Raymun Redbeard, the King-Beyond-the-Wall, united the Wildlings beyond the Wall but ten years ago. The Night's Watch, whose guard was down, let Raymun's reavers get atop the Wall and throw down ladders for the army waiting beneath. The army of Wildlings attacked south of the Wall, causing Lord Willam Stark to leave Winterfell and march north, calling the banners.
Lord Willam and Lord Artos met Raymun on the shores of Long Lake. There, Lord Willam Stark was slain and beheaded. Artos the Implacable, Lord Willam's younger brother slew Raymun and the Wildling force was broken and scattered. The sons of Raymon Redbeard were also killed but his brother, Red Raven, fled back beyond the Wall.
The Night's Watch arrived too late to join the battle, combined with their failure to defence the Wall at all meant that Artos ordered them to dispose of the dead, widening the rift between the Watch and Winterfell. He continues to harbour resentment for their poor stewardry of the Wall. Lord Willam had no sons and so the lordship passed to Artos, when the banners declared for him at Long Lake.
Artos ruled Winterfell for some ten uneventful years. The teenage Sirsha, Artos' daughter had made a name for herself as a Mystery Knight at the Tourney of Harrenhal, being unhorsed by Blackfyre himself. prior to the rebellion. She then went on to successfully beat Ser Marq in a duel and gained the command of the Bloody Gate, in the Vale.
Lord Beron was keen to avoid a full scale war when Blackfyre challenged the succession. Calling for a parlay, he attempted to stand between the two parties and sue for a pact. The king however challenged Blackfyre to a duel, which he lost. As fighting between the two assembled armies broke out, Beron took the king in his arms, heard his last words and ferried the body to Harrenhal. He personally cleaned the body and had much time to dwell over the warmongering of the so-called loyalists, few of whom came to pay homage. Worried about the fighting on the frontlines, not far from Harrenhal, Beron announced to the Seven Kingdoms that he would be taking the body to the Vale and burying the king at the Eyrie. However, he never arrived. Unbeknownst to Lord Artos, over the ensuing years, Beron languished in a dungeon in Harrenhal, without clear motivation.
Back in the North, when the Blackfyre Rebellion broke out, Artos had summoned the full strength of the North, but Bolton rebelled. As Stark marched on the Dreadfort, Bolton led a cunning counterattack on Winterfell and then ravaged the west. The loyalist forces chased the small band into the north-west where he was finally defeated. Once peace was restored, Prince Aerys Targaryen whom had first come to the North seeking sanctuary from the rebellion, was given Dreadfort in thanks for his help whilst fighting Bolton. The new castle was remained Northreki in the Old Tongue.
Meanwhile, as Artos marched the great host to Riverrun ready to join in the Blackfyre War on the side of the king, the Westerlanders retreated from their siege of Riverrun and the war was declared at an end.
During the conflict, Sirsha, as Knight of the Bloody Gate, conducted successful raids across the Reach, before joining forces with the Dornish and besieging Highgarden. Faces by Tyrells forces retreating from King's Landing, she was defeated and taken prisoner. When peace was declared she was released from prison and rejoined her troops which included the Sellsword Company, the Tattered Banners. Responding to the news that sinister raiders called 'ghosts' by the Smallfolk were being carried out at Tumbleton, she gained a Royal Warrant to pursue the bandits. She soon realised that these ghosts lived up to their name, and she suspected that they were in fact a secretive guerilla military force.
Sharing information of the bandits' movements with Tyrell, who was also suffering raids on his Westerland border, Sirsha took the Goldroad to rapidly intercept the Ghosts from the North. As she passed Casterly Rock heading south to the border to block in the raiders, the full force of the Westerland host demanded that she leave the realm, or pay a fine. She refused both threats and cited her Royal Warrant. It came close to battle, with her little force outnumbered more than 4 to 1. She gave herself up, but not before requesting her father's troops still camped at Riverrun to place themselves at the Westerland border in case of an outbreak of conflict. Lord Tully was angered by Stark's abuse of his hospitality and told Artos to withdraw his troops, the situation soured the alliance they had built up. Having spent the last few years asking the king to put added pressure on Lord Tully to investigate the disappearanc e(201ALl) of Beron, Artos was growing suspicious. Beron had sent letters to Harrenhal asking for information on Beron's last sighting, but the messages were ignored.
