"Here."
Noye dropped heavily onto a stool, pulled out a crooked, uneven strip of iron, and tossed it onto the table. "Look at this first. I've sent someone to fetch the sample."
Domeric turned the warped plate over in his hands and studied it closely. "Looks like you've pulled it off."
Noye slouched sideways against the table, grabbed a battered palm fan, and lazily fanned himself. He lifted his cloudy eyes at Domeric.
"How did you even think of that method? Sometimes I truly think you're a damned genius."
"Too kind," Domeric said, the corner of his mouth twitching—though he had a complaint lodged in his throat that he couldn't quite spit out.
To Noye, smithing was experience: instinct, careful observation, and a generous helping of luck. How could a lord who'd never worked a forge come up with something this clever? It made no sense.
"I've never heard of a lord who can work iron," Noye muttered. "Maybe it really is the Smith's blessing."
Noye was Stormlands-born, a man of the Faith of the Seven.
To the faithful, their god is one—but known through seven aspects. The Smith is the aspect of craft and labor.
"Perhaps," Domeric said, neither agreeing nor denying.
"But Northerners follow the old gods, don't they?" Noye frowned, genuinely puzzled.
…
In Westeros, smiths smelted iron with charcoal.
Charcoal meant carbon. Too much carbon and the metal became brittle—unfit for tools or blades.
That was why ordinary swords snapped. After a hard fight, knights could easily end up standing on a battlefield with nothing but a broken hilt.
So when a truly high-quality blade appeared in a world of cold steel, it might as well have been a war god.
Valyrian steel—worked with sorcery—was the pinnacle, and the great houses prized such weapons.
Ice of House Stark. Heartsbane of House Tarly. Longclaw of House Mormont. Lady Forlorn of House Corbray…
And beyond Valyrian steel, there was also star-forged metal—iron fallen from the sky.
Dawn, the ancestral greatsword of House Dayne, was said to have been forged from the heart of a fallen star, pale as milk-glass.
Ser Arthur Dayne—the famed Sword of the Morning—had wielded it.
Most other knightly longswords, by contrast, were fragile things: easy to damage, easy to break.
The new method Domeric had given Noye was different. It borrowed from an eastern style of blade-making: pairing steels of different carbon content—high-carbon steel, hard and brittle; low-carbon steel, softer and tough.
A smith could tell them apart by look, feel, and the ring they gave when struck.
Once sorted, low-carbon steel formed the body—tough, resilient, even springy. The edge was made with high-carbon steel—hard enough to take a razor keen grind.
Hard steel wrapped around tough steel—an approach many would call impossible until they saw it done.
The result: a weapon that could take blade-on-blade impacts, endure collisions with armor, and still bite cleanly—built for killing, but also built to last.
Compared to the knightly longswords common in Westeros, it had clear advantages—and Domeric intended to equip his troops with it in large numbers.
…
Noye's "sample" arrived soon after.
It was a long knife in a black scabbard, three fingers wide at the throat and nearly four feet long, with a brass mouthpiece and a winged guard—an unfamiliar shape.
"Good lines," Domeric said.
Noye only grunted. "Built the way you told me. Draw it."
Domeric eased the blade free.
Steel whispered out with a clean, ringing note.
The edge gleamed, clear as water. The curve was elegant—like the fresh arc of a maiden's brow—and firelight rippled across the mirror-bright face.
Domeric tested it with a few light cuts. The blade moved as one piece, steady and true, without even a tremor.
"What a hard, fine blade," he said, unable to keep admiration from his voice. "Commander Mormont said your craft was unmatched on this continent. Looks like he wasn't boasting."
"Of course he wasn't," Noye said, grinning. After a moment he added, as if it were nothing, "I'll take second to no smith alive."
"I'm going to try it."
The instant he spoke, Domeric moved like a loosed arrow.
Noye felt the pressure in the air—something in Domeric's cut that made his chest tighten, his breath catch.
Then the sword-arm blurred. The blade nearly vanished, speed turning steel into a pale streak.
It was a killing stroke—hard, cold, and absolute, carrying the weight of command.
That cut would have split iron.
But Domeric didn't strike iron. He struck a copper candlestick—while the weapon in his hand was the iron.
The blade described a smooth arc and hung in the air.
Domeric stood motionless.
The candlestick fell apart in pieces.
Noye couldn't track the fine details—only the sense that, once Domeric stillled, the suffocating pressure eased and the forge could breathe again.
A young Bolton lord with swordwork that could make men choke on fear—just as Mormont had said.
"A damned good blade," Domeric said again.
Noye narrowed his eyes, as if reading him. "I've been here near a year and a half. If you want me to keep forging weapons for you, then you'd best keep your promise to us first."
"No problem," Domeric said, nodding. He knew exactly what Noye meant.
North of the Wall, the wildlings were growing in strength—numbering in the hundreds of thousands—while Castle Black had fewer than a thousand black brothers left.
The fortress that had guarded mankind for thousands of years against the Others had, over long centuries, been forgotten by almost everyone in Westeros.
Commander Mormont had begged the Seven Kingdoms for support more than once. No one cared.
Wildlings? Not their problem.
Even Last Hearth, closest to the Wall, treated it as the Watch begging for supplies and ignored them.
So Castle Black had begun to rot from fear and exhaustion.
Then Domeric appeared—with troops.
He offered a bargain: march beyond the Wall and help the Night's Watch eliminate the wildling threat for good, in exchange for the Watch's cooperation.
Mormont had been forced into agreement—turning a blind eye when Domeric took wildlings as captives, and sending men of value to aid Domeric's expansion. Noye was one of them.
Noye had complained Castle Black was cold enough to kill a man; after arriving here, he complained the Hornwood Hills were too hot to live in.
Domeric lowered his head, eyes closed, hands bracing his brow. "Soon. Less than half a year."
It wasn't an empty line. In Domeric's three-year plan, he meant to wipe out the wildling host before the wars of the realm began in earnest.
Remove the northern threat—then concentrate on the coming civil war in Westeros.
As for the Others… without wildlings to serve as fodder, their rise should be slower than the tales would have it.
And once Domeric had unified the strength of Westeros…
Then the final, desperate war.
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🏰 Game of Thrones: Secrets Beneath the Dreadfort
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