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POV: Lord Roderick Flint
Location: Icefall Hold – The Stony Shore
The wind came first—laced with salt and ill omen.
Then came the smoke.
It rose in the blue-gray dawn beyond the eastern cliff. Just a whisper at first, like breath caught in the throat of the land.
"My lord!" the rider shouted, bursting through the stone archway, face pale and gloved hand trembling. "Longships! Black sails! Ten of them!"
Lord Roderick Flint was already fastening his belt. "How many?"
"Three hundred at least. They're already ashore—ironborn!"
The words froze the hall.
"Where?"
"Icefall Shore. They're torching the fishing camps. Shields at the ready, axes drawn."
Flint cursed, low and brutal.
"Sound the tower horn. Wake every soul in the hold. Archers to the cliff wall, spears to the lower path. Send three ravens—Cerwyn, Dustin... and Winterfell."
"Aye, my lord."
As the boy vanished down the steps, Roderick pulled on his cloak and stepped into the cold. He looked east, where fire bloomed behind the mist.
He did not pray. The North had no gods for this kind of war.
Only men.
And men with blades.
POV: Ironborn Raider-Reaver Captain Kragg
Location: Icefall Hold – The Stony Shore
Captain Kragg had lost count of how many screams the morning had given him.
He liked the way the smoke curled up toward the cliffs. It meant the North was still flammable. Still mortal.
His men had already breached the stockade near the fisheries. Flint warriors fought back hard, but these weren't the great keeps of the south. No towers of stone and flame. No dragons in their banners. Just a few sturdy spearmen trying not to cry when you took a cousin's head.
He leaned against a splintered cart and drank cold water laced with dried wine skin.
That was when he heard it—the rumble.
Low. Measured. Like the cliffs were grinding their teeth.
He stood.
The ground shifted.
"What—"
The center ridge cracked.
A spear of stone jutted upward, not from tremor, but from intent.
Kragg turned toward the high bluff—and saw them.
Seven figures. Cloaked. Black-clad. Still.
Then the wind caught the cloaks, and the world changed.
POV: Northern Soldier - Jerek, Spear-Bearer of Flint
Location: Icefall Hold – The Stony Shore
Jerek had been fighting for what felt like days. His shield was split. His arm numb. His brother already dead.
The Ironborn had too many. Flint warriors held, but barely. Arrows had run dry. Flame was everywhere.
Then came the sound.
Not horns. Not screams.
Footsteps.
Seven shadows descended the bluff like walking war—one of them familiar, the rest strangers.
The first was massive—a hammer swinging wide. Jerek didn't know his name, but the man fought like a siege given flesh. He hit the ground and the stone shattered beneath his feet. One Ironborn flew back as if hit by a siege ram. Another's ribs folded like parchment.
A blur followed—a woman Jerek had never seen, gliding like smoke. She struck without sound, without pause. She didn't run. She ghosted. One breath, and the nearest reaver dropped, his throat cut before he saw her blade. Another raised his axe.
Too late.
She was gone before his arm fell.
Then came another—hooded, murmuring arcane things, tossing vials of flame like a pyromancer from old tales., muttering something and tossing a vial. A pillar of green flame shot twenty feet into the air, slicing the battlefield in half. The Ironborn reeled. He simply adjusted his coat, eyes scanning their positions like a cartographer drawing corpses.
A scream echoed as a reaver lunged at another man—lean, calm, a healer by the look of him—only for him to catch his wrist, snap the elbow, and shove a knuckle into the man's throat. The raider crumpled like spoiled fruit.
A woman followed—her sword already red, her steps ghost-silent. Jerek didn't know who she was, but he knew to stay out of her way.
She moved like snow sliding off a roof: silent, sudden, fatal. Her blade bent wind. She pivoted mid-swing to avoid friendly blood. She struck clean, and her victims folded as if disassembled.
Jerek blinked.
Then the last one dropped.
Arthur.
He did not leap.
He descended—as if gravity itself had chosen to obey him.
