Mountain bandits?

The North, House Flint's lands, a mining hut.

Smack!

"Listen well, you faithless half-breeds! From this day forward, this is Bloodheart Clan territory. I am Bel, Magnar of the Bloodheart Clan!

"We are the chosen children who worship the God-King B'lack. I command you to submit, or I will dig out your hearts! Hahaha!"

After slapping a wounded young man to the ground, a tall man wearing a wild bull's skull and a bronze breastplate, with a bronze battle-axe in hand, shouted abuse at the miners kneeling before him.

Around the tall man stood other tall male warriors carrying bronze weapons and wearing bronze armor. A closer look, however, revealed more than ten female warriors in crude fur clothing among them.

These women carried longbows made of weirwood, their gazes keen, just like the powerful female warriors of Dawn Age legends. Their specially made breastplates and pauldrons gleamed dark red in the sunlight.

Painted in red on these warriors' shields and armor was an emblem of a spear piercing a bleeding red heart. It appeared to be this clan's totem.

The warriors stared murderously at the miners and commoners kneeling on the ground with their hands bound behind their backs. A bloodthirsty gleam shone in many of their eyes. These people hardly looked human at all, but more like beasts-bloodthirsty, man-eating beasts at that.

Their current location was midway along a mountain range. This area looked like ice cream with a bite taken out of one side, and the terrace here was where House Flint had discovered an ore vein. It was a shallow deposit, discovered by a resident of Pasture Town while hunting.

Following Maester Albert's design, a sloping mine passage roughly three meters in diameter had been dug here, reaching a depth of about fifteen meters. Normally, over a hundred people worked in this area, but today almost every one of them was wounded. In the wooden shacks nearby lay ten mutilated corpses, their eyes still open in death.

After Rickard "Scar" left, his cousin Ralf "Eel" had been put in charge. Since Ralf was rather lazy and fond of his food, he had entered a happy period of slacking off after Rickard "Scar" departed. Over time, even the conscripted farmers had grown lax, and that was precisely what had given the "bandits" their opening.

These bandits were not actually bandits in the true sense. They were all First Men clans from the Western Mountains of the Sea Dragon Point peninsula. On this ancient continent of Westeros, after the First Men merged with the Andals toward the end of the Age of Heroes, they had largely come to identify themselves by regions such as the North and the Westerlands.

This represented their acceptance of, and complete integration into, the institutions and culture established by the Andals. Yet deep in some of Westeros's mountain ranges, descendants of the First Men who refused to embrace Andal culture still hid.

Since the First Men had no dedicated system of writing or recordkeeping, their history was often tied to myths and legends. Take Brandon Stark "the Builder," the ancestor of House Stark in the North. According to northern legends, he had built not only Winterfell in the North and the Wall Beyond the Wall, but even Storm's End in the southern Stormlands.

Some legends were even more extravagant. In certain tales from the Reach, for instance, Garth Greenhand, the common ancestor of the Reach's First Men, was the father of all the first First Men kings. To this day, many commoners and nobles of the Reach believed their bloodline to be the noblest, because all the founding kings of the Seven Kingdoms were descendants of their ancestor.

And after the Andals launched their full-scale invasion,

Those First Men clans and kingdoms with deep blood feuds against the Andals had either been destroyed or retreated into remote mountain forests, living like Wildlings. The two most famous First Men clan groups in the Vale and the North were the clans of the Mountains of the Moon and the northern mountain clans. Among these First Men clans, some had gradually begun accepting the Andals' writing and language, while others still clung to their ancient customs and culture. The Bloodheart Clan, for instance, still equipped themselves with the bronze weapons and armor of the First Men era, although people like Bel had already learned to speak the Common Tongue.

Yet they had learned it specifically to plunder people and wealth. Some First Men still used ancient runes in their rituals, and at times they even used brutal blood sacrifices as a means of communicating with the gods attached to the heart trees. Those runic tattoos could still be seen on the faces and bodies of these Bloodheart Clan warriors.

Only, the tattoos on these Bloodheart Clan warriors looked somewhat different from the ancient runes of the First Men. After being stained with the blood of their own kind, these black runes seemed to "swell," looking like bulging blood vessels.

At the sight of the young man struck to the ground, Ralf "Eel" was too frightened even to breathe loudly. He knew this was Thin Pigeon, a member of the castle's guard. The man was always ordering him around, and Ralf "Eel" disliked him intensely.

Yet this young guardsman had organized a defense in time when the surprise attack began. Although Bel had knocked him unconscious at the very start of the fighting, even after being captured, the young man had revealed nothing about the transport ship's movements.

Bel and his men had a clear objective: to take control of this mine. Ralf "Eel" secretly felt some regret, too, because he had originally had a chance to escape aboard that transport ship. Only his reluctance to abandon a bag of gems he had embezzled a while back had cost him his last chance to flee.

At that thought, Ralf "Eel" shot another fierce glare at the young man lying on the ground. He had already ordered the transport ship to wait for him, but Thin Pigeon had instead told the miner responsible for carrying messages to light the beacon, sending the ship away from the dock early.

Still, Ralf "Eel" was not afraid, because the Bloodheart Clan had launched their attack in the early hours of the morning. Unless something unusual happened, the castle's troops would arrive here by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. The only thing Ralf "Eel" needed to do now was keep himself alive.

For some reason, however, a faint unease kept stirring in Ralf "Eel"'s heart. He knew perfectly well that these savages from the Western Mountains never did this sort of thing. Normally, they fled after taking goods and people.

