Bab 24: Chapter 24 - Adventures in the North 21.
[Chapter Size: 3595 Words.]
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**JON POV**
Wolfswood near FrostRoar, 290 DC, 3 moons later.
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He woke up groggy. It's been two weeks since he turned 9 namedays, which made him think he was growing. However, his body still refused to grow rapidly, and Jon had a bit more fatigue than a normal child would.
Jon spent some time trying to muster some strength to face the new day. In the last 6 moons, he had been working and training every day, almost collapsing from exhaustion when he went to bed. Finally, he got up and went to the entrance of his dwelling once he had his clothes on. After being blinded for a while by the first lights of dawn, his eyes adapted to the early daylight, and Jon looked around, pleased with the transformation of the place. Until 6 moons ago, it was full of abandoned houses, but now there were 5 new structures.
First, they renovated the forge to make it a bit more modern, with the limited resources at their disposal. Second, a custom laboratory was created for the alchemical studies of the 9-nameday boy, his favorite place where he spent most of his time during the day. There was also a kennel for the wolves, whose number had increased during this time. Lastly, they built two new houses, refurbishing the others to accommodate the giants and the miners taken from the mines by the giants themselves.
The sun hadn't fully risen yet, but Jon, who had already recovered from the previous fatigue, began to run through the camp, under the watchful eyes of his wolves. They saw their lazy master as always when he started his morning exercise routine. Jon, initially, struggled, after all, he was still an 8-nameday-old boy until recently, but he felt a very pleasant development in his opinion. Even though he still felt far from his ideal, he couldn't demand too much, as he noticed the change in the last 6 moons.
Jon became faster, and his sparring sessions with Ducken began to bring surprises to the soldier. The boy was still far from being able to defeat him, but he was starting to pose some difficulty for the man. Ducken also knew that in the coming years, this outcome would be very different if Jon continued at this pace.
Jon had an unlimited future as a warrior, and he knew it. He had been training and creating a new diet recently discovered using his alchemical knowledge, peculiar plants and herbs, and some genetic power to develop his body to a level never seen before in this world.
As he developed this diet recently, something he named the growth potion, the results were not yet very visible, but he knew that would change in the coming weeks.
But the growth potion wasn't the only thing he developed during his thousands of hours in the laboratory. He made a kind of drug that gave him a temporary physical boost. Of course, there were some side effects, but Jon minimized them in his development and made sure that nothing would be permanent if he knew how to control the dose, using it only in emergencies.
This didn't stop him from testing it with Ducken one day for him to see the results. This made Jon go from an 8-nameday-old child with considerable talent in fencing to a little monster in strength and speed. The northerner, a war veteran who left the continent in search of glory, lost in that place to an 8-nameday-old child after taking that potion. Of course, the man was shocked to the core by this, refusing to believe what happened. This garnered more attention from the giants and William, yielding the same result after another sparring session, something that earned many laughs from the spectators.
But Jon did not abuse that glory, as he used the potion only for a test. Jon explained that his strength and speed increased threefold, thanks to these experiments he has been conducting in the last few moons. The only side effect is the pain that comes right after conditions return to normal, but other than that, it does not harm the body. Of course, this effect is only when he still controls the dose he can take; otherwise, his body could be even more harmed than the pain.
The boy also informed that they could use the potions if needed at any time while under Jon's wing, as he would take care of his people, declaring this on the occasion. In addition to Jon's progress in the military area, Ducken knew how to instruct the giants quite well, who had improved significantly, moving from just making moves to crush their enemies to becoming swordsmen in formation, even though they were still far from being skilled with blades, they were unbeatable with their size, which was already monstrous in the eyes of all men, even without knowing how to wield a sword.
Wallyk, Wuual, Kypyl, and Huyys trained in the sword and shield area, which has been yielding good results since they were becoming a joint and organized unit under Ducken's command. Even though he was human, they all recognized that this man knew how to lead. Seryna didn't seem enthusiastic about being part of this unit, so she trained to stand by Jon as some protective guard. She was also the only giant who preferred the hammer over the sword but showed greater talent than her counterparts.
