The air on Bear Island, even amidst the tension of battle, carried the unmistakable scent of salt and damp moss, now mingled with a metallic, rancid note of sweat, blood, and freshly splintered wood. There were no stone walls here, none of the towering defenses that protected Winterfell or King's Landing. House Mormont's fortress was a palisade of logs, erected with the urgency of a threat that usually limited itself to hungry bears and ravenous wolves. It stood as high as three and a half men, each trunk driven into the earth, bound by thick fiber ropes and topped with sharpened spikes.
However, it had not been built to withstand the fury of the Ironborn.
With every strike, a hollow, dry thunder echoed through the small clearing. It was the battering ram, a monstrosity covered in iron and wet hide, carried by the broad shoulders of men who seemed to feel neither pain nor fear, only the raw joy of the slaughter. The impact was not like that of a siege engine against stone, which reverberated with a contained, dull force. Against wood, the ram produced a sharper sound, a long groan followed by the dry snap of fibers being torn apart. The individual logs shrieked in their sockets, protesting like an old man with pneumonia, and the sweet scent of sap and splintered wood rose, mixing with the sea spray.
The shouts of the Ironborn, hoarse and filled with a savage faith in the Drowned God, came through the wood. They were quick commands, words of iron and blood that served as a grim cadence for the relentless rhythm of the ram. Maege Mormont's men, on the left side of the gatehouse, felt the ground tremble beneath the soles of their boots.
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It was in Maege's section that the palisade gave way first.
It wasn't a collapse; it was a tear, a "wound." Two of the logs, which had been struck multiple times, suddenly shifted, leaning away from each other. The resulting hole was neither round nor clean. It was irregular, with jagged splinters of wood looking like exposed fangs. The gap was wide enough for a man's torso, and more than enough for Maege, who wielded the House Mormont battle-axe with the familiarity of one holding a babe, to see what lay on the other side.
There they were.
Six Ironborn carried the ram, their salty, bearded faces covered by conical helms of dark, damp steel. Their bloodshot eyes were fixed on the breach. The light filtering through the hole bathed them in a sudden glow, revealing the brutal determination in their strained muscles. There was no hesitation in them; only the hunger to break through and kill.
"Release!" Maege shouted, her hoarse voice cutting through the noise like a shard of glass.
The two archers, young men accustomed to hunting fish, did not fail. They released their drawn arrows, sending them whistling through the damp air.
One of the Ironborn, the closest to the gap, took the arrow in the center of his chest, where the armor of boiled leather and iron rings was thinnest. He was in the middle of a movement, preparing to shove the ram forward again, and the impact caught him completely off guard. The cry that escaped his throat was muffled, a gurgling sound as he fell backward, his arms letting go of the ram's trunk. He thrashed in the muddy ground, gasping for air that wouldn't come, the arrow buried up to the feathers.
The second, taller and stronger, was hit in the shoulder, where the iron tip found the gap between the plate and the gorget. It was a painful blow, but not fatal. The man let out a roar of pain and recoiled, stumbling over the feet of the man beside him, his arm hanging uselessly. He sought refuge at the back of the "tortoise shell" of shields protecting them from above.
With two men down, the ram's momentum was broken. The heavy log suddenly tilted, unbalanced, and stopped two spans from the splintered wood of the palisade. A moment of tense silence hung in the air, broken only by the cries of the man wounded in the shoulder.
But the Ironborn were tougher than rusted nails. The hesitation lasted less than a single breath.
One of them, more imposing than the others and wearing a more elaborate helm decorated with a bronze crest in the shape of a fish, barked a command. "Silence, you whelp!" He instantly stepped forward.
Maege thought: 'This must be the leader.' Immediately after, she shouted again: "Release!"
He threw himself against the opening, using his shield, reinforced with iron straps, to plug it.
The metal struck the splintered wood with a dry clank. At the same moment, two more arrows fired on Maege's orders hit the shield. They didn't penetrate, but the impact reverberated through the man's arm, a dull ache, and he grunted, but the gap was sealed.
"Yen! Harrold!" the leader shouted, his words sounding muffled and cavernous. "The ram! Now!"
He was referring to the men carrying the arched shields that formed the protective carapace over the ram. Two of them, without hesitation, stepped down, throwing their shields to the ground to join the tip of the ram, leaving two terrifying gaps in the tortoise shell.
