his own in mind.

XXXXX

After Sigurd, Hala and everyone else retreated into the tower, Harry planted a high-backed wooden chair in front of it.

Then he sat down, the hood of his cloak pulled over his head, elbows braced on the armrest with hands steepled in front of his face, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, bladestaff resting indolently across his body.

And then he waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Ronan's people eventually noticed that their opposition was suddenly gone, and they noticed that it was just him sitting there, but it was so far out of their experience that they were wary of approaching.

Harry didn't mind. Once the mortal mind got used to the idea of living forever, it seemed as if time started slipping away at an accelerated pace...or maybe he was just old. Either way, a few hours spent sitting and doing nothing wasn't a bother. He was quite comfortable with just his own thoughts for company and there was ever so much to think about.

The past couple of years had been spent teaching his new students and similarly sedate pursuits. He wasn't in any kind of rush, but he had just about reached the limit of what could he could learn from the information he'd gathered so far. After things settled down from this debacle, it would be time for another field trip. Perhaps to Asshai-by-the-Shadow and to the nearby city of Stygai?

Harry was able to plan out his affairs in some detail before he was interrupted. Ronan decided to err on the side of caution, wary of traps. He had his people climb up the hill and slowly advance up the prepared path, hacking up ice as they went. For all his admirable paranoia, there were no traps prepared to punish them for another reckless charge. More and more raiders began crowding the relatively small hill, keeping a wary distance from Harry's sitting form.

Finally, Ronan stepped forward.

"Sorcerer." He greeted with cautious courtesy. "Have you reconsidered my offer?"

Harry smiled, amused. The little brat had convinced himself that he'd been bluffing earlier. He slowly stood, smile widening as the horde gathered in front of him took a nervous step backwards.

"No, I just needed you to present yourselves to me in a nice, big group." He said, gripping his bladestaff more firmly and slashing the glowing red bulb in their direction. "Plague of Rust."

A sickly yellow mist billowed out, engulfing the suddenly panicked raiders. Any metal touched by it began to corrode. Iron, steel, copper, tin or bronze, it didn't matter whether it was a metal actually susceptible to corrosion or not, within seconds it was reduced to dust.

Knowledge was power in a very literal way for a wizard and doubly so for an alchemist. Harry knew more about the lore of metal than anyone save the most accomplished goblin smiths back on Earth – the Plague of Rust was a simple enough spell for him to cast, although rather power intensive, which was why he needed the boost from his staff to increase its range.

He chuckled, using a Sonorous charm to make the sound echo loudly. The already spooked horde flinched back at the sound. "Are you ready to give up on this foolishness now, Red Raven?"

Ronan bristled at the mocking tone and hated moniker. Just as planned.

"I'll have your fucking head, Crowfather!" He roared, using what he thought was an insulting moniker of his own.

Joke was on him though, as Harry rather liked it.

So he merely smiled at the angry ginger and inclined his head. "I'll be waiting for your next feeble attempt then. Try not to disappoint me."

Then he collected his chair and strolled into the tower, the heavy stone doors closing shut behind him.

The raiders barely had time to figure out what the hell had just happened before arrows started raining down on them from the balconies. Shocked and significantly demoralized by the sudden loss of all their metal, the raiders fled.

XXXXX

They hadn't all lost their weapons. Plenty of people hadn't been on the hill when the Sorcerer had cast his spell, and not everyone that was had been using metal weapons.

Keeping his army together still took Ronan the rest of the day and he knew that if he didn't get some kind of victory soon, they would scatter to the winds.

Further attempts to breach the front door had proven fruitless, which was why he, Straga, Calder and about a dozen others were crawling towards the tower in the dead of night. They were wearing only furs and armed only with wooden staves or clubs.

They reached the base without issue and managed to swing grappling hooks over the stone railing of the lowest balcony. A tense moment passed as they waited for someone to react to the clatter that sounded so very loud to their ears, but they relaxed when nothing happened and began climbing.

