P.O.V Change
It was one of those rare mornings when the sky was clear instead of the usual depressing grey and the warmth of the Sun gave more vitality to people in the North, and the pleasing weather also put Ser Rodrik in a good mood.
He was standing at the edge of an impromptu field and watching over the men at arms as they drilled. He was standing a few meters away from the place where they had set up their temporary camp.
This place, where they set up camp, was chosen with careful consideration in Winterfell. It had the unique property of being in the middle of North's coastal region, which made almost all of the village accessible from here in a reasonable time. Even the farthest fishing village would only take about one and a half days for them to reach if they tried their hardest.
"Put your back into it!" Ser Rodrik shouted when he noticed some of the younger ones slouching.
For the Rebellion, Lord Stark had only taken the cream of the corps, the veterans of the last war (at least those who still had fully functioning limbs) with him. He felt that most of the war would be fought on the sea (which had nothing to do with the North) and for the land battles they would have enough of a number advantage from the start that he saw no need to take more soldiers than required.
This meant that there were still enough healthy soldiers left for Rodrik to choose from without compromising Winterfell's defense. He mostly chose those who were in their prime age but weren't so young as to be hot-blooded and reckless.
All of them had been trained since they were young in the Winterfell courtyard so they were proficient enough with arms, they just did not have any experience to speak off, except for when they went on occasional bandit hunting or if there was a Night Watch's deserter on loose.
As he was monitoring the drilling soldiers, he suddenly noticed something in his periphery, his squire was running towards him with a red face and huffing like a horse. He started moving toward the poor boy to meet him halfway when he saw the urgency on his face.
"What happened?" He asked calmly when the squire was close enough.
"A r-rider arrived with this letter Ser, said it was urgent," he said while pressing a stitch in his stomach.
Rodrik took the letter from him and opened it quickly when he noticed Winterfell's seal on it. The words were in Maester Luwin's familiar writing which was always concise while delivering all the necessary information.
"Lads!" He hollered, excitement surging through him at the thought of finally having a chance to squash some squids, "Pack up, we got some reavers to Crush!"
Rodrik didn't think he would have a chance to fight the ironborn after he was left behind for the Rebellion by Lord Stark but the opportunity came for him on its own to show those ironshits some northern steel.
There were only 80 men under him in total so they were very efficient and were packed and ready within an hour. And with every individual having a horse of his own, they had very high mobility.
Rodrik had been skeptical about the idea of Jon's eagle being able to scout for ships at the start. While he was ignorant about the ways the ravens were bought up or how they were able to carry messages from one end of Westeros to the other, he did know that training any animal or bird was a very hard undertaking so he was doubtful of a child's ability to train the eagle to that extent.
But on the other hand, Rodrik had been there on the hunt when they had found the Eagle and he had seen her grow up (at a very fast rate) and he knew that she was a fiercely intelligent bird. He also knew enough about Jon to know that he was not a liar, so ultimately he decided to go with his gut and believe in his Lord's son.
They only set up camp once at night on the whole journey when they were about halfway towards the village, and after some quick meal and a night's rest, they were back on the course at the first light.
There was a palpable sense of excitement among the soldiers, some were dreading the carnage and the battle while others were looking forward to having the chance to earn some glory, it was easy to understand once you know that most of them had never been in an actual battle before.
They reached the target village when the sun had just started its descent from its peak. Rodrik had the soldiers set up a camp about three leagues away and the camp was set in such a way that, it would not be visible at all from afar.
Rodrik went to meet the villagers who were slowly coming out of their homes and were vigilantly looking at the soldiers setting up camp from afar and discussing in hushed voices between themselves. He brought his best soldiers along with him and since the village came under the control of Deepwood motte, he also bought with Lord Glover's Master at arms who had arrived with the letter.
They introduced themselves to the villagers gathering, and the Stark name took most of the tension from their shoulders.
Rodrik immediately told them about a possible imminent Ironborn attack and just as the Maester had predicted they were very reluctant to leave the village. Instead, they were ready to bear weapons like forks, hammers, shovels, bows and arrows, or whatever they could against the ironborn.
But Ser Rodrik and the Master at Arms were able to persuade them to empty their village for just a short time. The soldiers helped the villagers settle in a temporary shelter they had created in the forest a few leagues away and they tried to move as fast as possible as they had no way to be sure when the Ironborn were about to attack.
After the evacuation, Ser Rodrik gathered the soldiers and started preparing the field according to the plan they had created at Winterfell. It took all 80 of them working together about 6 hours of work to complete it, which meant that they were barely done before the sun started to fall.
The chance of the Ironborn attacking at night on such a small village was very small but Rodrik still decided to post a couple of sentries just in case. All of them ate a warm meal made by the villagers which consisted of fish and seaweed dishes, so everyone went to sleep sated that night.
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