The ram struck again.
CRASH.
The sound was more powerful now, more urgent. Maege, feeling rage rise in her throat like hot bile, gripped the handle of her axe. She didn't want to wait for the wood to split again. The waiting was a humiliation that fear transformed into agony.
"Give me that," she growled, her Northern accent thick and hard as ice, snatching an axe from the hands of a man standing beside her, a frightened youth holding a short axe. She stepped toward the palisade, nearing the area where the shield covered the breach.
"Out of the way!"
With a primal scream, more animal than human, Maege began to hammer at the shield.
It wasn't a tactical attack; it was fury. Her battle-axe rose and fell in brutal strokes, each intended to shatter the steel and the arm of the man holding it.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Wood chips flew from the palisade, and the iron edges of the shield deformed under the strength of her she-bear arms. She didn't stop shouting, words of contempt and threats that were almost unintelligible but charged with pure hatred for the enemy's scent of salt and sea.
From above, the archers saw their chance. The gaps in the tortoise shell, formed by the absence of Yen and Harrold, were now a golden opportunity.
Arrows came in quick arcs. A cry of pain mingled with the metallic sound of armor being struck. One of the Ironborn staggered, hit in the thigh, and another in the shoulder, right where the wounded man had retreated minutes before. Fortunately for the iron men, he wasn't one of those carrying the ram. The leader was under attack from two sides: Maege's blind fury in front of him, hammering his shield, and the arrows raining down on his protection.
"What is dead may never die!" the leader roared, his voice a mix of desperation and faith. "Faster! By the Drowned God! Pick up the pace!"
The iron men responded to the cry with renewed savagery, the ram pounding with a dangerous force.
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While Maege's side was a pandemonium of rage, the breach on Jorah Mormont's side happened differently.
Here, the ram's attack was more methodical. The Ironborn had targeted three logs at once, attacking them with precision and calm. The result was a series of small breaches forming between the trunks instead of one large rift. These were small but deep holes, through which the cold air and salty sea smell passed, and through which flashes of the iron men could be seen.
Jorah, his face still lacking the thick beard he would grow in future years, but already marked by an unshakable tension, saw the opportunity. He pointed his longsword at the palisade and shouted.
"Spears! Three men! Points in the gaps! Thrust without stopping!"
Three men with long, broad-tipped spears stepped forward. They jammed their points into the cracks between the logs, their arms moving like pistons. With every thrust, there was a cry of pain from the other side.
The stabs had an immediate effect. The rhythm of the ram, previously relentless, slowed. The Ironborn became cautious, hesitant to approach the palisade that now squirted danger. The attack speed dropped by nearly half, and the sound of impacts became more sporadic, less threatening.
Hope rose in Jorah's throat like warm wine. He thought: 'We can hold. We can increase the numbers at every crack.'
"More men!" he shouted, his voice turning hoarse with excitement. "New breaches! Stab them! Don't let them breathe!"
Four men with spears began to move to join the line. The three original spearmen had tense, brutal smiles on their lips, tasting victory. Jorah was ready to celebrate the moment.
It was at that instant that the palisade collapsed.
What Jorah had not realized, in his hasty hope, was that the reduction in the ram's speed was not a sign of surrender, but a change in tactics. The Ironborn had sacrificed speed for more powerful impacts, concentrating all their strength to weaken the wood to the breaking point. The thrusts had wounded and irritated them, but had not seriously incapacitated anyone.
Three long trunks, the ones that had been hit the most, fell all at once with a deafening crash. The sight of the massive logs slamming into the damp ground made the Northmen recoil in panic. One of the closest spearmen had his shoulder grazed by one of the logs, and he fell backward, groaning in pain, nearly crushed. Fortunately, this section of the palisade did not have a Firing Step for archers (like the part around the gate), which would also have collapsed and surely buried the spearmen.
The sight was terrifying: a wide hole, not irregular like Maege's, but a total collapse, a gap five feet wide in the middle of the palisade. And over the fallen, tangled logs, the Ironborn advanced. Slowly, clumsily, but they advanced and began to group together to march in unison. Waiting and attacking one by one would only lead to a foolish death.
Jorah froze. Shock paralyzed him. The longsword in his hand felt heavy, and his mind, trained in hunting strategies and skirmishes, could not process the scale of the disaster. He gave no orders.
