The Dyre Den Succession

[Poach]

--- A few weeks ago ---

"Summon the banners!" shouted Harrag from behind the door to his chambers, "We must rout the traitors! Time is limited!"

"His mind is mostly gone," said the Maester apologetically, "We have tried to keep him sane, but there is only so much modern medicine can do, I'm afraid. His sons must take upon more of his duties."

Tormund nodded silently: it was time, then. He patted the Maester on the shoulder and departed the room, the look of concern and sympathy on his scarred face quickly turning to grim determination.

"Father is no longer fit to rule Dyre Den, the Maester has decreed it," said Tormund as he entered a large room in which a dozen armoured men sat, "Take your men and secure the castle: I want the bastard girls in their rooms and I want Gerris imprisoned. Go."

The dozen rose and set about their business. They crossed the courtyard and entered the gatehouse, holding the guards there at swordpoint as one of their number ascended the tower stairs with a blazing torch and started waving it. After ten minutes, a body of several dozen riders appeared at the gates and the conspirators let them in: Tormund's Hedge Knights were now inside the walls in force. For weeks the plan had been in limbo, with a hundred men in the small port town that clung to the cliffs below the holdfast of Dyre Den watching, waiting for the signal. Forty of them rode to the keep, the rest secured vital positions inside the town itself, seizing the prison, the night watchmen's barracks, and the stables.

Inside the keep, the knights began their work, moving silently through the castle towards agreed objectives: the two teenage girls, bastard daughters of Lord Harrag, were to be found and detained inside their rooms; the raven roost was to be secured by six of the best men, to ensure word couldn't get out of the coup; yet more would go to the stables and guard barracks within the keep; the gatehouse was already heavily garrisoned; Lord Harrag's chambers were to be placed under guard.

[Poach]

"My brother moves quickly," said Gerris, looking down at the courtyard from one of the towers as the band of knights dismounted in the courtyard, "he's been preparing for this for some time it seems."

Turning back into the room, Gerris faced the Captain of Dyre Den's guard. They'd had their own plans, but Tormund had gained the upper hand by being the nearest of Harrag's siblings to their father's chamber when the Maester decided Harrag could no longer be helped. Bumbling old fool of a Maester, he willingly ignored the strife among the twin siblings and chose to pretend there were no sides to take. The result was Tormund's men controlled the gatehouse before Gerris was even informed of the Maester's conclusion.

Where Tormund had many outside friends, Gerris had the loyalty of most of the castle garrison. In theory the coming struggle was already decided in his favour, but Tormund's head start had compromised the castle as a defensive structure and robbed Gerris of his advantage in numbers. It would come to blows.

Tension that had been building in the castle for weeks had reached a head. Since early yesterday morning both brothers knew the time was imminent, as their father's ranting went from merely outlandish to outright insane as the day wore on. Now, 24 hours later, he'd finally descended into insanity and was demanding the Cracklaw Lords invade Maidenpool.

"We've got to move quick, Gerris." said the Captain gruffly, "This is going to be ugly."

With a solemn nod, the pair made their move, entering the guard barracks where several dozen men were already waiting, having been roused from their rest and ordered to prepare themselves. Gerris' goal was much the same as Tormund's: secure the important parts of the castle and apprehend his twin brother.

[Poach]

The first clash in what would become known locally as the Battle of Dyre Den happened just outside the main guard barracks door just as the last sliver of sunlight dipped below the horizon. Twenty of Tormund's men, fully half the force he had let inside the walls, were suddenly faced with close to one hundred men loyal to Gerris as they poured out of the large double doors into the small courtyard that the men used for drill and weapons practice. Twenty professional and heavily armed men faced a hundred-strong mix of old and young, armoured and unarmoured, experienced and green. It wasn't quite as one-sided as the numbers suggested.

Still, the Hedge Knights couldn't truly hope to win. Holding a tight formation, they fought the tide and fell one by one to lucky blows or weight of numbers. Eight lay dead, a further six badly wounded, as the remaining six hastily withdrew towards the gatehouse. They had fought well, however, with twenty-six of Gerris' men dead or too badly wounded to continue, a casualty rate of near 2 to 1 despite the odds being against them.

The die had been rolled, the sounds of battle had rung out.

Moving into the main courtyard of the castle, Gerris intended to retake the gatehouse next, ensuring Tormund couldn't summon another wave of men from the town below. Lining up in the courtyard, the troops at the gatehouse formed their own line, commanded by Tormund. Alongside twelve Hedge Knights Tormund had some forty members of the castle guard that had thrown their lot in with him: the bulk of the men that had been guarding the gatehouse had seen the way the wind was blowing and picked their side, alongside other elements of the castle guard who followed officers that were in Tormund's camp.

