What IF

Chapter 25

The Harp

Their ships had docked by Eastwatch almost a sennight past.

Something that was a relief for the man that was hand to Stannis Baratheon, Ser Davos Seaworth.

But whilst it was a relief to the elderly man it was not a relief for the men of the Golden Company. Used to fighting in the heated climates of Essos, the North was torture to them.

Though none would complain as they would heed his word.

He had come to learn that the man that had occupied this body before he became host was a feared general from Lys and a commander of these sellswords. The Harp was what they called the man, an irony that his granddaughter must've seen when she cast him inside this body. But the Harp this man was called because he made his blade sing whenever he was in battle.

This Harp was feared, loved and respected by the men of the Golden Company that his word could only be challenged by the other commander, Harry Strickland.

And Harry Strickland was a man who had lost the faith of his men because of his war with the Targaryens. A war that sprouted naught but failure and had turned this fearsome army into men who had only the option of hiding out of fear that they may be slaughtered by the infamous Trigon. A thought that always brought a smile to the current host's lips.

Strickland was fool enough to think they could be beaten. His ambitions of trying to please his ailing Blackfyre wife who was only with him to try and pass a murmur onto the Targaryen throne, a secret plot that infuriated the current host.

Strickland was also clouded by vengeance of the death of his daughter Doreah. Strickland's daughter who had died because she had loved the current host's daughter.

The thoughts made him clouded with grief for his baby girl but he could not dwell as such as they marched through the Haunted Forest in the far North. He had to stick to the true plan, his true mission of why he was truly resurrected.

Davos believed that he and his men were going to check on King Stannis who had not sent a raven despite moons of him and his sellsword army being camped here. Davos fully believed that they were here because he reached out to the Iron Bank and asked for more reinforcements and the Golden Company had decided to aid them.

They were not.

The Golden Company men believed that he was going there to capture Stannis. After rejecting Theon Greyjoy and his offer to join their elephants with his band of Wildlings. His men thought he was trying to make peace with the Targaryens by rejecting the King in the North and delivering Stannis to the Trigon as it was obvious that they were far too strong and had won their rightful throne again.

But his men were also wrong. And the few men he had chosen from his ranks to march with through these forests did not know why he truly made this journey for.

Or the Queen he went to see.

And only when they reached an Icy tundra and they saw a wave of blue eyes staring at them did they start shifting nervously and in confusion.

'Captain?' one of his men asked as he sheathed his blade in fear seeing that the weather grew colder.

'There is dark magic ahead soldier and that red priestess informed me that Stannis is held there. I would recommend you and the rest stay here and wait for me' he stated. The Red Priestess part was a lie indeed for he had not spoken to the woman who had burned alive his crippled good-nephew. But when it came to magic these men would believe anything.

Freezing and fearful of the hordes of blue eyes that stared at them through the fog, the soldier just nodded for his commander to continue without them and await his return.