The men under his command were not veterans. They were farmers and woodsmen of Bear Island, loyal and strong, but inexperienced in siege warfare. They stood still, nervous, their eyes wide with fear, waiting. They knew they should do something, but what? An experienced warrior would have moved automatically, taking a defensive position. But these were farmers with axes, and they waited for the voice of their Lord to tell them what to do.
Jorah's silence was a vacuum that sucked away all their hope.
Then, a shout rang out from the reinforcement line at the rear of the defense. It wasn't a roar of fury like Maege's, nor a cry of panic. It was a command, clear, concise, and echoing with a cold, unquestionable authority.
"Spearmen with shields! Form a shield wall around them and raise your spears!" The voice was composed, a strange counterpoint to the chaos of battle. "Axes and swords to the back!"
The order, by its sheer clarity and authority, broke the paralysis.
Lowering their eyes to their round shields, the Northmen moved.
Clumsily, yes, but with desperate speed, they lined up around the hole in the palisade, closing in on the Ironborn who were still grouping. Spear tips rose over the top of the shields, forming a wall of thorny wood. The Ironborn, now gathered over the pieces of fallen trunks, stared at the amateur shield wall with scorn. Mocking smiles painted their faces.
Jorah, his face still pale and in the middle of the shield wall, raised his longsword with his right arm. He was ready to let out a war cry, to lead the counter-attack against the first row of Ironborn shields.
But before he could make a sound, a strong grip pulled him.
Jorah's left arm was grabbed with surprising force, and he was yanked back behind the shield wall. He stumbled, off-balance.
"Swords and axes to the back," said the same voice, now very close. The sound was low but deep.
Jorah spun around, his heart pounding, ready to face whoever had dared to remove him from his place.
Following the direction of the hand that held him, he came face to face with his younger brother.
"What are you doing here?!" Jorah's voice, still high with age and raspy with anxiety, was an indignant protest, almost like the cry of a wounded calf. The boy's sword, which Marrom, the blacksmith of Bear Village, had just finished repairing, trembled slightly in his hand.
Alaric did not turn. The position he assumed was the same as the older men in the shield wall, but his body, tall and thin for his age, seemed less like a mountain and more like a slender stake. His eyes, however, fixed on the figures advancing through the damp mist, had the relentless focus of an owl waiting for a rat.
"Swords and axes to the back," Alaric's voice was low and controlled, without a hint of anxiety, the exact opposite of Jorah's. He grabbed a shield he had taken from a fallen Northman, a circle of oak covered in bear hide, heavy and clumsy, and raised it, covering his shoulder with the wood. The socket of his ash spear, its iron tip polished, was positioned in the gap between two neighboring shields, the shaft braced against the dirt-covered ground.
"Lower that sword, Jorah, and listen," Alaric said, facing him. "Your task is simple, and vital. Attack anyone who manages to get over my spear."
Jorah stood still. His face, still soft and beardless, was red with indignation and confusion. His younger brother, the methodical one, the boy who spent hours in the forest whispering to trees, was there on the front line, in the place that belonged to the son and heir, giving him orders as if he were any common recruit. The sword in Jorah's hand, the weapon he dreamed of using like his father and the heroes of songs, was lowered, its tip brushing the muddy ground, and he couldn't say a word.
Alaric didn't wait for a response. He raised his head and shouted, his voice deep and strong, forced by controlled breathing: "Prepare! They are coming! Hold the line!"
From the other side of the palisade, the response was a shrill and cruel chorus of men who had done this a thousand times. Meaningless war cries, a cacophony of voices intended to intimidate.
Alaric, the former soldier from the future trapped in the body of a druid-boy, analyzed the situation with the cold logic of someone reading a tactical map. Thirty-six iron men. Equipped with thick leather, chainmail underneath for some, and the look of experience that years of raiding had given them. Against them, fifty Northmen. Most were no more than farmers or coastal fishermen, wearing only common clothes, the wool and linen of the men of the North. Many of them were, for the first time, confronted by the bitter taste of true combat. 'It won't be easy,' Alaric thought. 'In a direct clash, we are fodder.'
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Although the palisade guarded by Jorah was the second to take enough damage to create breaches, the first point to truly break was the main gate, where Jeor Mormont, the Lord of Bear Island, was positioned.