Seventy one men faced off against fifty three in a darkened courtyard illuminated by the flicker of torchlight. Quantity against quality.

"It's over brother, I control the castle!" said Tormund, stepping to the fore of his own line, "Your rebellion is finished. Surrender now and I will be lenient. Look at the tower, already I have more men moving up the cliff road, you can't win."

Indeed, a man was frantically waving a torch from the summit of the gatehouse tower, no doubt already sighted in the town below. Dozens more knights could well be riding up the path towards the castle.

"I'm not the one invading my own home, Tormund!" shouted Gerris angrily, manning the centre of the shield wall his loyalists had formed, "I am the first born! You are a schemer and a usurper! There will be no surrender!"

"So be it." came Tormund's response as he shrugged his shoulders, "CHARGE!"

Tormund's line, spearheaded by the knights, surged towards the shield wall and smashed into it. A shoving match ensued, with spearmen on both sides trying to use their weapons to reach over the other side's shields, while Tormund's Knights grasped at the shields and tried to haul men forwards.

Each side was taking losses, with some troops breaking through Gerris' wall only to be ganged up on and slaughtered once cut off, while Tormund's heavy troops were making the opposing shield wall bulge inwards as their sheer weight forced Gerris' troops back. The battle shifted decisively in Tormund's favour when a body of perhaps a dozen Knights arrived from outside the castle.

"Pull back, pull back!" shouted Tormund as his men broke off the pushing match, opening up a space of a few paces between the opposing sides, a space littered with bodies, "Cavalry, charge!"

The dozen mounted men stormed down the middle of the courtyard, Tormund's troops parting to allow them through, and crashed into the battered shield wall opposing them. With perhaps only forty to fifty men left in fighting shape, Gerris lacked the numbers to absorb such a charge, and his shield wall shattered. Tormund's knights now came into their own, cutting down the guardsmen with ease in single combat, where their swords and heavy armour were much better suited to this mode of fighting than the spears and shields designed for shield wall fighting.

"Back, lad, use the postern gate!" said the Captain of the Guard, pulling at Gerris as he tried to continue the fight. Screaming and raging, Gerris was half dragged and half ran into the depths of the castle, down into the dungeons and through a concealed passageway that emerged on a narrow ledge overlooking the sea below the castle.

From above the sounds of the battle were dying down, Tormund's men cutting down the last few of Gerris' men. Dyre Den was in Tormund's hands for now. Gerris would flee to the ruins at the Whispers to gather his strength.

[Poach]

--- Present Day ---

Dyre Den

A few weeks had passed since Ser Tormund Brune had seized Dyre Den before his scheming brother had the chance: a contingent of Hedge Knights had been sufficient to counteract the bribery of most of the Castle Guard's officers by Gerris into supporting his plan to usurp Tormund's inheritance.

In those few weeks Tormund had worked diligently to consolidate his position: recruiters sent out to the Crownlands and Riverlands had brought more Hedge Knights, resulting in a respectable group of some one hundred and forty heavy horsemen, partly offsetting the defection of roughly half the petty nobles and chieftains to Gerris' cause after that fateful night. All in all he had over two thousand men loyal to his cause versus no more than a thousand loyal to Gerris.

His position was not yet totally secure, however: the riders he had sent to the villages near the ruined holdfast of the Whispers had failed to return, which suggested that Gerris may well have made that his seat of power for the time being. When the Cracklaw Lords went to war in the Targaryen Civil War a mere few years ago, seven hundred men had been raised from that area. If they were all now in Gerris' camp that narrowed the advantage Tormund enjoyed significantly. In addition, their second cousin, the Knight of Brownhollow, had returned the raven correspondence refusing to support either twin, stating that his support lay with Lord Harrag until his death, insanity or otherwise. He commanded another seven hundred men, making his troops potentially vital to the balance of forces. The remaining Lords of Cracklaw Point were unlikely to intervene unless they could be coaxed with some sort of benefits, but their price would be steep, with around three thousand men in all under their collective command.

Father was still of no use: any attempt to have him write to the Cracklaw Lords asking for support resulted in him penning letters calling for them to marshal their forces to attack Maidenpool, or Duskendale, one letter even called for Winterfell to be besieged.

"What's your position on this, Vickon?" asked Tormund of his bastard younger sibling. The answer was an obvious one, really.

"You, Tormund," said Vickon, and upon a challenge expanded his reasoning, "Father nominated you the heir: even if the order of birth is confused, you are the nominated heir of the two twins."

"And how are your sisters?" asked Tormund. In the chaos, Vickon had been charged with caring for them. Genna, at eighteen, was a strong girl who enjoyed archery and horse riding while Tyna, at sixteen, was much quieter and easily intimidated.

