Harley Snow walked out of the council chamber, and a figure emerged from the corner like a ghost, pressing the cold blade of a longsword instantly against his neck.
He was forced to stop and slowly raised his hands. "Whoa, calm down, little Roose. Careful with that trembling hand."
Roose Bolton sneered, pressing the blade down slightly. A thin line of blood immediately welled up on Harley's neck.
Harley wisely changed his tune. "Young Master Roose, is there anything this humble servant can do for you?"
Roose Bolton was a handsome youth with neat, glossy dark-brown hair parted neatly to one side.
He had the looks of a fine young man, but unfortunately, he had inherited his father's hook nose. Despite his tender age, his demeanor carried a slightly gloomy air.
"I won't let a lowly bastard like you steal the spotlight!"
He paused, sneering, "And Father would never listen to a word you say."
The corners of Harley's mouth twitched upward. He bent down slightly, leaning close to Roose's ear, completely ignoring the blood streaming from his freshly cut neck. This forced Roose to pull his blade away; unless he truly hardened his heart to kill Harley, he had no choice but to put some distance between them.
This made him look somewhat like he was just putting on a brave face...
Harley tightly pressed down on the young man's shoulders, whispering into his ear, "You know, how do hunters usually describe wolves and dogs?" His deliberately lowered voice hissed like a venomous snake.
"No matter how fiercely a dog barks, it poses little real threat to humans."
"The wolves that silently tear out your throat in the dead of night and drink your blood—that is true terror."
"Little Roose, which of the two do you think is truly frightening?"
How dare he compare him to a dog...
Furious to the extreme, Roose Bolton shoved off Harley's restraining grip with all his might, raised his sword to strike, and shouted, "I'll kill you, you worthless scum..."
The squire-knights and servants around them hurriedly blocked the young master's sword, a group of them clinging to him like tree-monkeys to hold him back and persuade him to calm down.
Laughing heartily, Harley Snow strode away, not forgetting to fling back a parting remark: "I'm so scared!"
By the time he was completely out of sight, Roose Bolton's furious, distorted face instantly returned to a blank expression, and his attendants hurriedly released their grip.
Roose Bolton raised his sword, slowly wiped the blade clean on an attendant's garment, and slid it back into its scabbard. He said coldly, "Have someone keep an eye on him. Find out what's going on."
The hundred-man brawl was also known as the hundred-man hunt, with an official name: the North Family Hunting Season.
It was also dismissively nicknamed "the barbarian circus" by certain nobles in the southern continent of Westeros.
It sounded amusing, but it was exceptionally fierce.
It was said that once, a southern noble had dispatched a whole troop of house knights to participate. Not only did they fail to win, but the knights' horses and swords were stolen. Even the boots on their feet and the shiny, bright armor on their bodies were almost stripped clean.
Though no knights lost their lives, the nobles lost every shred of dignity and slunk home in disgrace.
This showed the danger of the activity in every sense of the word—though it was quite possible it was a deliberate lesson taught to the southerners by the Northmen.
Living in a harsh environment, Northmen were tenacious, straightforward by nature, and possessed blood coursing with violent genes. The hundred-man hunt was a competitive event where the various northern houses honed their strength, vented their violence, and hunted wild game all at once.
Unlike the knightly tournaments favored by southerners, the hundred-man hunt had no rules, no limits on life or death, and not a shred of chivalry.
Every hundred-man hunt resulted in heavy casualties. People went from competing for prey to slaughtering one another; from fighting on horseback with wooden lances to biting with teeth and gouging eyes with fingernails...
If two houses happened to bear a grudge, running into each other in the hunting grounds meant they would fight until their very brains spilled out.
With hundreds of elites from various northern families mixed in a free-for-all, only a single house would emerge victorious in the end.
Historically, House Stark usually won the most, while House Bolton had won a few times on occasion.
In recent years, through the intervention of House Stark, the hundred-man hunt had gradually shifted toward a direction of friendly sparring and strengthening power, no longer descending into scenes of reckless, blood-soaked carnage.
Presumably, the original intention of the Stark ancestors in founding the event was to conduct a massive hunt to survive the bitter winter. It was anyone's guess why it later evolved into what it became.
Ghost blinked her big, expressive eyes and asked with an innocent and cute tone, "Aunt Mesa, isn't the hundred-man hunt very lively? Will we get to see people from House Stark?"
