Nerd In the North: 4-1 (Patreon)

The village reeked of old death, burned wood, and the sickly stench of blood half-covered by ice and ash. It had been at least a week since the fires died, but the scent clung to the air, thick and suffocating, like a wound that refused to heal.

Greg pulled his blue cloak tighter around himself, the cold cutting through the layers like it had teeth. He was still shaky on the saddle, but Cloud moved easy beneath him, like he already knew how to compensate. 

He had picked up riding quick, sure, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable. The destrier liked him, though. Or at least tolerated him, which was probably the best he was gonna get. White fur on your legs makes it look like you're stepping on clouds, don’t it, buddy? He exhaled through his nose, gripping the reins tighter as Cloud shifted under him. Bu—whoa! His weight lurched forward as the horse hopped over a charred beam, and fuck, that was a big jump, should've braced—

He glanced around. The ground was slick with frost, but the dark stains still bled through, said stains making it clear where people had died. His horse snorted, uneasy, its breath clouding in the frigid air. 

Greg exhaled slow.

The whole place was a husk. Hollowed-out homes stood like broken teeth against the pale winter sky, all sharp edges and emptiness. Nothing left but ghosts. Whatever the people had owned was long gone; doors ripped from hinges, food stripped bare, every piece of value pulled apart at the seams.

Greg clenched his jaw, swallowing against the nausea curling in his gut. He’d seen this before, and yeah, it got easier every time, but not in a way that helped. Like the smell of rotten meat, honestly.

After a while, you just stopped noticing.

"Is it wrong that I kinda want to just end any possible war when they show up?" he muttered, the words slipping out before he could think about them.

Guts chuckled behind him, the sound a deep, grinding thing that made the two other men sit up straighter in their saddles. "Ain’t wrong, brat lord. That’s just savin’ yourself the trouble."

Greg scoffed. "That supposed to be a good thing? Humans are pretty shit, Guts."

Another laugh. Rough, low as his voice always was. "Fair enough. But at least they’re easy to get rid of."

Greg wrinkled his nose, adjusting his grip on the reins. "Yeah, that’s definitely not serial killer talk or anything."

Guts smirked, half a shadow under his hood. "World’s full of people need killin’. Even a brat like you knows that by now."

Greg didn’t answer.

He just took a breath, letting his gaze drift forward to the riders waiting for him.

Across the clearing, they watched him with calculating, angry eyes. Their banners barely stirred in the wind—the gray mountain of House Flint, the white sunburst of House Karstark, the black moose of House Hornwood, and the golden horse of House Dustin. Their sigils were burned into his brain, the last few days spent cramming them into his skull like an exam. And he actually remembered them, which was a little disturbing.

Probably a shock to Tybald too, but the old man would rather stab himself with a quill than risk getting on Greg’s bad side. That was funny as hell.

The lords sat stiff-backed in their saddles, hands resting on pommels and axe handles. No one was relaxed. Only one woman rode among them—Lady Barbrey Dustin, apparently the only lady ruling by herself in the North or whatever. Her expression was carved from stone, gaze sharp, like she was trying to figure out whether he was worth noticing. 

Or worth killing.

Greg rolled his shoulders, shifting in the saddle.

Behind him, Guts loomed, his own warhorse motionless. A goddamn mountain of a man on a goddamn mountain of a horse. The only sound from him was the slow, deliberate creak of leather as his mount shifted. Greg didn’t need to turn to know Guts was watching everything, ready to pull Dragonslayer free the second things got ugly.

Which, he thought grimly, is probably about three seconds away.Even still, he didn’t need to bring anyone other than Guts. But this was an official meeting, and he couldn’t afford to look weak, so Daeric and Brennor took the back positions.

Daeric looked way too happy about it. The lanky former hunter sat tall in the saddle, his new silver armor catching the light, the chainmail shifting fluid as water, the man still wearing a whole-ass smile even despite what today was about. Still acting like Greg had handed him the keys to a new car instead of a magic war kit. The past three days, he’d been buzzing, testing the armor’s weight, pushing himself further—moving faster, longer than he ever had had without Greg’s magic pushing him on the march to the Dreadfort. Like a five-year-old with a sugar rush.