Unlike the palisades, which slowly shattered into small gaps, the gate gave no warning. The moment the long oak beam used as a bolt snapped with a final, dry crack, the gate hung ajar, making it possible to see human forms on the other side. The gate was free for the iron men to enter. They would be inside at any moment, and Jeor had already prepared to receive them.
Lord Jeor knew that, normally, the sensible strategy would be to hold the gate and prevent them from entering, using their bodies to keep the doors in place. But he couldn't do that here. Mael had already informed him: the palisades were nearly down on both flanks, both on Jorah's side and Maege's. Jeor knew there were no reinforcements coming and that if he spent too much time holding the gate, either Jorah or Maege's sides could be overrun by the iron men, and the battle would be lost before nightfall.
Jeor, therefore, had decided to attack. As soon as the gate was breached, he would go on the offensive, only to later relieve the pressure on one of the flanks once he had won. To catch the Ironborn off guard, he, like Maege, had called archers, but five instead of two, to join him. And the moment Jeor began to see serious cracks in the piece of wood holding the gate, he ordered those five archers to draw their bowstrings and release at his command.
Three seconds after the wood holding the gate was shattered, which earned cheers from the Ironborn, the iron men shouted outside once more, and the gate was thrown open all at once. More than forty Ironborn rushed through the gate with shouts, weapons and shields raised.
One of them, a sickly-looking man with cracked lips and a constant twitch in his right eye, dressed in a brown tunic with a gambeson over it, was the one shouting loudest and motivating the iron men with his constant cries.
"Attack! We shall not fail in a mission given by the Drowned God himself! We did not defeat the Storm God on the sea itself only to be defeated by damned Greenlanders!" His voice was hoarse, almost sounding as if it wanted to cease existing, as if he could fall at any moment and never wake again, but the light in his eyes was much more alive and told a different story.
What happened next was the reason Alaric had not come to help his father, even though his side was the first to give way.
As soon as the iron men passed through the gate, Jeor shouted:
"Release!"
Arrows flew into the legs and hips of five different Ironborn, making them scream in pain.
Jeor, knowing that most of the iron men on the other side of the gate would be carrying shields, had also ordered them to aim from the waist down, where the wood of the shield wouldn't protect them.
The Ironborn who weren't hit were not deterred by the arrows and cries of pain; they continued to advance until they crashed into the Northmen's shield wall with their own, formed on the orders of the sickly-looking man.
Despite the much better equipment and the far greater experience of the Ironborn, the battle was much more balanced than it should have been.
The Mormonts' initial advantage lay in reach. The iron men had to take much more care with the longer reach of the oak or ash spears. The longer spear forced the glorified pirates to risk moving beyond their own comfort, and even when they managed to pass the spears of the first line, the second line, with their swords, like Jeor's, or axes, pierced and pushed them back into the spears' range again. The men of the third line, with their spears, acted like the second line, fending off the iron men who made it through.
Despite the good strategy and Jeor's solid leadership, the men he led were still inexperienced. Panic and the smell of fresh blood made them commit errors. One peasant, while trying to thrust his spear, exposed his arm too much, and an Ironborn axe tore his flesh, making him scream. Another, trying to aim a blow at the chest, hesitated for a moment and received a quick strike to the thigh that nearly took him down. There were deaths and injuries. Inexperience was costing them dearly.
The battle would have been much more in the Mormonts' favor, or perhaps even won already, if the archers on the Firing Step, from where they fired, were attacking the invaders at the gate, turning the entrance into a meat grinder.
But Mael had seen another problem before they could fire.
The iron men left behind, who had not joined the three groups carrying the rams, began running toward the wall with ladders in their hands. Mael quickly realized their intentions.
'They want to jump the wall and aid the other iron men by taking Lord Jeor from the flank,' Mael thought. 'Some will want to steal our position on the Firing Step and rain arrows down on Lord Jeor, preventing us from doing the same to them!'
Mael shouted to the archers: "Don't let anyone scale the wall! Focus on those climbing the ladders!! And if the ladders are within reach, push them off. I don't want to see anyone getting past us."
It was during this moment that the section of the palisade Jorah was protecting fell.
Alaric, still hidden behind the house and seeing that his brother, stunned and lacking the cold pragmatism Alaric possessed and the situation demanded, would not be able to handle the breach as his father was handling the gate, made the decision to join him.
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