Regan remained static, as if his feet had taken root in the damp forest floor. His eyes darted between Alaric's impassive face and the small sprig of mistletoe in his trembling hand, as if he expected the object to explode at any moment. The ensuing silence was filled only by the heavy breathing of the wounded and the distant rustle of leaves.
"The branch, Regan. Hand it over," Alaric repeated, his voice sounding like the snap of a dry twig in winter: calm, yet impossible to ignore.
The man seemed to awaken from a trance. He stepped forward with exaggerated caution, as if walking on thin ice, and held out not just one, but all the branches he had gathered. His hands shook slightly, and he avoided direct eye contact with the young Mormont, whose eyes now seemed to carry a depth that Regan could not comprehend.
Alaric looked at the pile of vegetation, and a flash of irony crossed his countenance.
"It wasn't necessary to bring so many, Regan. One or two branches would have sufficed."
With precise movements, Alaric selected one of the branches. He examined it under the pale light filtering through the treetops, counting eleven ripe mistletoe berries of a vibrant red that almost seemed to pulse against the dark green of the leaves. He returned the rest to the man, who accepted them with a hurried nod, immediately retreating to a distance he considered safe.
Alaric positioned the branch between his palms, cupping them together. He left only a small opening at the top, enough for air to circulate, but not enough for anyone outside to see what was happening within. That was the somatic component—the gesture necessary to anchor the energy he was about to shape.
He tilted his head, bringing his lips close to the opening between his thumbs. Then, he began to whisper words in the Druidic tongue, a sound like the bubbling of a stream over stones and the creaking of ancient wood under the weight of snow. Each syllable was a vibration that seemed to resonate in the bones of those listening.
Regan and the other men assisting with the transport of the wounded watched in absolute silence. They saw a pale, ethereal green light begin to leak from between Alaric's fingers, illuminating the lines of his palm with a supernatural glow. The air around him seemed to take on a different weight, a density that made the hair on the onlookers' arms stand on end.
When Alaric finally opened his hands, what remained there were no longer ordinary mistletoe berries gathered from a tree. Ten of the eleven fruits had changed color, assuming a deep purple hue—almost black—and exhaled a sweet aroma that masked the smell of blood and wet earth. They had been transformed into Goodberries.
Among Alaric's spells, Goodberry was an unparalleled survival tool. By infusing common fruits with the vital energy of the earth, he created magic berries capable of restoring a creature's minimal vitality and providing enough nourishment to sustain a man for one day + his WIS modifier, which brought the total nourishment provided by the berries to three days.
These small berries were the secret behind his impressive size for his age, which put him on par with his brother who was three years older. In a medieval world where not even all nobles received adequate nutrition, the magic berries became the perfect dietary food for growing healthy and super-nourished. Furthermore, they guaranteed that even on expeditions in inhospitable places, he could easily feed himself and a small group of men—especially considering the berries could be diluted into other foods to be shared with more than ten people. The healing effect would be reduced, but they would provide nourishment for longer than the food originally would have.
Alaric closed the interface floating in his mind and turned to the wounded. He walked first to Beren, who was groaning softly, hand pressing against one of the few still-open wounds on his abdomen. Without a word, Alaric took five of the purple berries and brought them to the man's mouth.
"Eat. All of them. Now," he commanded.
Beren, confused and weakened by blood loss, tried to protest, but Alaric's hand was firm. He pressed the fruits against the soldier's lips until, by pure survival instinct, the man began to chew. Purple juice dribbled from the corner of his mouth, but under Alaric's watchful gaze, he swallowed every piece.
Next, Alaric moved to Eddard. The process was the same, but in different quantities: three berries were forced down his throat. Eddard tried to turn his face away, but Alaric held his jaw in place firmly, not allowing him to escape.
"Chew, Eddard. This will heal you," Alaric said, his voice maintaining that reserved neutrality that was his trademark—a tone that betrayed the strength with which he held the man's chin and forced him to swallow the berry.
The last was Torrhen. Of them all, he was the most gripped by panic and the most resistant to treatment. When he saw Alaric approaching with the final two berries, his eyes widened.
"No!" he shouted, his voice cracking in a high-pitched sound. "What is this? Sorcery... Stay back!"
Torrhen tried to turn his head frantically from side to side, his hands attempting—unsuccessfully—to push Alaric away. The men watching the scene took a step back, shock written across their faces. Seeing the young heir of House Mormont forcing grown men to eat fruit that had glowed with green light moments before was a sight that challenged everything they knew about the world.
"Eat, Torrhen," Alaric insisted, immobilizing the man's head with one hand while using the other to shove the berries into his mouth. "This will help you. Stop fighting and swallow."
Torrhen nearly choked. He coughed violently, his face turning red, but Alaric did not back down until he was certain the two Goodberries had been ingested.