"Confused, shocked." said Vickon, "You know women, dynastic struggles aren't really something for them."

In truth Genna was furious, but was being kept quiet by Vickon and Tyna. Where Vickon had always been closer to Tormund and Tyna only really bonded with her sister, Genna and Gerris were very close: some even whispered that they were too close. If Tormund found out Genna's strong opinion on the matter, she might be endangered.

All that remained was to wait: the next move was Gerris'.

---

The Whispers

Gerris stared out over the windswept hills from his makeshift quarters inside one of the ruined towers of the Whispers. It had been a few weeks since he'd had to flee Dyre Den after losing the brief but bloody struggle against his traitor of a brother. Hiring in outsiders to take what wasn't his by force: truly the actions of the lowest craven.

In the days that followed, Gerris moved from ally to ally, staying low and moving deeper into the countryside, before arriving at the ruins with his closest friends and comrades. Sending out the word discreetly, roughly half those directly sworn to Dyre Den had arrived with their retainers and vassals, swelling Gerris' ranks and turning the Whispers into a military encampment. The local populace around the Whispers were more sympathetic to Gerris than to Tormund as well, and in the end Gerris had near eighteen hundred men beneath his banner.

Riders from Dyre Den had been captured: some were staunchly loyal to Tormund, others were happy to have been taken by Gerris' men and switched sides, providing Gerris valuable information about the situation at Dyre Den: their second cousin Leobald had refused to take sides, as much a blessing as a curse, but Tormund had gathered one hundred and forty Knights to his banner, who would be a powerful force in the field. Tormund was also using Dyre Den's treasury to finance a militia of a thousand men, giving him probably two thousand men, or more, at Dyre Den.

"If we're going to win we have to draw him out." said Gerris to his Captains, "As long as he holds Dyre Den he's got the upper hand: he has the money, the fortified position, access to communications and to the sea. He's also got my sisters."

"He knows that as well as you, lad," said one of the men, an old knight from a small estate down the coast from Dyre Den and a proven warrior, "if you want him out you need to make it painful to stay shut up in that keep."
"What do you suggest?" asked Gerris, "I will not pillage my own people in the name of winning this war: I will ascend to rule over ashes and a population that hates me."

"Hit what he needs: intercept tax shipments, steal from armouries, grab the nobles that support him from their beds. Destabilising someone's position doesn't take bloodshed or torches."

[Poach]

Dyre Den

Ser Leobald Brune, the son of the cousin of Lord Harrag Brune, and thus second cousin to Tormund and Gerris Brune, arrived at the ancestral home with a strong bodyguard. A few months had passed since the Battle of Dyre Den and each side remained at large, their positions mostly unchanged.

Brune lands around Dyre Den were being subjected to an increasing number of Robin Hood-esque raids, where the perpetrators (assumed to be Gerris and his loyalists) would seize shipments of money, goods or weapons without harming any civilians, and escape back into the wildlands of the peninsula with them. Counter-raids from Dyre Den would scour the countryside and usually find nothing, but would occasionally result in small pitched battles with bands of Gerris' own men. All in all perhaps a hundred and fifty men had died so far with as many wounded across dozens of minor skirmishes and encounters.

Gerris lacked the strength to face Tormund in the open, and Tormund lacked the strength to ensure Dyre Den was suitably garrisoned while he took enough troops to the Whispers ensure a victory against Gerris.

In short, the civil war in House Brune was at a stalemate. The Knight of Brownhollow had decided he must act as peacemaker and mend the family strife.

"You must both come together and talk this out!" urged Leobald, seated across from a belligerent looking Tormund.

"You're a fool, cousin!" came the counter, "Gerris is adamant that he is the heir! His thirst for power has lead him into open rebellion!

"This must be resolved peacefully, we should consult docu-" attempted Leobald.

"Father has name me heir," said Tormund with audible anger to his tone, "the situation is perfectly clear. Peace will come when Gerris abandons his mad schemes, or when he is made to abandon them. I have only enough men to protect Dyre Den itself, cousin."

"Both of you come together at Brownhollow," said Leobald, "Under my own protection and guarantees. We will reach a decision as a family."

"It's time the cadet branch of the family acted with more solidarity with the main line," said Tormund ominously, placing a sheet of parchment on the desk as two of his Knights entered the room and rested their hands on their sword pommels, "I thank you for your service, cousin."

Leobald picked up the parchment to read it. It summoned Leobald's two children, son and daughter, to Dyre Den to discuss the disappearance of their father and the continuing succession crisis over Dyre Den itself.

"I'm not miss-" protested Leobald, stopped short by the swords thrust into his back by Tormund's Knights.

"Should've picked a side." said Tormund in a casual tone as he stood up, took the parchment, and departed the room.