"We make our way downwards." Ronan said quietly when they reached the first staircase. "Keep your fucking mouths shut and step lightly."

Straga sneered at him with sharp teeth, but didn't say anything. He knew just as well as the rest of them that they were dead if they got caught before they could open the front door and allow the rest of their army to pour into the tower.

Ronan led the way, tightly gripping the sturdy wooden staff in his hands. Down and down they went, through empty hallways and long staircases, encountering not a soul.

"We should have reached the bottom by now." Calder said quietly, eyes flicking madly to and fro. "The tower plays tricks on us."

Ronan knew it was true. They hadn't entered the tower a great distance from the ground, and they had surely been walking long enough to traverse it.

"When did we go through a door?" Straga asked with a tone of voice most unusual for him – bafflement.

"Nev..." Ronan's voice trailed off as he stared at the door behind them. He recalled not a single door, yet here was one just behind them, which they surely must have gone through to be where they were now.

He quickly pushed his way through the men and cautiously touched the door. It certainly felt real.

"The Crowfather's lies have entrapped us." Calder spoke, his voice losing sanity as it rose in pitch. "We cannot trust to reason. We must go back if we wish to go forward!"

"Be quiet, you fool!" Ronan hissed with a furious glare at the softheaded lunatic. When the 'man' subsided, he turned his focus back to the door and gave it a gentle push.

It revealed a large, empty room. Inside it two familiar men stood.

"Finally." The Sorcerer drawled lazily, balancing a bladestaff over his shoulder. "I was starting to think you'd spend the rest of the night walking in circles."

"That would've been disappointing." The Thenn grinned viciously, brandishing a sword that reminded Ronan eerily of the one that the Starks had with its smoky ripples. That blade had carved through free folk like they were so much cheese before his brother had killed the Stark. "The cannibal is mine."

Straga wasn't one to be surprised for long when there was a fight to be had, nor could he refrain from running his mouth.

"I was hoping for the woman." He grinned back, running a hand across the ugly bruise around his eye and hefting his club. "We have things to settle. Where is she?"

"Sleeping, if you must know." The Sorcerer seemed genuinely amused. "I fucked her unconscious while we were waiting for you to make a move."

"Your blasphemy against the gods ends here, Crowfather!" Calder declared, brandishing his staff, one of weirwood that he had been using for years now.

Before anything else could be said, the Sorcerer made a grasping motion and Calder was suddenly pulled towards him through the air. With a loud squelch, he was impaled on the bladestaff and began gurgling.

Shocking as that was, it was nothing compared to what followed. Calder began to gasp, the blood drained from his face until he was ghostly pale, then he began to shrivel. Before Ronan' horrified gaze, he turned into a dried out husk, like the corpse of a man long since dead.

The man's weirwood staff clattered to the ground, followed by his dried out husk.

The Sorcerer spun the bladestaff around, the red bulb at the top now giving off a faint glow.

Ronan flinched, certain that they were going to be killed by a spell as it was thrust towards them.

"Aeons in an Instant." The Sorcerer intoned.

Ronan felt nothing, but when he glanced at the men that had come with them, he could only watch in horror as they aged right before his eyes. One moment they were still hale and strong, the next they were withered and grey. The moment after that they were dead and rotting, and the one after that they were dust in the wind.

"What...?" He trailed off in horror. It felt like a great black pit had opened up beneath his feet as the power he had challenged revealed itself.

"Now that we've disposed of the extras we can get to the main event." The Sorcerer said with a smirk and made a beckoning gesture with his open palm. "Come on, Red Raven. You wanted to kill me? Here I am."

Ronan exchanged a glance with Straga, seeing that the brash cannibal looked as shaken as he did, but what else was there to do besides fight?

With a defiant roar, they charged to attack their respective opponents.

XXXXX

Harry locked Ronan into a contest of strength and grinned at him. "Did no one ever warn you against attacking a wizard in his lair? What madness drove you here, Red Raven?"

