The Remnant of the Pack - Book 1 - GoT

The battle of Wolfswood

Never in a million years would Yara Greyjoy have thought this would happen. Sure, they were raiding and invading the North. She knew there was a chance the stupidly proud Northerners would fight back, but she thought they would simply try their chances at killing every Ironborn they could find. She hoped they would. If they did, they wouldn't be able to win, and Yara would have secured Deepwood Motte, bringing glory to her family name and her own. Instead, what really happened was, in the dead of the night, someone infiltrated the castle, killed the guards she had put on duty in the dungeons and set free the sixty men the Glovers had left behind after marching away in Robb Stark's name along with Lady Glover and her young children she had been holding captive, in hopes of using them as a trade coin for peace with the Northmen. It was the perfect plan. After all, the current lady of Winterfell was no one other than Ylina Stark herself, a merciful, foolish little girl who would do anything in her power to make sure the least casualties happened in a battle. A stupid young girl, Yara believed her Father had said when, a few months before, word got to them that Ylina and Theon had finally married in Winterfell. A stupid young girl who will end up killed by her own sense of honor. At the time, Yara had laughed and agreed. It was common sense that the Starks were honorable fools. But, right now, looking at the fifty empty cells and the twenty dead man she had in the dungeons, she couldn't help but wonder if she had underestimated young Lady Ylina.

"And no one can explain to me what happened down here?" Yara asked for the fifth time, as the five men she had brought down there all shook their head sheepishly.

"There was not a sound to be heard last night, princess." One of them had the guts to speak up. He swallowed nervously when Yara turned to him with a glare. She hated being called a princess, even though that was what she was now. Quickly, the man corrected himself. "Captain."

"So, you are telling me that, somehow, some northmen entered this castle, unnoticed in the dead of night, killed twenty good men and managed to escape with sixty other and three children?" She asked, huffing loudly when she was met with no answer. "How much more incompetent can you get?"

Before Yara could continue her lecture, however, another one of her men, this time, her trusted co-captain Justin Botley, appeared in the stairs that lead to the dungeons and called out for her.

"Captain... You should come see this."

And just like that, all the men behind her were forgotten as Yara followed Botley toward the first floor of the Glovers' castle, only to stand in front of a window and gasp when she saw about half of her fleet, starting to be consumed by fire.

"The men are doing the best they can to control the fire, but some of them already fled."

"Fled?" Yara almost growled in anger. "Fled where?"

"Back to the Iron Islands, Captain." Botley said. "About ten of our ships with almost 800 men took off as soon as the first ship caught fire."

"Why?"

"The northmen are fighting back. Some say Robb Stark himself came back to protect his new reign."

"Robb Stark is south of the Neck. There is no way he came back in time for an attack like this."

"There is a Stark leading this attack, Yara." Botley insisted, as the woman scoffed, turning away from the window just so she could fasten the belt of her armor properly.

"How could you know?"

And it wasn't Botley who answered her question. Instead, a loud and powerful howl echoed, all the way from the woods around them and into the castle walls. Letting out an annoyed huff, Yara picked up her sword and walked out of the castle, in time to see around 200 armed and mounted men riding into her conquered domains, swinging their swords and war hammers while letting out their battle cries. Yara debated for a slip of a second what she should do, but before she could launch herself into battle, she spotted, all the way on the top of a mountain, a big caramel direwolf, standing beside a magnificent white stallion. Taking a more careful look at it, she saw, mounted on it, a small figure of a woman, with a big fiery red braid of hair trembling with the cold air coming from the northern sea and a bow in her hands, flying an arrow in flames that hit one of her men far away from her straight through the heart. Yara gritted her teeth as she recognized the figure: Ylina Stark, the Grey Wolf of Winterfell.