70 The Many Heists of Jorah Mormont Part 2
Mid 295 Lythene Mormont
"Tell me Ned, how does this Weathertop compare with Winterfell?" the King shouted, not just to be heard over the sounds of feasting, but because the man was a very boisterous drunk.
Ned Stark, her husband's nominal overlord, looked very out of place amidst the splendor of her home. If not for the direwolves embroidered on his tunic, he'd be outdressed by the servants. Lythene frowned at the King's question. She attended many harvest feasts at Winterfell in her husband's place over the years, and the ancient home of the Starks was a big stone hovel compared to the opulence of Weathertop.
"Tis more a palace than a fortress." the Lord of Winterfell responded.
Indeed, Weathertop was a palace, likely the most resplendent in Westeros. The Bronze Fleet carried workmen and materials from the richest parts of Essos and beyond regularly. Marble, exotic woods such as ebony, purpleheart, and mahogany, silk and samite, gilt and wrought silver, walls and ceilings painted by skilled artists with expensive pigments. The newest batch from Yi Ti and Leng, brought with them incredible silks and filled their cellars with wines and spices. The new hold of House Mormont sat like a glittering jewel atop its high stone hill, all the necessary defenses built on the approach, and no force of arms could ever hope to breach those made by Jorah Mormont.
The man himself looked far less stalwart than his fortifications. Despite his unhealthy leanness, the Lord of Bear Island never looked more dangerous to her eyes. Some inner fire burning hotter than ever before. She'd nearly gone unconscious when she felt his seed rush inside her, and the Mormont magic is housed in the testicles.
Throughout their huge feasting hall, men of renown ate seven courses filled with red meats, pork and boar, schools of fishes, chickens, ducks, pheasants, geese. No bear or mutton, Jorah refused to laden his tables with such, though lamb aplenty. Baked, roasted, grilled, fried, stewed. Wine and mead overflowing. All of this to celebrate the inaugural voyage of The Great Sea Beast, and the hunt of the White Whale.
Everyone wisely chose to ignore how the completion of Jorah Mormont's whale hunting ship lined up so closely with the first Leviathan spotted in the Bay of Ice in centuries. It figures that her husband came home only to sail off again. Most any woman would have put the horns on a man as absent as the Lord of Bear Island, but no woman dared cheat Jorah Mormont, not when every eagle's cry and owl's hoot is the sound of his eyes in the sky. When the hunting hounds curled up by the fire look at you with human intelligence in their eyes. Worst of all, the Young Jorah, the boy who never was. Her husband wearing him like a second body since the day of his birth.
If Rhaella knew her son existed only as a Valyrian extension of his father, the woman never gave any indication of it. She kept close to her brood, an even six, the same as Lythene's own, though the eldest only a half sibling of the others. The stunning transformation of their home caused the former queen to emerge from the walls she built up to separate herself from others, and revealed a somber and world weary woman. Not an uncommon temperament among the women owned by Jorah Mormont, some of them worn down by raising over a dozen children, though his new army of Yi Tish salt wives had an unusual pep and hunger to them.
With the cock Jorah'd been swinging lately, she understood that hunger.
The day after the feast hundreds of men boarded the seafaring fortress known as The Great Sea Beast, and slowly ambled out of the harbor, nothing like the swift longships cutting through the water. In a fortnight, that ship returned bearing the scars of a great battle and hauling a creature so large as to be beyond imagination. It had to be over a hundred paces long and near three quarters as wide as the huge ship hauling it. She'd seen the processing station near the dry docks for The Great Sea Beast, and thought them an exaggeration, and the ship a vanity project, until she saw the monster with a head bigger than a wealthy man's longhouse with four foot long fangs in its massive jaws.
The celebratory feast featured the deep red meat of the Leviathan, and many men boasting of the incredible battle with the beast, but Jorah remained quiet, letting the others bask in their glory. That night he revealed to her the true treasures of his outlandish travels across the world.
He opened a chest and inside were three giant eggs, scaled and colorful with a dull luster.
"These I took in Asshai, along with the Sunchaser." Jorah told her then opened another smaller chest, "This I took from the Imperial Treasury in the city of Yin." Another larger chest revealed three more, red, yellow, and green, "These were meant to reach Pentos, but I intercepted them after the Rebellion." another chest with three more, "These were secreted away by Prince Rhaegar after he found them in Summerhall." another even longer chest reveal four more, "These are those he never found." and another chest of with just one "Winterfell. Hidden and forgotten in the crypts." and finally the longest chest with six, "Taken from Volantis during the chaos of our sacking the Temple of R'hallor."
Twenty one dragon eggs, three sets of seven. A holy number?
"What does this mean?" Lythene asked of him and he smiled faintly.
"For now, nothing." he answered, "But soon, much. They are to remain here in your care, until I come for them again."
Jorah departed Far Harbor the morning after the feast , leaving behind instructions for his holding, his fleet, and for the battle tested whaler. Never again did the Great Sea Beast return damaged, but every turn of the moon it brought back another Leviathan who's meat fed the ever growing city on Bear Island and whose fat rendered into a oil that burned brightly and without smoke, illuminating Weathertop and all its glory.
Early 296 Thousand Islands Me
"This place is the creepiest we've ever been." Jon muttered as I put a hand on the fish headed idol revealed at low tide of the shore of one of the Thousand Islands, "Asshai was too… obvious with the whole evil city thing, but these islands with the hairless green people more scared of going into the water than dying. There's something here that tickles my balls the wrong way. Why are we even here?"
