Chapter 4
Winterfell
A fire crackled in a bedroom’s fireplace heating the room up to ward off the North’s cold temperature, the bedroom was large, but not something extravagant. The large bed looked to be hardly slept in, the room had a cosy feel to it with the fire bathing the whole room in its warmth. The noon sun was coming through the window overlooking a desk that was covered with papers and maps showing that it had been put to use lately, two wardrobes and a bookshelf were spread around the room, a light grey banner with the snarling head of a wolf was between a wardrobe and bookshelf on the wall opposite the door and a longsword hung above the bed. The fireplace, set in the wall opposite the bed and next to the desk had candle wax dripping down from the candles on the shelf above, and in front of the fireplace were two chairs.
In one of those chairs, a man sat slumped with his right arm on the arm of the chair and his hand resting against his forehead holding up his head while he stared into the fire. The man looked to be is in his mid-thirties and was neither large nor outrageously handsome. He has a long face, dark hair and grey eyes. His closely trimmed beard was beginning to grey and his eyes had dark underlines from lack of sleep making him look older than his years.
His name was Eddard “Ned” Stark and he was the Warden of the North.
He was also the husband of Catelyn Stark and the father of Harry, Sansa and Arya Stark.
He had been sitting there for most of the nights during the past week, in his mind, there was a mountain of thoughts and emotions running madly as he gazed at the fire. The reason for his turmoil was clutched in his left hand, a simple letter. A letter that was written by his eldest daughter sending information to him about what had happened to his wife and children. 6 days ago they had left to go to the village close to Wolfswood, it had been a small trip that they had made before and normally he didn’t have any reason’s to worry.
They were accompanied by their normal contingent of eight guards.
So it had come as a shock to him that 6 nights ago when a storm had blown in quickly, he spotted Hedwig his son’s owl flying into the Hall with a letter from his daughter. The letter had been simple, telling him that they had been caught in a storm and had taken shelter in a hidden place Harry knew about.
Hearing this he hadn’t been too worried about them not being able to return immediately knowing his son knew a few of the old hidden hunting shelters that the Stark family had set up. But, as the days passed and the storm continued as well as no new notes arriving he began to worry, as much as he wanted to send men out in search of his family he didn’t want to risk the lives of his men, so as soon as the storm had let up on the 5th day he sent a small search party to the village near Wolfswood to find them.
Even with the group sent out, he was still worried when they didn’t return that night, but it was during the night that he received a raven informing him that the guards escorting his family had been ambushed and killed by bandits, that’s when he became fearful for his family.
Immediately, he despatched more search parties. Three groups were sent out following the three roads going in that direction to search for his family. The biggest problem was he didn’t know the shelter that they were waiting for the storm out in, that’s if they were hiding in one and hadn’t been captured in the first place and the letter was written under duress.
As he sat there now on the 6th day staring at the flames he couldn’t help but think about his missing family members, his wife and three children. He didn’t know what he would do without them around Winterfell. The last couple of nights he had been plagued by nightmares that have invaded his dreams, without any word from his wife and children. Visions filled with finding their frozen bodies and upon receiving the letter turned into despicable deeds of torture and rape done to his wife and daughters, their bodies used and their minds are broken before being sold into slavery. His son sharing the same fate, unless he was outright killed while he was defending his sisters and mother. Something he knew his son would do to his last breath.