Mesa tossed two more logs into the brazier and tucked the blanket around Ghost's feet, wrapping her up warmly. "Of course. The lords and ladies of every family in the North will come."
"Then, which lords and ladies from House Stark will be coming?"
Speaking rather quickly and with trembling excitement, Mesa rattled them off like family treasures: "Lord Rickard, the head of the house, will definitely be there, along with the handsome young Master Brandon, young Master Ned, and little Master Benjen!"
"Oh, and the fierce and beautiful Lady Lyanna. Ah—"
Mesa's eyes grew hazy, her fists clenched tightly, and she sighed in starry-eyed yearning, "Lady Lyanna Stark is simply as dazzling as the stars in the sky."
Ghost: ...
What is going on here, Auntie? This stans-club lingo you're using gives me such a rush of familiarity... Are all the Starks household superstars?
Yet... thinking about it, it was entirely understandable.
To the people of the North, House Stark was not merely a leader; they were the backbone and guardian deity of the North.
For thousands of years, House Stark had led the people through natural disasters and away from the flames of war countless times... they even backed the men of the Black Guard in holding the Wall, providing all the manpower and resources they needed.
From her aunt's words, Ghost also confirmed the timeline of Ice and Fire she currently inhabited.
There was plenty of time, plenty of time for her to figure out a way to step in and save her most beloved Dragon-Wolf pairing.
First, the current head of House Stark was Rickard, and the heir was Brandon. Neither of them had yet been turned into shish kebabs by the Mad King.
Major events that would alter the course of the world—such as the Last Spring, the rebellion launched by the Falcon-Stag-Trout alliance, and so on—had not yet occurred.
Ah, speaking of which, I wonder where Littlefinger is. I'd love to meet him...
Ghost was quite familiar with the plots surrounding the second-generation characters in the Game of Thrones show, but this era clearly belonged to the grandparent generation...
People like Robb, the Three-Eyed Raven, Daenerys, and so on... weren't even a single cell right now...
Once she met Lyanna and confirmed her age, she would probably have a rough idea of how many years remained before all these major events unfolded.
Sigh, she had better worry about the immediate hurdle in front of her.
How about going to the hundred-man hunt to run a small business?
Ghost couldn't help thinking of modern sports meets—if this was the grandest event in the North, could she set up a stall selling melon seeds, peanuts, and bottled water...
Bah, she meant street food, drinks, popcorn, and other must-have snacks.
Did the North have melon seeds...? Making popcorn wasn't too difficult, but if she needed large quantities, she'd need one of those old-fashioned rotary furnaces that went "bang" and popped a whole burlap sack at once, right?
Lying awake with her eyes open, Ghost's mind wandered as she racked her brains to ensure she wouldn't starve and die prematurely.
The more her brain worked, the sleepier she got, and before she knew it, she drifted off...
In the middle of the night, Ghost's furry ears twitched slightly. She seemed to hear some sort of movement... and a faint, foul, gamey stench drifted into the tip of her nose.
The little sheep grew restless, letting out anxious bleats.
Ghost quietly climbed to her feet, tracing the source of the drifting odor as she crept forward without a sound.
A few hundred yards away from the pasture, Ghost discovered her target—a black wolf hiding in a wasteland burrow, drooling toward the direction of the sheepfold.
The black wolf spotted Ghost as well and slowly emerged from its hiding spot.
The two wolves stared at each other in silence. The black wolf seemed somewhat agitated. It continuously clawed at the ground with its front paws, letting out a low, threatening growl.
Ghost was much larger than her opponent, but she was all show and no substance. If a fight broke out, she figured she might not be a match for this lone wolf.
Still, she refused to back down in spirit. She lowered her body slightly and emitted a low growl of her own.
This black wolf had not a single speck of other-colored fur on its body; it was as pitch-black as coal. But its coat was dirty and ragged, with bald patches here and there. Its build was also much smaller than Ghost's.
It looked like a lone wolf that had lost a fight and been driven out of its pack...
The lone wolf's nose twitched, and seeming to catch a scent, it stepped back a few paces. It tilted its head slightly and stared motionlessly at Ghost...
Huh, how cute... It looks just like a good doggie!
Is it trying to make friends with me?!