Alaric stepped away, leaving Torrhen coughing in the mud, and focused his vision. In his mind, the translucent panels of his companions opened. He watched the HP numbers flicker and rise, each berry adding a hit point to the exhausted reserve of those men.
Torrhen: HP 16 / 30
Eddard: HP 15 / 22
Beren: HP 14 / 20
Color began to return to the faces of the wounded almost immediately. It wasn't a total healing, but the bleeding seemed to have slowed and their breathing became more regular.
"Rest a bit longer," Alaric told the men watching, his voice returning to its usual calm tone. "Afterward, take Torrhen, Beren, and Eddard back to Mormont Keep and present them to Maester Yves. Regan, stay and help them. And one more thing: when you return, I want you to remain silent about what happened here; we are living in a chaotic moment, and adding fuel to the fire will help no one."
Without waiting for an answer or looking back, Alaric withdrew from the woods. He walked toward the fortress, leaving behind a group of men in absolute silence, whose looks of perplexity and fear followed his back until he disappeared among the trees.
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While Alaric was in the woods, the atmosphere within the stone walls of Mormont Keep was one of controlled chaos. Maester Yves was bent over a long table in the main hall, organizing bandages and ointments. The women, mostly the elders and midwives, helped Maester Yves however they could—giving him their materials or applying pressure to their relatives' wounds to slow the bleeding.
Jorah, meanwhile, stood near the cold hearth, watching the shadows on the ceiling beams.
As Maester Yves walked toward one of the injured with needle and thread in hand, he stopped before Jorah Mormont, who was watching the fortress entrance, lost in thought.
"Jorah, why did you allow this?" Yves questioned, his voice trembling with frustration. "Alaric took men who can barely breathe into the middle of the woods! This is madness, it is negligence! If they die, the blood will be on your hands as much as his."
Jorah did not answer immediately. He seemed to be processing something he had seen in the battle, something his logical mind still refused to fully accept. Yves huffed, realizing he would get no answers at that moment.
"It doesn't matter," the Maester grumbled, turning back to a man with a shattered arm. "I won't waste time on spilled milk. There are lives that can still be saved here, if Mormont stubbornness allows it."
Jorah finally looked away from the forest trail. He seemed to have remembered something. He turned to the crowd of villagers huddled together, away from the other smaller group gathered near their wounded kin.
"Lyra! Ellyn! Mya!" he called out, his voice cutting through the murmur.
After a moment, his call was answered, but instead of three figures stepping forward at his request, there were four—or five, depending on how you interpreted it.
Lyra, in her twenties, walked toward him hesitantly while cradling a one-year-old child in her arms. Ellyn, also hesitant and in her twenties—though slightly older—advanced while holding a four-year-old boy by his left hand. And behind them, Mya, a girl who couldn't have been more than thirteen, walked with hunched shoulders, her eyes red and her lower lip trembling. No family accompanied her.
"We are here, Ser," Lyra said, her voice faltering slightly. "Did we do something wrong?"
Mya let out a low sob, tears beginning to roll down her dirt-stained cheeks again.
"Your homes will be occupied," Jorah announced without preamble. "We need space to hold some of the Ironborn who were captured."
Ellyn took a step forward, indignation overcoming fear for a moment.
"But why our houses, Ser? We have so little, and to put these... these monsters under our roofs? It isn't fair!"
Jorah sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Your husbands and, in your case, Mya, your father, offered at Lord Jeor's request to yield your dwellings. And do not worry about having nowhere to live; you will be compensated for the trouble with temporary residence here in Mormont Keep."
The three stopped, the surprise of learning their families had survived replacing their complaints. Mya took a step forward, clutching Jorah's clothes with her small hands.
"My father? He's alive?"
"Everyone is fine. A bit battered, but not like the ones here," Jorah replied, allowing a trace of softness into his tone. "Take what you brought from your homes and find a room to retire to. And Mya, ask one of the elders for help with the move."
The women and the girl nodded, still stunned, and began to move away.
The path back to Mormont Keep was traveled under a mantle of absolute silence. Alaric walked at the front, his light and precise steps contrasting with the heavy, dragging sound of the boots of the men following him. He didn't look back to check if the litters were still being carried; he knew they were. The air of Bear Island was heavy with the characteristic humidity of the Shivering Sea, but Alaric didn't seem to notice the cold or the wind punishing the pines. His mind was focused on the interface that only he could see, monitoring the vital signs that now stabilized in his peripheral vision.
As they crossed the raw timber gate of the fortress, the scene he encountered was one of frenetic and somber activity. The inner courtyard was filled with puddles of muddy water mixed with the blood of invaders and defenders alike. The smell of iron and sweat was suffocating. Alaric ignored the sidelong glances of the guards and headed straight into the Keep, where torches were already lit to combat the gloom of the dying afternoon.