Brennor was quieter, but Greg caught the way he held the heater shield just a little tighter, his knuckles white where they curled over the grip. The thing glowed faintly—same silver sheen, but with absolutely bullshit durability. Greg had punched it full force, and Brennor had barely felt the hit, despite being pushed back.The thing hadn’t even dented.Strangely enough, it made Brennor strangely good at blocking things. Which seemed obvious, given that it was a shield but still…

All in all? They were a threat.

Greg could see it in the lords' faces. Suspicion first, when they saw his face. Then their gazes flicked past him, widening at Daeric’s armor and Brennor’s shield. 

And then they saw Guts.

Greg saw the fear settle over their faces, sudden and all at once, the way their shoulders stiffened as they did the mental math, especially as they spotted the massive bulk of Dragonslayer on his back. How strong did a man have to be to make a sword like that even work?

The lords held their grim Northern discipline as tight as they could, but their men—the squires, the men-at-arms? Some of them looked like the blood in their veins were replaced with milk.

Greg inhaled slow, steady. He’d had Tybald sent ravens. They knew why they were here.

This had to be played carefully.

He turned his gaze to the lords, his voice steady. "This," he gestured toward the wreckage, "this is why I did what I did." Greg let the silence sit for a moment as the wind dragged through the gutted houses, rattling loose banners, allowing his words to echo before he pushed forward again.

"This—" He swept a hand out over the ruins. "This is what the Boltons left behind. Dead villagers. Burned homes. Roose Bolton called himself a lord but he ruled like a monster. You know that. I know you do. There's no point acting like you thought he was anything but. I didn’t come to the Dreadfort to play lord. I came to stop this."

Lord Flint shifted, the man's expression almost unreadable behind his thick beard and thicker eyebrows. "You stopped it, aye," he said, voice gravel-rough but lacking most of Gut's depth or warmth. "By spilling highborn blood and takin’ a castle that weren’t yours."

"You speak of justice," Karstark’s voice cut in, slow, cold as ice. "But all our eyes see is naught but vengeance. A boy playin’ at power, settlin’ old grudges with dark deeds hidden behind white flags."

You gotta be fuckin- Greg clenched his jaw, teeth nearly groaning as he grit them tight to avoid groaning out loud at the bullshit. He’d expected pushback, but holy shit, the sheer stubbornness.

"Grudges?" The blond boy's voice as Cloud let out a soft whinny beneath him as his fingers tightened around the warhorse's reins. "Grudges? You think this is about my ancestors... somehow? Now? That I did all this because of the Boltons slaughtering the Veders two thousand years ago?" He let out a laugh that wasn't really one at all, the sound forced as anything.

"I barely knew House Veder was even a thing until a few months ago." Lie, it was a whole fuckin' four days ago.

But they didn’t need to know that.

"This is not about the past. Your past, mine, or anyone else's, you understand?" Greg leaned forward, his warm breath a thick cloud in the cold Northern air. "It’s about now. Right now. About the kind of North you want to live in."

Lady Barbrey Dustin tilted her head. She seemed amused, almost.

The woman was the center of it all somehow, from what Tybald told him. Her connection with the Boltons through Roose's other son, who was also dead, and that one wasn't on him, thankfully. On top of that, there was her beef with the Starks and her rulership of pretty much one of the largest towns in the North. If the Starks were the presidents, and the Boltons the vice-presidents, then she would have to be like Secretary of State from what Greg had pieced together. And now, she was watching him like a hawk circling a wounded rabbit.

Greg could feel it. The way she sized him up. Too young. Too green. Too weak. He knew what she saw—a boy playing at power, dressed in the trappings of leadership, trying to command men twice his age who had spent their whole lives at war.

He didn’t need to hear her thoughts to know them.

It was in the way her eyes narrowed—not just doubt, but contempt. The faint, almost imperceptible curl of her lip when she finally spoke.

"And what kind of North is that, boy?" Lady Dustin’s voice cut through the cold like steel honed too sharp. "One ruled by fire and magic? By a child who burns his enemies and renames castles as if he were the bloody King in the North?"

Greg’s fingers twitched.

She thought he’d back down.

Like he hadn’t spent years on the internet dodging worse insults from people whose entire personality was yelling about Star Wars prequels.

"The kind of North where lords don’t hunt girls for sport," Greg shot back, his voice hard and cold as the ice under their feet. "Where villages aren’t left to starve because some ‘lord’ wanted to make an example of them. Where people don’t have to live in fear of their so-called protectors."