The wind stopped. The fire paused. Even the Ironborn froze.
Jerek couldn't tell if Arthur was breathing.
Then Arthur raised his sword and slashed an another incoming squid.
Jerek had seen battle before—small skirmishes with wildlings, bandits—but never anything like them.
Arthur stepped forward, calm as still water. The Ironborn screamed and charged.
It was a mistake.
Arthur vanished—then reappeared behind the front line, sword still sheathed. A pause.
Then five raiders collapsed at once—necks bent wrong, limbs twitching like dead spiders.
One screamed, "It's him!"
Another: "The Demon of the North!"
Panic hit like fire in dry grass.
Arthur moved again—his sword singing through steel and bone. He wasn't dancing. He was demonstrating.
With a twist of his wrist, he caught an axe mid-swing. His other hand pulsed with refined qi. He touched the raider's chest—
—and the man flew backward thirty feet, crashing into a boat mast that exploded in splinters.
Behind Arthur and that woman leapt onto a barrel and deflected two crossbow bolts with the flat of her sword. She landed on one foot, turned, and slit a throat in the same breath. Her movements didn't waste effort—perfect strength control. She could have gutted a horse, or cracked an egg.
One of the giants waded into the next cluster of Ironborn—rooted like a mountain. Four reavers struck at him with axes and swords—he didn't flinch. His hammer spun once. Armor crumpled like paper. Helms folded inward. Bones broke with the sound of a forge hammer meeting anvil.
Then another figure—hooded, eyes glowing faintly—rolled something down the slope and muttered, "Three, two…"
The explosion was blue, soundless for half a breath, then thunderclap-loud. A shockwave burst outward—nonlethal, but deafening. The Ironborn staggered, bleeding from noses, blinded.
That's when the blur attacked.
No one saw her approach—only the aftermath. She didn't run. She flickered between positions—one breath on the wall, the next behind a reaver, knives already in spines. Two raiders raised blades—too late. She was gone before they fell.
Then came the roar.
It wasn't human. Not truly.
A massive shape hurtled down the slope, trailing wind and fury. The sound it made wasn't just a shout—it was something deeper, older, primal. A reaver tried to meet him head-on and was thrown backward, spinning like a broken doll.
And the last one?
No one saw her. Not truly.
But when a raider dropped with his neck twisted at an impossible angle, someone gasped, "Who was that?"
No one answered.
Because no one knew.
Ironborn POV – Reaver Kragg (Final Moments)
Captain Kragg had seen men die. He had taken slaves in the Arbor, burned a sept in the Reach, and fought sellswords in Myr.
But this—
This was myth.
They weren't fighting warriors. They were fighting demigods.
He saw the tall one—Arthur—cut down a man wearing full plate with one swing.
He watched as the ghost-woman disappeared behind a tent and came out red to the elbows.
He saw the hammer-brute lift a man off the ground with one hand and hurl him like driftwood.
Kragg backed away. His sword slipped from bloody fingers.
"Back to the ships!" someone cried.
But there were no ships left. Two had been cracked by qi tremors, their hulls twisted like tree bark.
Kragg turned to run—only to find someone already there. A woman, silent as death, standing where no one had been a moment before.
She raised one hand.
He blinked.
Then his vision snapped sideways.
He was on the ground. Neck twisted. Breath gone.
POV: Lord Roderick Flint – Tower Watch, Dusk
It was over.
The snow had melted where fire touched it. The beach was thick with bodies—some twitching, most still.
Lord Flint watched from the broken wall of his keep, one hand on a spear haft, breath fogging in the wind.
A boy beside him whispered, "We held."
"No," Flint said.
"They did."
He looked at the seven figures walking back through the haze—Arthur in front, the others still nameless, still terrifying.
"Send a raven," Flint ordered.
"To whom?" the steward asked.
"Send a raven," Flint ordered.
"To whom?" the steward asked.
"To every house that still breathes," Flint said. "Tell them the Demon of the North walks. And he brought others with him—gods or ghosts, I can't say. But we did not die because of them."