The red-bearded man grit his teeth and shoved him away with an angry grunt. "I wanted a better life for my people. With your magic, we could succeed where my brother failed."

Harry chuckled, idly resting his bladestaff over a shoulder. "Really now? And you thought that having an army at your back would make you more persuasive? No, you didn't come here because of lofty ideals, but to soothe the sting of your pride. Perhaps the bards were right after all, perhaps you are a coward."

"I AM NOT!" Ronan roared and jumped forward aggressively.

He was an experienced warrior, but with no formal training. His footwork, his root, wasn't what it should be, especially when he was angry, and Harry had no trouble tripping him up as he blocked the reckless attack.

"How childish, thinking that screaming louder will make your words true." He sneered derisively as the other man scrambled back to his feet.

A sudden gurgling interrupted them and both looked at the battle between Straga and Sigurd.

The Thenn had cut the cannibal nearly in half.

"Oh, that's going to be a bitch to clean up." Harry sighed.

Sigurd snorted and wrenched his sword out of the newly made corpse. "Don't be such a woman, Harry."

"Maybe I should turn you into a woman for that one." He mused aloud. "I'm sure Sigrid would find it funny."

Sigurd blanched, because he knew that Sigrid would find it funny.

Harry chuckled at the reaction "Could you give us the room?"

Sigurd looked curious, but nodded affably and left without protest.

"I am no coward." Ronan said firmly once they were alone, gripping his staff and apparently ignoring the byplay. Kind of rude of him actually.

"And you came here to prove that?" Harry asked archly. "To who, and why? Is your will so weak that you need others to call you brave?"

Ronan let out another shout and swung his staff like a greatsword.

Harry caught it easily, his greater strength and the cushioning spell weaved into his glove preventing him from feeling more than a minor sting.

His shadowskin cloak suddenly seemed to cling tighter to him, his skin rippled with new muscle and his eyes became the slit amber of a shadowcat.

"A weapon is only as strong as the man who wields it." He said, smirking toothily as the ginger raider's eyes widened in shock and fear. "I have heard your words and tasted your spirit, Ronan Redbeard, and they are FALSE!"

The sentence was finished in a shout, and Ronan was sent flying across the empty room.

"You loved and respected your brother dearly." Harry continued as the other man slowly picked himself up. "But you always lived in his shadow, were always just his little brother. It hurt, didnt it? To be called a coward for doing the smart thing after Raymun led so many to a pointless death?"

"Shut your mouth." Ronan growled dangerously. "My brother was a great man."

"Hmm, if you say so." Harry shrugged, cheekily flashing a fang. "Wasn't it enough, to know that you saved the lives of those who followed you? Did the words of people who weren't even there cut so deep? Deep enough to abandon your daughter for this fool's errand?"

"Leave my daughter out of this!" Ronan growled louder, looking ready to leap back into the offensive.

"But it was you who brought her into this." Harry countered, gesturing towards the southern wall. "She's out there right now, terrified that her father won't come back, afraid of what's going to happen to her if you don't. There are already men sniffing around her, planning to take her for themselves as soon as she's old enough if you don't come back. Some of them would treat her well, but many wouldn't."

Ronan's jaw clenched and the clear aggression in his stance, expression and aura was shot through with fear. Well, a different sort of fear. There had already been a lot of it bubbling beneath the anger.

"Stay away from her." He said dangerously, his overall mien becoming even more hostile. His spirit became purer, however.

"Isn't it a bit late to be worrying about her?" Harry asked quizzically. "You've already abandoned her, after all."

"I DID NOT ABANDON HER!" Ronan roared in outrage and launched a furious attack.

The conversation had to be paused until the angry ginger ran out of steam, but Harry picked it right back up soon enough. "Are you sure about that? You won't be seeing her again if you die here."

Ronan glared and panted like a bull. "I'll kill you."

Harry chuckled menacingly and blasted the man with a low voltage, low amperage arc of lightning.