William was also trained with the blade. The blacksmith, who never had training to fight, still harbored resentment about how they killed his family and now hoped to be able to take revenge, which he learned a lot in these last few moon's training.
In addition to the potions that Jon has been developing and the training, he and William made great progress in the forge in the last 3 moons, starting to have great success with the equipment that came out of the forge. Jon developed and helped William with techniques as a blacksmith with his knowledge and also learned from his own mistakes since he only had knowledge, not practical experience. It can be said that both have reached a level of expertise in the craft, something they shouldn't have achieved in the next decade, in Jon's case.
Now that Jon and William have created equipment for the giants, combined with the training given by Ducken, if before a giant could be worth 10 men, now these towering men in the camp could be worth as much as 120 men, as they now had complete swords, shields, and armor. Jon still wondered if they really would only need 120 men to take down one of the giants and sacrifice another 119 men.
The giants were also natural workers, and with the help of some knowledge from the boy, they further developed the mines. In the end, the deposit of the place had steel in such quantity that they didn't need to use even a bit of the large amount, enough to make more than 2000 armors and 5000 swords for ordinary men.
Jon knew there had been a lot of progress in these moons, but of all of them, his greatest discovery was with the blacksmith's craft, something he developed even without William being around. He created something he considered even greater than his alchemical potions. Only he could create something like this. With his limited knowledge of the magical language the gods gave him, he created, after 4 months of testing on weapons and armor with a metal tempered with ancient runes, the language used by the children of the forest in ancient times. Thus, a new metal emerged in front of Jon.
It was different from the common. Despite using ordinary iron, when it was placed in a container covered with runes while the metal was molten, and Jon activated the runes of the container through his magic, a greenish metal emerged at the end of the equipment creation. William seemed to love it when he saw the result for the first time. With the young blacksmith helping in the mold after that, the first sword with this metal emerged. It was greenish, with a quality much superior to the common, in addition to its distinctive shine from any other weapon. Unfortunately, he couldn't make it better than Valyrian blades, according to Ducken, after inspecting it with some admiration. He had witnessed some weapons with the legendary dragon metal in his life, so he could give his honest opinion.
But even though the greenish metal was inferior to the best in the world, it had something even better than Valyrian blades, and much superior to common metal. It was found that they were extremely light, even lighter than dragon metal. If an armor with normal steel weighs 50 kilograms, those with this metal in the same shape are reduced to 10 kilograms, five times lighter, something that surpassed Valyrian, which weighed 2 times lighter than the common.
Jon knew that with these equipment, he could produce the most feared and fast soldiers in the world, if he could create an army with these armors and weapons because everyone would be agile and never tire more than the opponent. He knew that such an army would have an advantage even against numerical disadvantages.
From there, Jon set aside all the equipment he and William had been producing and stayed with William to develop his own equipment and for everyone present. He created his official weapons and began wielding dual blades, something that, at first, had some difficulty, but in the last 2 moons, he managed to get used to it in his training. Now he had fewer disadvantages for being a child, as his swords were long. Even though it seemed heavy for them, the greenish blades were quite easy to handle after getting used to the magical metal.
Another thing was his animals, which developed and grew a lot over these moons. Caraxes and his companion, whom Jon named Judis, are the size of half a horse now. This made Ducken, William, and even the giants wonder if their eyes were playing tricks on them as they saw the accelerated growth of the birds.
Both formed a pair of birds, but they were still too young to lay their first eggs, which Jon wanted to wait for because he wanted to get two chicks. Unlike their parents, the boy wanted to keep them at the normal size of a normal eagle, as it would be more useful to have animals of that size as his eyes in the sky. With genes from Caraxes and his companion, he was sure they would be powerful, even with their sizes much smaller than their parents.
