The moons of Peace
3rd-6th moon, 281 AC.
The chamber Hosteen Mudd had chosen for his private study was not the grandest within Oldstones—no audience hall lined with banners, no godswood dappled with moonlight—but it was high in the tower that looked east, where the light of morning kissed the stone through narrow arched windows, and where the winds whispered low through the arrow slits like ghosts in council. The air there always seemed sharp, not cold, but alert—as if it, too, had waited long to be remembered.
A slab of polished black stone dominated the center, a silent altar for a thing far older than most would guess. There, Hosteen had laid the bronze armor gifted to him by House Royce, its shape unmistakably old in its making—curved and flanged in the style worn by the First Men when they had been kings of all they saw and feared nothing but winter and gods.
He did not call it a gift lightly. Bronze it may be, but it bore runes that spoke in whispers and waited for the right hands. That Lord Yohn had marked it with the spiked crown of House Mudd in emerald inlay upon the breastplate, and not the black iron studs on bronze, bordered with rune of his own house, was a courtesy beyond coin. Most lords marked their steel as a man marks his dog—so none might mistake who owned it. This had been made not for Royce, but for Mudd, and Hosteen understood well what that meant. He had not forgotten it.
He worked in silence, as he always did when magic and memory mingled. Beside him lay half a dozen tomes, some no more than tattered sheaves of bark and hide inked with iron and ash—books lost in name but not in purpose, once thought perished in the ruin of Oldstones. Officially, they had been recovered from the crypts of the fallen Mudd kings when Hosteen took the seat for his own. Unofficially, they had sat in the vaults of the Iron Bank for a long, long time—gathered by Hosteen's ancestors, brought into this world by magic and kept in shadow until the day they would be read again. This was that day.
The runes etched into the armor were not decorative. That much was clear within the first hour. They were neither the crude scratches made by hill-clans nor the cryptic flourishes common in northern charms, but true glyphs—layered, woven, purposeful. With a practiced eye and the memories of countless forebears flickering behind his eyes, Hosteen began to unravel them.
Durability. Strength. Lightness. Preservation.
The patterns emerged slowly, like a man rising from water. The armor would resist blade and flame, hold firm beneath crushing blows, and wear less heavily on the shoulders than a proper suit should. It would not rust. It would not rot. And if worn by the right man—or woman—it would serve better than any armor short of true Valyrian steel. Not invincible. Never that. But in a world of rust and ruin, this would endure.
Yet it was the heartplate that drew his eye most.
Just below the emerald-inlaid crown, there lay a cluster of runes unlike the others—small, nested together in an elegant spiral, like a whirlpool that pulled the gaze. They did not glow. Not yet. But when Hosteen moved near, something in them stirred. A flicker of breath. A thrum beneath the skin. They were not recorded in any of the surviving texts. He recognized them all the same—not from books, but from the fading dreams of an older world.
They were expectant. Not dormant, but waiting. Waiting for him.
Blood-bound, Hosteen thought. Not keyed to a name, but to a line. These were ancient scripts of lineage—power that passed not with coin or sword, but with blood and time. He pressed his hand to them, not with incantation or sigil, but with will alone. Power flowed, not in torrents, but in steady stream—like snowmelt trickling into old riverbeds long dried.
The runes stirred. There was no burst of light, no song of power. But when he drew back his hand, he saw it: in the right angle of moonlight, just a shimmer—a pale green glow, faint as starlight on still water. The armor had awakened. And it had recognized him.
Before he withdrew his hand, he pressed the idea of two into the magic. Himself, and Alysanne. They would be the keys. No other hand, no other blood, would unlock the full strength of these runes—not unless that blood came from them.
He exhaled then, a breath he had not known he'd been holding.
It was a small thing, and yet it changed much. Armor in Westeros was forged with steel and sweat. But this had been forged with purpose. These runes had not been made for just any man. And now, they belonged to him. And maybe in the future he could find a way to mark them not only upon bronze but steel.
The bronze armor had taught him something of purpose, but it was the hammer that taught him power.
It was no ordinary weapon, not some blacksmith's forge-child hammered out for coin or glory. This was a king's hammer. Tristifer's hammer. A weapon of war and justice, raised in defence and drowned in blood, buried with the king who had carried it through a hundred battles and left it in the tombs of ruin and forgotten kings. House Vance had returned it with ceremony, a gesture layered in friendship and subtle ambition. A gift, yes—but also a test. Would the hammer sit in a hall to rust and rest, or would it be lifted once more?
Hosteen meant to answer that question.
He brought it to the same high chamber where the bronze armor had yielded its secrets. There, by firelight and moonlight alike, he studied the runes etched into its age-blackened haft and the flattened steel-grey head. The weapon was heavy, but not clumsy. Brutal, but beautiful. The runes shimmered faintly when touched with the blood of kings—or so it had been said in old tales.
Now, he would see the truth of it.
The haft was wrapped in dark leather, oiled and supple despite its age, but beneath it were lines of script, etched deep into the metal. Hosteen peeled the wrapping back with care and found what he suspected—runes, some alike to those carved into the armor, others more ancient, more primal. Strength, durability, balance: these were common enough to any relic meant for war. But there were others that stirred something older in his soul. Runes not meant for armor or shield, but for destruction. Symbols of shattering, of ruin—made not to defend a realm, but to conquer it.
One set, near the hammer's heel, pulsed when he held his breath and focused—glyphs carved so deep the bronze seemed grown around them. They thrummed when his fingers touched them, silent beneath the skin like thunder yet to break. There was power in the hammer, true power, but something stranger still—language. The runes spoke not merely in function, but in sequence, like words in a sentence, like verses in a prayer. There was meaning layered upon meaning, and Hosteen began to suspect the hammer was not merely a weapon.
