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The villages, fortified with palisades and rudimentary walls, were the only thing keeping the bandits at bay. Brandon made them his battlefields. His men took to the ramparts, slingers swinging rocks rained down on attackers. The palisades often held firm, but the attackers were relentless, pressing the gates with fire and axes.
At Wintershade, a long-standing settlement, Brandon's forces held off a swarm of bandits trying to breach the gates under cover of darkness. By morning, the snow was stained red, and the ground was littered with the dead.
At Stonebrook, a newer village, the battle was even more desperate. The settlement was home to refugees—families who had fled famine and war in neighbouring lands and managed to make it all the way here. Their defences were little more than sharpened stakes and hastily dug trenches. Brandon fought alongside the villagers, fending off attackers as they worked to reinforce their walls.
He called out orders, his sword cutting down one raider after another. "Hold the line! Get those stakes in the ground!" he roared as villagers, young and old, scrambled to fortify their homes. By nightfall, the attackers withdrew, their bodies scattered around the half-built palisade.
"You've fought well," Brandon told the villagers. "But this won't be the last time they come. Keep building, and we'll make this place a fortress."
In nearly every case the Bandits always took the crops and left the rest, even in some cases only taking some of the crops and leaving as fast as they could, they were in and out before the villages even knew what was taken.
/
Every week brought news of more raids, and Brandon pushed his men to their limits, moving from one skirmish to the next. Hollow Hill, Frostmere, Raven's hold, and every village bore the brunt of the chaos, and everyone saw Brandon and his King's Guard standing in their defence.
Some battles are more intense than others. Some came with ladders to scale the walls, others with clear training from the skill of their swords to the organisation, and some rocked up expecting the village to bend over backward for them, they were the most fun to defeat.
But Brandon and his men battled on defending anyone who needed it even refugees from places like Ryder King's to escaped slaves of the Blackwood King's lands, even as far south as a small group of Marsh men had come to the Winter Kingdom seeking safety.
At Willowford, a band of raiders attacked before the palisade was even finished. Brandon's forces arrived just in time, clashing with the enemy in the open fields. Villagers screamed and scattered as rocks rained down on their homes.
"Protect the people!" Brandon bellowed, leading his men into the fray. His sword cut through the raiders as his shield blocked blow after blow. Behind him, villagers ran for their tents hoping they would protect them. When the last raider fell, the villagers cheered, as they called out for Brandon as their King.
The relentless fighting took its toll. Brandon's men were weary, their armour dented and bloodied. But they could hardly complain they got to fight good fights, could eat plenty to keep their bellies full, and could keep the loot of dead bandits, and some of them were well equipped which was a nice extra payment for them along with some of the coins that Brandon dished out or let the men keep if they found them.
/
With the success of winter-resistant crops spreading not every king turned to banditry to get access to food that they desperately wanted. Some took a more practical approach to the target.
The Glover King turned his efforts toward replicating the crops. Brandon did not keep it a secret about how it was accomplished and as more farmers around the North started to try and replicate the effect, Ealdred actively paid his farmers to see what they could create. Surprisingly, even the Warg King, adopting the techniques and was it seemed very quick to accept the notions of how it was accomplished and that he could replicate it the same way.
While other kings sought to emulate or raid, the Umbar King and the Frost King remained conspicuously silent. Their lands stayed calm, with little movement from them. Brandon remained confident that they were not doing anything against him, he believed their word, even when he got word that they were moving men closer to his border.
Eventually, reports came from refugees and traders that the Umbar and Frost Kings had taken it upon themselves to hunt down raiders attempting to leave their lands to attack the Winter Kingdom. Bandits who sought to cross into Brandon's territory found themselves ambushed and eradicated before they could set foot outside their homelands.
Brandon knew his friends; he knew that they would not break their word. Brandon, not having to worry about another side of the attack, decided to repay their loyalty in kind. He sent to Harmond and Frost, detailed works of the winter-resistant crops but also a vast supply of seeds to jump-start their efforts, giving them crops that would grow well now.
Harmond responded in kind, with a cartload of silver, from his cut that he gets from the silver mines. "So wishy-washy of you Brandon to give me gifs for little work," the Umbar King's letter read. "Take this silver as thanks, give your kid something nice when they are born."
Brandon shook his head and smiled, as he muttered to himself. Promising to always repay Harmond and Forst for helping him when they did not need to.
/
Such find harvests and goods would not escape the eyes of certain raiders. The Ironborn came with a storm, their longships cutting through the icy waters of the North and they barrelled straight into the North. And they came back in force. Brandon, who had spent the better part of the year moving tirelessly across his lands to defend against raiders and bandits, had fought in more battles this year than he had all his previous ones.
The news came as Brandon was overseeing repairs to a burned palisade in a village near the eastern edges of his domain. A raven fluttered into camp that day straight from the Ryder King because if there was one thing that got all the northern kings united it was when the Ironborn decided to rear the ugly head against them.
"Ships spotted off the Rills," Halvar said. "And reports from the Stony Shore are villages sacked; their stores raided as they're head deeper inland."
Brandon's men, already worn from months of near-constant battles with bandits and disguised soldiers from rival kingdoms, braced for another campaign. The Ironborn would not take long to come inland if what Brandon thought was correct, head straight for his Kingdom and its goods.
/
The Ironborn raids moved quickly and as suspected moved quick inland raiding along the way. Farmers fled with their families, leaving behind fields they had toiled over for years hoping they would leave their villages alone if no one was there.
For months, Brandon had marched tirelessly across his lands, defending villages and restoring order. Now, the Ironborn moved through the Barrow lands and Ryder Lands straight for his lands.