His words cut the air, but they didn’t land. Not the way he wanted.

The lords didn’t argue—but they didn’t agree, either.

"I didn’t burn the Dreadfort because I wanted to," Greg pressed on, forcing the heat down, the itch at the back of his throat, the tension in his shoulders. "I burned it because it was a disease."

A murmur rippled through the gathered men. Some shifted in their saddles, others exchanged looks, but there—hesitation.

Not much.

But it was there.

Until Lord Hornwood scoffed, his lips curling into a sneer.

"And now you think yourself the cure?" His voice was thick with something Greg couldn’t quite place, half scorn, half disgust. "You’re no better than the Boltons. You took what you wanted with fire and blood, and now you come here preaching righteousness?"

Greg’s chest tightened.

His hands itched. The heat under his skin flared—wanted out—but he gritted his teeth and forced it back down. If he lashed out now, if he lost control, they’d take it as proof. Proof of everything Roose had claimed.

He inhaled sharply through his nose, and exhaled slow.

"You don’t have to like me," he said, quieter now, but no less intense. "You don’t even have to trust me. But look around. Look at what Roose did. You think that’s worth defending, then maybe you’re no better than he was."

The words landed too hard.

He felt it in the silence—a shift, too sharp, too soon.

Lady Dustin was the first to break it, and Greg knew, knew before she spoke that he’d fucked it up. "You’re right about one thing," she said, her voice cool, deliberate. "We don’t trust you. And we don’t need to."

Greg clenched his jaw.

"You’ve shown us what you are," she continued, and her lip curled—not quite a smile, something smaller, sharper, bitter at the edges. "A threat. A usurper. The North doesn’t need another firebrand claiming to fight for the people."

His stomach twisted.

He could see the decision on their faces before the words were even spoken.

"We need order," Lady Dustin finished. "And you’ll only bring chaos."

Greg’s pulse pounded in his ears.

"What would you truly have us believe, boy?" Lady Dustin’s voice cracked through the air, sharp, effortless. "That you burned the Boltons for the sake of these people? For honor? Or was it vengeance?"

Greg clenched his jaw.

Definitely vengeance. But he wasn’t about to say that out loud.

Instead, he straightened in his saddle, gripping the reins, keeping his voice measured. Formal. Proper. Lordly. Like that mattered.

"Call it what you want," he said, sharper than he meant to. Fuck. He gestured again at the ruins around them, the charred bones of homes, bodies still unburied. "I’ll do this to anyone who wants to side with the memory of a dead monster," Greg said. "And I’ll do it as many times as I need to."

Lord Karstark didn’t move or blink. His gaze was ice, slow, heavy, pressing down.

"You’ve made your choice, boy," he said. "Now the North will make theirs."

And one by one, they turned their horses.

One by one, they rode away.

Greg stood there, fists clenched, watching them disappear.

Snow swirled, biting his skin. He barely felt it. His grip on the reins was too tight, his breath too controlled, his pulse a steady, dull hammer.

They didn’t even argue.

A horse’s footsteps crunched behind him, heavy and slow.

Guts.

Greg didn’t turn. Didn’t need to.

"They ain’t gonna listen," Guts muttered.

Greg exhaled, sharp. "No," he said bitterly. "They’re not."

His gaze swept the ruins again, like they’d suddenly look different, like there’d be some other way out of this mess waiting for him if he just looked hard enough.

There wasn’t.

He’d done everything he could. Had given them a chance. Had tried, once again, to use words instead of fire.

It hadn’t mattered.

The next morning, the Brightfort received its answer.

Ravens.

Letter after letter, the maester’s thin voice droning the same thing, over and over.

War.

Declarations of hostility. Demands for surrender. Challenges wrapped in the polite veneer of courtly language but meaning one thing.

Greg sat there, one hand pressed against his temple.

He hated this, hated the politics. Already a bunch of endless, circular, bullshit arguments and he’d barely been ruling the Brightfort for a week. He hated the weight of the people looking to him for protection, hated that he hadn’t been powerful enough to stop the men who had died taking the Dreadfort.

But he wasn’t about to let that happen again. "Enough," Greg muttered, pushing himself to his feet.

The maester faltered, mid-sentence.

Greg’s blue eyes burned, cold as he stared at the man in front of him. "They said they want war," he said, voice steady. "Then they’ll have it."

Because the North had made its choice.

And now, he would make his.