Meanwhile, Sirsha was taken to King's Landing, where a messy trial, full of shouting, insults and reprimands between the Hand, the King and the Queen amongst others. Sirsha claimed that the queen blocked her pursuit of the raiders in order to question the King's warrant and to challenge his command. The king was embarrassed and called for a trial by combat ending with Sirsha's death at the hands of the Clegane Dog. Sirsha's body was claimed by Lord Tully, who marched North to bury her and make amends with Lord Artos. Rumours and opinions abounded that Sirsha was herself behind the Ghost raids, and that the trial proved that Sirsha had no right to be in the Westerlands without Lannister permission, despite the warrant of the king. The Queen's position of power was in any case legitimised and by response she formed her own Queensguard, commandeering Clegane from the Kingsguard to be her Lord Commander, which the king saw as a breach of the lifelong vow of service to the Crown.
Artos had gathered all his troops at Moat Cailin and given command to Lord Manderly. Prior, to the episode with Sirsha, the king and Artos had hunted in the Kingswood and become friends. In the wake of her death, the king officially legitimised Sirsha paving the way for her son with Ser Humphrey Hardyng (Champion of the Tourney of the Hand) to also be legitimised. This would make Sirsha's child the second in line to the throne of the North, after Beron's son; Edwyle. The king furthermore sent his own firstborn son to be schooled and protected at Winterfell. It was at this time however, that Lord Artos began to tell his councillors Manderly and Dustin that he was leaving the North never to return, and that precise commands for them both to govern the North would be left for them, to be read at Sirsha's funeral.
The ensuing plot to protect the North was alas undone by her enemies. As Artos disappeared, Lord Arryn, Hand of the King also rebelled in disgust at the power and machinations of the Lannister Queen Aurelia. The resulting war left the North unable to help the Riverlands due to an Ironborn invasion and another rebellion at the Dreadfort. Lord Manderly dealt with siege of Winterfell, yet by then the war was over and the oppurtunist Blackfyre returned from exile and took the Iron Throne. Blackfyre sent word to lordling Edwyle that the Lannisters had orchestrated the Ironborn invasion, rashly Edwyle used this to march on Goldentooth against the counsel of the Dustins and Manderlys. The Riverlanders, now bowed to the West aided the Lannisters in standing against the Northern host and surrounded them with vast numbers. In the hope of saving his men, he surrendered in the Battle That Would Be, this resulted in the vile executions of Edwyle, Lord Manderly and many loyal lords, it was also the end of Artos' famed Red Wolves army.
In the subsequent lull, it seemed the House of Stark was gone and Lord Karstark claimed the regency of the North with the support of the new king. Artos meanwhile aligned himself in secret with the Targaryen heir, hoping to restore him in time to the Iron Throne but the heir was sniffed out by the treacherous Blackfyre, arrested and executed, Artos then contacted the new lords of Shadowmoor, House Voskari and enboldened them for their service to the North in Artos' absence, and awarded Lord Voskari the office of Lord Constable, he in turn informed Lord Karstark of the Arto's letter and although he did not stop Voskari from carrying out his office, rejected the veracity of the letter. Meanwhile, those Northern lords who were unhappy with Lord Karstark's regency were instrumental in a ragtag band on a quest to find the long lost Beron Stark.
Guided by the wolf MoonGarm the ladies Merean Reed and Tyrene Voskari accompanied by Ser Seigram, armsmaster of House Voskari and a handful of riders headed south for Harrenhal, Beron's last known whereabouts.
Beron Stark had taken care of the king's body when he fell in duel, the seven kingdoms so eager to fight for the land and the Iron Throne had forgotten all about the body. Beron washed the body himself and mended the horrific wounds so that he was fit for appearance, but visitors were scant. Beron alone kept vigil. Taken from the tent by a select few loyalists in the dawning days of the bLackfyre reign, the corpse was moved into hiding at Maidenpool. Worried about the motives of the local lords, Beron tried to secret the body away to the Eyrie. Leaving Maidenpool he was taken prisoner and sat seven years in the prison cells, forgotten and tortured with worry for his son and the presence of the dead king... his powers as a greenseer began to consume him. Voices aided him in escape and he fled to the God's Eye, where he became Weirheart. Watching the world from among the Weirwood trees.
Meanwhile, in the Vale of Arryn, Eddean- Sirsha's child with Lord Hardyng was fostered- legitimised by the last Targaryen king, the regent.
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