Jorah Mormont was leaning against one of the support columns of the Great Hall, watching the movement of servants carrying buckets of hot water. He looked exhausted, his leather armor still stained with blood and battle nicks. As Alaric approached, his older brother looked up. There was a deep furrow between Jorah's brows, a mix of relief at seeing his brother alive and a growing doubt about what he had been doing.
"It is done," Alaric said, stopping at a respectful distance. His voice was flat, his words vague.
Jorah frowned, his eyes searching Alaric's for a more detailed explanation.
"'Done'? Who the hell starts a conversation like that? You took men who were at death's door."
"They will be brought back shortly. They are alive and stable."
Jorah shook his head slowly, making no sound. There was obvious tension in his shoulders, as if he wanted to demand answers, but the fear of what kind of answer he might receive kept him from pressing. He simply sighed and went back to observing the hall, accepting his younger brother's word for now.
However, not everyone in the fortress was willing to accept Alaric's silence. As he prepared to withdraw to a less crowded corner, the metallic clatter of tools announced the arrival of Maester Yves.
The elderly man seemed to have aged ten years in a single afternoon. His grey robes were soaked in dark blood up to the elbows, and he carried a heavy metal tray. On it, piled chaotically, were suturing tools, nearly empty vials of milk of the poppy, and a heap of rags—some clean, others so saturated with blood they dripped onto the floor as he walked. Yves stopped abruptly in front of Alaric, his eyes bloodshot behind his lenses.
"Where are they?" Yves fired off, his voice hoarse from shouting orders. "Where are the wounded men you took from under my care? Did you leave them in the woods?!"
Alaric kept his gaze fixed on the Maester, his expression unaltered by the man's fury.
"I healed them, Maester Yves," he stated with a calmness that seemed to irritate the old man even more. "And as I told Jorah, they will return shortly in a much more stable state."
"You 'healed' them?" the Maester mocked, skepticism overflowing in every syllable. "With what, Alaric? You took no bandages, you took no herbs, you didn't even take a flask of wine to clean the wounds. You left here empty-handed and now return minutes later saying you performed the work that I, with years of chain-links and study at the Citadel, would take far longer to do?"
"Some healings do not require what one carries in their hands, but what one knows of the world," Alaric replied, remaining unperturbed. "You only need to wait for them to cross that gate to see with your own eyes."
Maester Yves huffed; the frustration of knowing that men who fought for the island could be dying right now while he could do nothing about it simmered beneath his wrinkled skin. He looked at the tray, then at the other wounded groaning throughout the hall, and seemed to decide he didn't have the energy for the argument. With a sharp gesture, he grabbed the pile of clean cloths from the corner of the tray and shoved them against Alaric's chest.
"Since you are a miracle worker, then be useful," Yves growled. "Clean the wounds of those men in the corner and change the dressings. They are already too soaked."
Alaric took the cloths efficiently.
"I could also suture the open cuts, if you permit. I have been practicing on the bodies of pigs."
Yves paused and looked at him over his shoulder, a flash of disbelief in his eyes.
"No. Just change the bandages and clean the blood. I don't want you playing tailor with people's skin. There is a great difference in pressure between suturing a dead pig and a person screaming in your ear. Leave the suturing to those who know what they're doing."
With that, the Maester moved away without waiting for a reply, returning to the improvised surgery table where milk of the poppy was rationed like liquid gold.
Alaric didn't feel offended by the way Maester Yves was acting; he understood that, in the Maester's view, he looked like a boy—a twelve-year-old child, mad and extremely arrogant—so he simply followed orders.
Alaric knelt beside the first wounded man, a youth barely past adolescence with a nasty gash in his thigh. He began to work with deliberate and precise movements. His fingers were agile, a result of the dexterity bonuses the system had provided him. He cleaned the pus and dried blood with an efficiency that would make any Maester's assistant look clumsy.
A few minutes passed until a murmur began in the outer courtyard. The sound of tired voices and the creaking of the doors being opened caught everyone's attention. Regan crossed the threshold of the Keep, leading the group bringing Torrhen, Beren, and Eddard.
Maester Yves, seeing the movement, dropped what he was doing and ran toward the men.
"Put them down! Now!" he shouted, gesturing frantically. "I need to see them before the fever takes them."
The six carriers placed the litters on the stone floor of the hall. Yves immediately knelt beside Eddard, whose shoulder was wrapped in soaked rags. The Maester pulled a pair of shears from his belt and, with hands trembling from age and exhaustion, cut away the makeshift bandages.
What he saw made him stop.
Yves tilted his head, leaning closer to Eddard's skin. There was a lot of blood. The clothes and the left side of the man's body (the side of the shoulder that was hit) were drenched, and his skin had that sickly pallor of someone who had lost liters of vital fluid. However, when Yves cleaned the site of the wound, the cut that had previously been deep enough to expose bone and tendons now looked like it was only two centimeters deep.