"When the world of flesh is beneath you, even creatures mysterious and magical may fall." He told the twitching redhead, grinning at one of his favorite references. "You, my young friend, are far from that realm."

Ronan shakily made it back on his feet, not looking particularly steady.

Harry made a negligent wave in his direction and he was blasted towards the wall, another spell keeping him stuck there.

"You've made quite the nuisance of yourself, Red Raven." He said casually, dropping the shadowcat Skinwalk and putting the bladestaff back into hammerspace.

"Then just kill me and be done with it!" Ronan spat.

"I could do that." Harry nodded, and then changed the subject. "Did you enjoy the homes you took over?"

"Huh?" Ronan blinked, clearly baffled by the non-sequitur.

"The homes around the hill, did you enjoy them?" Harry elaborated.

"Yes. They're better than any hut or tent I've ever seen." The ginger admitted.

"See, that's the problem. Your little host is going to fracture after this no matter what, and a lot of the people that used to follow you or Calder will either want to keep those houses they took over – something that isn't going to happen, by the way – or they'll set up tents and hope to become part of what's growing here."

Adrastia was in fact intending to encourage that exact scenario, no doubt through some combination of incentivizing, subtle propaganda and guilt tripping about being part of this attack.

Of course, she was expecting him to kill off all the leaders to facilitate this, but Harry had other ideas.

"I'm sure you're wondering what that has to do with you still being alive?"

Ronan nodded cautiously.

"Something you should know about me; I actually don't like doing the leadership thing. It's rather exhausting and takes time away from all the other stuff I want to do. That's where you come in. I'm going to let you go and in exchange, you're going to do all that shit for me. Sound good?"

"I won't kneel to you." Ronan said sourly.

"Who said anything about kneeling, you stupid ginger fuck?" Harry rolled his eyes in exasperation. "You probably won't even see me most of the time, I just need someone to knock skulls together so that I don't have to. Alternatively, I could just kill you, that's also an option."

"What about my daughter?" Ronan asked after a few seconds of silence.

"What about her?"

"Will you want to keep her in this tower of yours?"

"No." Harry didn't bother explaining why he didn't need a hostage.

Another lengthy pause ensued before Ronan gave a reluctant nod. "Very well, Sorcerer. I agree to your terms."

"Excellent." Harry said, dismissing the Sticking Charm with a wave of his hand and letting the other man fall to the floor. "Follow me, and call me Harry."

He turned and started walking without waiting for a response, lips pulling into a slight smirk when he heard Ronan cursing under his breath as he followed.

"Where are we goin'?" Ronan asked two flights of stairs later, sounding a little bit out of breath from the quick pace.

"To meet your new...shall we say...handler." Harry answered. "She'll be telling you what needs doing and giving you advice on how to get it done, but other than that you'll be free to do things your way."

A bold-faced lie that was, although Ronan would never realize that he was dancing to someone else's tune.

"She?" The ginger asked curiously.

"She." Harry confirmed, stepping up to a particular doot. "And here we are."

He barged in without knocking and lit the dark room up with a magelight. "Rise and shine!"

Adrastia jerked awake in her bed and stared at him owlishly for a few moments before rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She'd always been a rather deep sleeper. "Harry?"

"Yep. I have Ronan Redbeard here for you. Take care of him for me, would you?"

He could almost see the pieces coming together in her mind, eyes filling up with annoyance at the realization that he was planning to dump the tedium of day-to-day leadership on a middleman and put her in charge of him.

"Couldn't this have waited until morning?" She asked irritably.

Or maybe the annoyance was due to it being the middle of the night.

"No time like the present." Harry said in an obnoxiosuly chipper tone just to annoy her further. Then he turned to Ronan and clapped him on the shoulder. "Ronan, this is Adrastia. Do as she says, alright?"

The bewildered ginger nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off Adrastia, who had by now climbed out of bed and was standing there in the nude. "Uh, alright."

Really, you'd think he'd never seen a naked woman before.

"Great, I'll leave you two to get to know each other."