But Bel and his men had not done so. From the looks of them, Ralf "Eel" thought they seemed to intend to stay here permanently. Although there were over a hundred of these savages, Ralf "Eel" believed the castle's soldiers were stronger.

Normally, the clan warriors of the Western Mountains only stole women, food, ironware, cloth, and anything else they could carry. They behaved just like the Wildling raiders near the Wall, and one of the greatest reasons Eddard's family had declined so badly was the scourge of the clans in the Western Mountains.

Saltpans on the coast frequently suffered pirate attacks, while Pasture Town and Farm Town were harassed by clans from the west and south. The Western Mountains ran in the shape of a giant "L," with the renowned Flint Cliffs to the south.

Once, House Flint of Shatterstone Mountain on the Sea Dragon Point peninsula had been the most powerful branch of First Men descendants in the south. Together with the Marsh Kings of the Neck, they had controlled the road from the North to the south. At the height of their power, House Flint had held off House Stark to the north and resisted the Ironborn pirates of the Iron Islands to the south. Their marriage ties with the Crannogmen of the Neck had also helped House Flint keep a firm grip on this southern land.

Yet as time passed, at some unknown point House Flint of Shatterstone Mountain had suddenly fallen into decline. In their final war against House Stark, the Kings in the North, Rickard Stark, the King in the North known as the "Laughing Wolf," had attacked House Flint from the Neck to the east, guided by his wife, a princess of the "Marsh King."

From then on, House Flint of Shatterstone Mountain had split into three. Those Flints unwilling to submit had fled to the area around Shatterstone Mountain in the Western Mountains and become the Flint Clan of the mountains. The branch to which Eddard belonged had been granted Flint's Finger, while another had been granted Widow's Watch in the eastern North, on a narrow peninsula at the North's easternmost edge.

The heads of the two Flint houses at the time had sworn allegiance to House Stark of the North beneath a heart tree. "As Strong as Stone" of Flint's Finger and "We Stand Watch" of Widow's Watch were the house words that the children of both families had to remember from an early age. In the memories of Eddard's former self, these were oaths every Flint had to remember.

Eddard had always been rather interested in why House Stark had forcibly divided House Flint. He had even set aside a page in his plan specifically to investigate the secrets hidden within House Flint.

Ralf "Eel" came from Pasture Town, where the commoners frequently dealt with the clans of the Western Mountains. As far as Ralf "Eel" could remember, he had no impression whatsoever of this Bloodheart Clan. There were many clans in the Western Mountains, the three strongest being the Flint Clan, the Wild Bull Clan, and the Snow Wolf Clan.

Under House Flint's influence, these three great clans were fairly friendly toward the common people of Flint's Finger. Both sides frequently traded what they had for what they lacked and got along quite well. Among the clans of the Western Mountains, there were also many ancient clans.

According to some of the clan warriors who came to trade, certain clans' histories could even be traced back to the Age of Heroes, a legendary era when gods and mortals lived together. The commoners of Flint's Finger, however, treated all these claims as jokes.

Only some of the elders knew that among these ancient clans, there were still people who worshipped certain ancient and terrifying beings. Those evil, uncanny faiths were as old as the Old Gods worshipped by the Children of the Forest. Rumor had it that these faiths had been brought over from Essos in the east along with the ancient First Men.

Although Ralf "Eel" was no maester, he had indeed just heard a name with an eerie pronunciation. A being whose name alone could make one's hair stand on end was certainly no blasphemy that First Men who worshipped the Old Gods could utter.

The more Ralf "Eel" recalled that pronunciation, the more frightened he became. He had a vague feeling that today's events were by no means as simple as his surface guesses suggested. These people were certainly not as simple as they appeared.

Moreover, Ralf "Eel" believed these savages, who had never been to sea, could not possibly operate a sailing ship. They must have some other purpose, or perhaps they were here specifically waiting for something or someone.

"Oh! Now this is interesting! You half-breed actually dare not answer my question? Do you want to die?"

Just as Ralf "Eel" lowered his head in thought, a voice rudely interrupted him. Ralf "Eel" also discovered that, at some point, everyone around him had turned their eyes toward him.

"Ah..."

Realizing something was wrong, Ralf "Eel" hurriedly looked toward the source of the voice. What met his eyes was a mouthful of yellow teeth streaked with blood and bits of unidentified raw meat. Scared half to death, Ralf "Eel" could not stop himself from crying out.

Unfortunately, Ralf "Eel"'s scream did not stir any pity in the savage Bel. Instead, Bel grabbed Ralf "Eel" by the collar and dragged him over to the mine entrance.

Bel and his men had first attacked the wooden shacks about a hundred meters from the mine entrance. After killing off the miners Thin Pigeon had organized, Bel had led the clan warriors to round up all the miners bringing ore out.

At this point, more than thirty miners were still hiding inside the mine. They had blocked the passage with rubble, and since the mine had ventilation holes, they could just about hold on for a while. But as time passed, after going hungry through noon, they were probably close to their limit.

"Hey, noseless little dwarf, tell me, did you just glare at me, and is that why you refuse to answer my question? What, do you want to duel the great Magnar of the Bloodheart Clan, Bel, right here?"

At Bel's question, Ralf "Eel" nearly collapsed to the ground in terror-or rather, he had already gone limp. Had Bel not still been gripping his collar, he would probably have crumpled to the ground long ago.

"Cough, cough... I didn't, I didn't... cough, cough!"

Overcome with agitation, Ralf "Eel" choked on his own saliva. Soon, however, he got his emotions under control and spoke directly to Bel.

"R-respected Magnar, I... I would never dare disobey you. D-do you want to get all those miners out? I... I have a way!"