Jon also made a connection with all the birds after all this time, but he couldn't make them grow like Caraxes and Judis because that requires a lot of magic, something Jon can't do in his current strength. However, thanks to these bonds, Jon had eyes constantly watching over his camp and the surroundings. Even the situation in the city of FrostRoar was constantly updated. In these 6 moons, there were some hunters nearby, but after teaching a few phrases to some parrots and crows, he managed to scare away any curious ones, claiming that the place was cursed. The rumor made everyone stay away from the place. Imagine not being able to sleep because a bird kept saying throughout the night, "GO AWAY! GO AWAY!" outside your tent. If they tried to attack the parrot, a shower of birds attacked them, making them flee immediately.
The horses were becoming powerful too. Six moons turned most of the pack horses into powerful steeds. But Jon couldn't keep them all or take them north, so he selected 8 of them to accompany him on his journey. They looked like warhorses, in addition to being resistant to the cold, extremely strong, and quite fast and agile to walk through the snow and summer ground. Panis was by far the most powerful horse, very different from what it was when Jon got him from the Icehill farm.
Finishing the analysis of his animals, the last and not least important were his giant wolves. What surprised Jon the most was their growth. The 4 wolves that initially had 2 meters grew half a meter in this time, upgrading them to the size of 2.5 meters, making them monsters in the eyes of any northerner. And their changes weren't just in height. Pleasantly, they became stronger, more agile, and beautiful, their colors more vibrant. Jon knew this when they returned to the camp with a bear carcass, and watching their memories, they usually fought alone while the others watched as a kind of competition among them.
Everyone in the camp also had the opportunity to see the newcomers, as the she-wolf, Blackarrow, gave birth two moons ago, and more than 10 cubs were born. They had been growing a lot in these last moons, and Jon believes he won't need to wait more than 1 year for them to reach 2 meters. Their colors varied, some black like the father, gray wolves like the mother, or some colors that set them apart, like a red wolf and what caught Jon's attention the most, a white wolf with red eyes. Strangely, he formed a bond with the latter like no other. Even his father didn't seem to have this connection with the boy or even other animals. Perhaps it rivaled Caraxes, but then Jon paid special attention to this little one and named him Ghost.
Another piece of news during this time was that the other female was also pregnant in the last moons, but he couldn't wait for this birth anymore, now that he was better prepared. He knew he could take care of the mother up to the walls without many problems.
Finally, the changes in the animals were not only among them. Jon, in his travels on some hunts in the Wolfswood to train, ended up bonding with some powerful animals he found in the woods. Among them, the boy added to the camps 2 shadow cats, both with 1.5 meters, and 4 bears with 1.5 to 2 meters. From there, he began to create a force of giant and powerful animals, in case he added them together with his wolves.
As soon as Jon finished his morning run, he returned to the center of the camp, where everyone was already awake. Today would be a special day, as it would be his last stay in this place, and the others would depart with him.
Jon had been preparing for the journey for a week. William and Ducken could have left moons ago, as the contract only provided for 4 moons of work. However, they were so amazed by everything that happened between them and Jon that they decided to accompany him. They treated Jon like a blessed child because, after witnessing everything they saw, they knew this child would bring great changes to the world. And what man wouldn't want to be part of these events and leave his name in the history books? So, Jon wasn't surprised when they asked to follow the boy, even to the ends of the earth.
Now that they were preparing to leave, the boy couldn't help but think about what had been happening in the north outside the camp. Some changes seemed to shake the Northerners after the mayor was executed, and his son was sent to the Wall. His father, Lord Stark, along with several other lords, initiated a company to eradicate human trafficking in the kingdom. This shook the people of the kingdom a lot, as there was such a rotten market right under their noses. Jon personally suspected that there was someone powerful helping them behind the scenes, probably some lord from the east coast, like Karstarks, Lightfoot, Overton, Flints, Woolfield, Wells, Lockes, Boltons, or even the Mandelyns. Since these traffickers managed to plant themselves in the north of that coast like a disease and spread without anyone "noticing." But as a child with his ideas, he couldn't prove or help. He could only leave these things to his father, who was in charge.