Adrastia sighed and put on a pleasant smile. "A pleasure to meet you, Ronan."

Harry was just closing the door behind him when he heard the man's response.

"What's wrong with your skin?"

XXXXX

15th day of the 8th moon, 236 AC. The North, White Harbor.

A red-feathered raven flapped its wings in challenge against the much larger, green-eyed one, only to be easily defeated. Held in the greater raven's talons, the red raven was thrown to the spider, who greedily spun a web around it.

Melisandre came out of her fire-viewing with a gasp that went unheard in the rowdy tavern. There were no proper temples to the Lord of Light anywhere in Westeros and lighting a fire inside the city would no doubt attract the attention of the city guard, so she had to make do.

As was usual for these visions, they said much and yet nothing at all. Without context she was still as much in the dark about what her god wished of her as ever.

At least she was in Westeros now. It had taken the better part of a year just to make it to Volantis from Asshai, where she had tarried for a time in the hopes that the visions would be clearer in her lord's greatest temple. They hadn't been, and it had taken another six moons longer to reach this land full of heathens.

It was difficult to resist the impulse to educate them on the one true god whenever she saw them worshipping trees or the idols of the false Seven, but she persevered. R'hllor hadn't sent her here to teach the misguided, that much she was sure of.

There didn't seem to be any sense of urgency to the visions, although Melisandre was hesitant to make that assumption. R'hllor's divine knowledge may be perfect, but she was merely mortal and easily capable of misinterpreting His wisdom.

Regardless, it wouldn't do to blunder carelessly into the lands beyond the Wall. She felt that she could spend some time in this city gathering information. Melisandre knew that she was woefully ill-informed about Westeros in general, and about the northern reaches of it in particular.

XXXXX

23rd day of the 8th moon, 236 AC. The Crownlands, King's Landing, Red Keep.

"Reading your brother's letters again?"

Aegon V Targaryen came out of his thoughts and looked at his wife, Betha of House Blackwood. She was a beautiful, stubborn, willful woman whom he loved dearly...

"Great Uncle Brynden's, actually."

"You know it isn't wise."

...but sometimes he wished that she would be a little more agreeable.

"We need dragons, Betha." Aegon sighed. "Every single one of my lords is fighting against the reforms I want to make. They would not be so quick to protest if I flew over their keeps on the back of a dragon."

Betha didn't comment on his reforms. She had been born, raised and lived as a noble lady her entire life and didn't truly grasp Aegon's fixation on helping the smallfolk, but she was a dutiful wife and queen and would support him despite that lack of understanding.

"There are other ways." She said reassuringly. "With our children bethrothed to some of the most powerful Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, you will have the support you need, without having to make deals with a sorcerer."

It sat ill with Aegon to arrange marriages for his children when he had been able to marry for love, but he knew that it was a different situation. He had been the fourth son of a fourth son and nobody had really cared what he did with his life until he was suddenly next in line for the throne.

"But what harm could it do to at least talk to the man?" He argued, because it wasn't just about political leverage. His Targaryen blood itched to return dragons to the world.

He had waited patiently for the winter to end, then he had waited for the most recent Blackfyre Rebellion to be put down. Now there was nothing pressing going on and the thought of his family's unhatched dragon eggs preyed on his mind more and more every day.

Betha gave him an unimpressed look. "I dare not even consider what a sorcerer would ask for in trade for his favors, but that may well be the least of our concerns should the Faith find out about it. Even the smallfolk may turn against you then."

That was unfortunately true. As much as they loved him now, Aegon was not oblivious to their fickle natures. Great Uncle Brynden had done great things for the realm, yet the people had never liked him for his peculiar looks and secretive ways. If it became known that he was associating with a powerful sorcerer living in the frozen wastes beyond the Wall, his enemies would use that to destroy his reputation.

"Very well, I will put my desire for dragons aside." Aegon conceded with a sigh and a slight smile at his wife.

"Good." Betha nodded firmly.

For now. He silently added in the privacy of his thoughts.