"This makes no sense…" Yves muttered to himself. "The depth does not match the amount of blood lost and his pallor."
He moved quickly to Beren and then to Torrhen. In both, the pattern repeated. The wounds—which Yves had marked in his mind as fatal or severely disabling before Alaric took them—now looked like injuries a veteran soldier would treat with a bit of salt and wine. They were ugly, yes, but they were no longer the wounds of dying men.
"Alaric!" Yves called out, his voice rising an octave. "Come here now!"
Alaric stood up calmly and walked over to the Maester.
"What did you do to them?" Yves asked, pointing to Eddard's shoulder with a blood-stained finger. "This defies any medical logic I know. The wounds... they have shrunk. How?"
"It is a secret, Maester Yves," Alaric replied, his eyes meeting the old man's with unwavering seriousness. "At least for now. What you need to know is that they are out of immediate danger. But," he added, feeling the exhaustion of his mystic energy reserves, "I will not be able to repeat what I did again. At least not until tomorrow. My... tools need time to renew."
Yves opened his mouth to retort, to demand names of herbs or techniques, but he was interrupted by a sound coming from one of the litters. Torrhen, though pale and weak, opened his eyes. He sought out Alaric's figure in the shadows of the hall.
"Sorcerer…" Torrhen whispered, his voice thick with ancestral dread. "He... he whispered to the plants... the lights…"
Maester Yves shook his head, dismissing the comment as delirious ramblings. Still, Yves remained staring at Alaric in a heavy silence for long seconds. He saw the boy he had known since birth, but he could not recognize the authority that emanated from him now. It was as if Alaric were a stranger inhabiting the body of a Mormont.
"Maester," Alaric broke the silence, "may I begin suturing now? There are many men here who cannot wait their turn."
Yves looked at Alaric's hands, then at the hall full of wounded men screaming and moaning. He knew he couldn't handle everything alone. The milk of the poppy was running out, and time was their worst enemy.
"Yes," Yves said finally, his voice sounding defeated. "You may begin. But do it carefully, and only the superficial ones that do not require internal sutures."
For the next forty minutes, Alaric immersed himself in the field work. He moved among the wounded with total composure, as if he belonged there. He had no more healing spells prepared for the day, so he relied entirely on his technical skill—partly inherited from first-aid memories of his previous life, and partly acquired in this one, supplemented by the enhanced dexterity gained from leveling up.
The first case was an archer with a long but shallow gash on his forearm. Alaric cleaned the wound with strong wine, ignoring the man's gasp. With a bone needle and silk thread, he began to suture. The man screamed, his body arching on the litter as the needle pierced living flesh. Alaric did not waver. His stitches were not perfectly spaced, but they served their purpose and closed the cut.
There was no milk of the poppy for these low-complexity cases; the supply was saved for the most serious ones. Thus, Alaric worked under a symphony of screams of pain and whispered curses. One man-at-arms had his scalp torn by a throwing axe; Alaric held his head with a firm hand and performed twelve quick stitches, the young Mormont's face as calm as if he were reading a book in the library.
Every minute, Alaric felt Maester Yves's gaze upon him. The old man worked on the other side of the hall, but every so often he stopped to observe Alaric's technique. What surprised the Maester most was not the skill itself, but Alaric's lack of emotional reaction to the suffering of others. He knew the boy was naturally calm, but not that this trait extended to such high-pressure situations.
Despite his surprise, he could see that the youth was not cold out of cruelty, but rather practicality. It was the kind of detachment the Citadel taught—allowing one to focus on the patient's health and physical integrity above any paralyzing empathy.
A moment later, Alaric tended to a man who had been trampled during the invasion. There were broken ribs and many bruises, but the immediate problem was a deep cut on his flank that insisted on bleeding. Alaric replaced the compression bandage, applying exact pressure that stemmed the flow in seconds. The man wept, begging for a sip of water or wine, but Alaric simply finished the knot on the bandage and moved to the next patient without a word of comfort or impatience.
As Alaric finished suturing a guard's shoulder, the sound of the great oak doors at the main entrance being thrown open echoed throughout the hall. The cold wind from outside rushed in, flickering the torch flames and bringing the scent of fresh air.
The chatter and groans died down as two figures crossed the threshold.
Jeor Mormont, the Old Bear, entered first. His bear-fur cloak was covered in frost and dried blood. Right behind him, with the same expression of fierce determination and exhaustion, was Maege Mormont, his sister, her plate armor slightly dented and her eyes scanning the hall in a sharp analysis.
Alaric cut the thread of the last suture and looked up. The Lord and Lady of Bear Island had returned, and by the way they looked at him when their eyes met, they were finally here to question him.
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