Now, at this moment, his father and his banners hunted down and destroyed other human traffickers' bases scattered throughout the kingdom. Seeing that they were being hunted, many traffickers began to flee, while others remained stuck in garrisons built in strategic and obvious locations. Within those who tried to escape, some managed to return to Essos, but most mercenary slavers were caught. Even some being executed, there was a great addition to the Night's Watch with some new hundreds of men who chose to fight for order rather than lose their heads.
After months of fighting, Jon learned that his father was currently in the east with 3 thousand Northern soldiers under his command. They were in the last resistance, which was a fairly protected garrison. When the attacks on these bases began, strangely, birds would deliver their locations in the north. And as Lord Stark trusted the white raven, named Wills, the same one who delivered Jon's first letter after moons without news, Lord Stark placed them under siege, sending soldiers to the command of someone trustworthy for all the slavers' camps, making them stuck with almost no chance of escape. As Jon had many little birds, it was easy for him to find out all the places while sending his eyes from the sky throughout the north. These birds not only looked from afar, but they were good at infiltrating, listening, and even showing images of documents that Jon could read. So it was easy to discover the whole scheme, but still, he never found out who the real sponsor behind the scenes was, whom they only called the blood lord.
Now, with all the places destroyed, his father was fighting in the last garrison with his 3 thousand men against 400 remaining slavers. As they knew their fates, they refused to surrender and stayed that way for many moons, with no success from the Northern forces to infiltrate the stronghold. But the intention was only to delay them from escaping, as there was a camp of 500 Northerners outside the place, preventing them from escaping, but now Jon's father finally appeared with more than 2500 men at his back; it was now a matter of time for them to surrender.
His father was running back and forth, fighting Essos mercenaries in various sieges. Even Jeroh Mormont had to flee off the continent and escape his father's wrath, who condemned him to death, but in the end, he managed to escape. Jon also learned that Bear Island was even poorer, thanks to the incompetence of that lord.
With the information gathering, Winterfell did not escape his ears and the eyes in the sky. Jon had to cut off contact with his younger siblings, especially after Catelyn Stark/Tully attempted to kill Wills with some guards. While the maester was not in the rookery, the white raven became extremely frightened, cursing the madwoman as he fled from the tower.
This left Jon angry, and he ended up cutting contact since then. He knew things weren't going well for them in the last few moons. When they discovered that Lord Stark was his father, Ned Stark was acclaimed as the father of little Jon, boosting the Stark name in the North once again. The actions he took against the slavers followed the theory that little Jon was behind it all, further enhancing his reputation in the North. This would have been great for the Starks in another time, but with rumors about Catelyn Stark, a wicked southern stepmother who expelled the boy from Winterfell after attempting to kill him, and his half-brother who hated him, people were openly speaking ill of them. They questioned whether she should be the lady of Winterfell or the heir to the North, something that didn't sit well.
There was a rumor that little Jon fled because the woman was jealous of the son of a woman Lord Stark met during the war, as none of her children compared to the bastard child. They even created the ballad "The Fish Who Wants to Be a Wolf." Jon didn't know what to think about it. He genuinely disliked Catelyn and wanted her as far away from him as possible, especially after she tried to get rid of Wills. But personally, he didn't like people saying that Jon was better than his brothers. Even after Robb did that to him, he didn't want to disrupt Robb's life. He began to realize that being still in the North would only hinder Robb Stark's rule. He just hoped his brother wouldn't take these things personally. He wanted to help Robb more than harm him, even after everything. However, reality was as cruel as he imagined. Robb openly hated him now. Jealousy and the voices in his ears from Catelyn and Theon consumed him. It saddened Jon to hear his brother openly speaking ill of him, with only the younger siblings defending him.
Jon even stopped sending birds to check on his younger siblings because it hurt to see and hear Robb. But he had to put that aside and continue on his way to the North. With that, he began preparing to finally set out for the end of his journey.
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