I finished sussing out the ancient magic tangled up in these statues, though resilient and enduring physical proximity to the light of my mind cast away the darkness. Pulling my hand back, I readied the Fell Axe.
"These people descend from the slaves of the Deep Ones." I explained then hacked into the stone pillar with its grotesque fish head, "By adding them to the pyre, I metaphysically steal their property." another deep bite into the stone, the metallic bark of my axe setting our ears to ringing, "But we are truly here for these pillars." Another deep strike, "Idols of the Deep Ones' Kings. I shall break their legacy." I growled with the forth strike that clear cleaved the stone pillar and sent it toppling, "The crushed stone of these statues will serve as the foundation of my pyre."
"Sounds like a load of horse shit to me, but what do I know?" Jon shrugged and signaled for the crew to come drag the statue away.
Mid 296 Nefer
I felt disappointed by the distinct lack of necromancers in the underground city of Nefer. If Far Mossovy doesn't have demons and shapeshifters I will be greatly disappointed and this trip ruined. Worse still, Nefer is a city so poor and weak they are barely capable of fighting off roving tribes of homeless people. To be fair, these tribes also give Yi Ti the business, but honestly, it would be hard to pick a man off the streets of Westeros who couldn't kill at least a hundred of the Yi Tish men by himself. They're softer than baby shit, and are lucky the Patrimony of Hyrkoon has three fortress cities stuck in the passes through the Bone Mountains, because if they had to deal with two cultures of angry homeless people, Yi Ti would be toast.
Though Nefer was such a disappointing waste of time I considered returning someday on dragon back and melting the entrances to their city shut, Mossovy felt like me and the boys landed in Velen after the Third Northern War. Cold, muddy, the sky often grey with storm clouds, and populated sparsely by weary and tough folk quick to bare arms.
And the demons said to haunt the forests, twisted Valyrian abominations like the people found in Mantarys. Fusions of animals from all over the world idly created using the same methods that made the dragons, only done so for amusement. No great purpose, just sticking as many animals together as possible with magic and seeing what horror comes from it. Within days of arriving we hunted down a monster with the head of a goat, the jaws of a lion, the body of a great ape, and the tail of a crocodile that snatched a man working the fields of a farming village and dragged him into the forest.
The battle made me feel alive in a way I haven't felt in years. My adrenaline ignited as I leapt from the saddle and the huge beast killed my horse with a single swing of its heavy arm. Dawn actually ignited as I pulled it out of its sheath and I danced around the charging creature. It howled in agony as I took one of its arms off at the elbow with my impossibly sharp blade, though even injured my companions failed to make the approach, their horses dragging them away from the fight.
Unable to see its future due to its blood magic origins, I felt the genuine thrill of combat once more as I circled the monster always waiting for the next opportunity and punishing it every time it came at me, bellowing in rage until its final difficult breaths. I took the horned head off its heavy shoulders and carried it back to the village and they scrounge up a hundred Stars worth of their copper coins, not nearly the value of my lost horse, but I got to feel like a real Witcher, and upon that trade I chose to make my church, sending all my ships but The Great Sea Bear back to the trade routes worth a damn, while me, my friends, and the Elite went on to hunt monsters.
I used my sight on the forests of Mossovy, tracking down my blindspots, the bigger the more powerful the beast within. For the next two years we hunted down every chimera, fiend, and abomination in Mossovy as wandering heroes, and as a gift to the people of this country for their stalwart survival amidst such conditions for centuries I bestowed upon them the gift of my seed, impregnating every woman in the land. The heads of these beasts I preserved, and though not as effective as live sacrifices, even in death these burnt offerings will drive my power higher.
Early 298 Stannis
The brother of the King looked around the dockside community with an uncanny feeling crawling through his guts.
"Is this some attempt to shock me into believing my brother somehow fathered an entire neighborhood?" he growled at the Hand of the King.
The elderly Jon Arryn shook his head, "They call this area the Mormont Quarter."
"Even when the man is on the other side of our farthest maps you still see him under ever stone." The bitter man spat.
"Not Jorah, his sons." Jon Arryn explained, "Many of the men and women around here were fathered by his sons Ulfric and Galmar when they stayed here after the Rebellion, and many of the children are from his other get. They captain his ships, and communities like this are popping up in every port. They say every babe fathered by a Mormont man is an easy pregnancy, an easy delivery. All the babes black of hair, blue of eye. They grow strong and tall, and the boys… all have unusually large testicles."
Stannis took a deep breath as the painted picture formed in his mind, aided on by his brother bragging about his many sons through Queen Lyanna, perhaps not his sons after all.
"You make dangerous insinuations, Lord Arryn." Stannis spoke through pursed lips, trying to halt his grinding teeth.
"There is ample evidence… just look around us. For the love of the gods and the good of your brother the King, we must find a way to present this information to him in a manner he will believe." Jon Arryn insisted.
"I'm not a man for political maneuvers, if we cannot trust my brother's response to this matter, then you should have informed someone else." Stannis stated.
"Duty demanded I bring you in on this matter, such treason makes you heir to the Iron Throne in case the worst may happen." Jon explained, "I shall gather the evidence, and present it to Robert. You must be prepared to shoulder the fall out."
The words of another slithered in Stannis's mind, a witch in red claiming to see in the flames his destiny as the Prince who was Promised. He'd not taken her council, his wife's demands be damned, but now with the possibility of his brother completely lacking legitimate heirs. The woman's sorcerous tongue now felt of a cold logic.
The two men parted ways, Jon Arryn back to his duties and Stannis back to Dragonstone. Soon after the Hand of the King passed away of a sudden bout of illness, and the game was afoot.
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