It was a memory.
Not of one king, but many. Not only the faces of fallen foes or the names of battlefields long buried, but the weight of kingship itself. This was no soldier's weapon. It had been wielded by a ruler, and in doing so it had learned. What had once been force and bronze had become something else—a symbol, a promise, a threat. And now, it belonged to him.
The hammer responded to his touch as the armor had. No flames, no roaring winds. Only that faint shimmer—a green glow that danced across the runes when the light caught it just right, and the heat that lingered in his palm after the magic had passed.
It was enough.
But knowledge was not enough. Memory was not muscle. So Hosteen began to train.
At dawn and dusk, when the mist still clung to the stone and the torches burned low, he walked the winding stair to the training yard behind the great hall. The bronze armor he wore now fit like a second skin, the runes lightening its weight just enough to allow motion without sluggishness. He bore the hammer with both hands at first, then one, then both again as the days passed.
He sparred against his own men. Dulled swords met dulled instinct, and at first, he was no better than a knight's squire. His footwork was heavy, his swings overbroad. One morning, a hedge knight from House Grell had even knocked him on his back with a low sweep. He had not shouted, nor cursed—he had laughed.
By the seventh day, he was shattering shields in a single blow. The hammer sang when it struck wood or bone, and the runes glimmered faintly like fireflies before fading back to sleep. He learned its weight the way a man learns his lover's breath—where it would turn, where it would fall, when to press, and when to wait.
The guards watched him now with new eyes. They called him the Green Lord, half in jest and half in awe, for the glimmer of the runes and the way he moved with the hammer in hand. To them it was a name. To Hosteen, it was a warning. He had seen what happened to men who wore crowns in earnest. He would not rush to lift it.
The hammer rested in his grip, not buzzing now, not pulsing—but waiting. As if it knew the old blood had awakened. And the realm, whether it knew it or not, would soon remember what it meant when the kings of Oldstones took up their weapons.
With the hammer now a part of him, and the armor awakened, Hosteen Mudd turned his thoughts to matters of flesh and blood—to the men who would stand behind him, and the weapons they might wield when war came again.
For it would come. Sooner or later, it always did.
He summoned Maester Wylis on a morning when the mist still clung to the hills, the air thick with dew and distant birdsong. The maester arrived with ink-stained fingers and tired eyes, yet bowed with practiced ease.
"I will need tradesmen," Hosteen told him. "From Riverpeak. Not just smiths. Carpenters too—masters of their craft. The ironwood has arrived from the North, and I mean to see what use we might make of it."
The Stark shipment had come by way of White Harbor, down the Blue Fork, now laying in the stores of Riverpeak with a sample having been brought to Oldstones. Dozens of long, dark logs—dense and near-impervious—rested now beneath tarps in the yard near the forges, untouched save for the rain.
Wylis bowed again. "How many?"
"Three carpenters," Hosteen said, "ones who have worked hardwood—proper seasoned timber, not green heart. And two weapon-smiths. I want men who know how the North forges steel, but can temper it to our rivers."
The maester did not question the request. He merely nodded and went to write his letters.
Within a fortnight, the men had come. Hardy folk, most of them—the carpenters with bark still under their nails and voices like creaking beams; the smiths lean, soot-covered, and quiet, their faces weathered from long hours over flame.
They were taken to the yard beneath the old keep, where the ironwood logs had been laid out beneath canvas and tarps to shield them from the spring rains. Beneath the coverings, the wood gleamed near-black, harder than steel to the eye, and twice as stubborn to cut. The grain was so tight it felt like stone to the touch, and even the strongest of axes bounced from it with a dull, complaining ring.
The scent was sharp and wild—fresh-cut Northern ironwood, its resin rich with life. The Stark gift had been generous, even by the standards of kings. What lay before them was only the first tithe of what Hosteen had received—twenty-some logs, brought north by river-barge under armed guard, stored now at Oldstones for assessment. The rest—hundreds of logs—remained crated and sealed at Riverpeak, under lock, tally, and watchful eye.
Some logs were thick as oaks, others long enough to bridge a moat. One was marked with the sigil of House Flint, carved in old runes so weathered they seemed to whisper of winter still.
"Spears?" said Lemward, a master-carpenter with red-gold beard and callused hands, stooping to inspect the grain of one log. "Aye, they'll take to it. Long shafts, balanced, deadly if the tip holds. You could skewer a horse and rider both, gods be good."
"Not just spears," Hosteen replied. He stood with arms folded, clad in his bronze runemail with its faint green shimmer where the morning sun touched it. "Shields. Shafts. Banner-poles, even. Anything the wood will bear. But spears first. How many, do you think?"
The carpenters and smiths muttered together, stooping, tapping, tasting bark, counting rings, tracing grooves with practiced fingers. The work took hours. They moved in knots and pairs, trading tools and quiet curses.
By dusk, they joined Hosteen in the great hall for bread, pork, and dark ale, their faces ruddy from wind and labor.
Lemward was the first to speak. "From what you've brought up here? This—" he gestured with a crust of bread—"a hundred spears. Maybe two hundred if we use every scrap, but not a shield more."
Hosteen only smiled. "That's a tenth," he said. "A sample. The rest—ten times what you see here—is crated and stored in Riverpeak. The full gift. I mean to use all of it."
There was a long pause. Tankards were set down. Bread was forgotten. The tradesmen glanced to one another, then back to their lord.
"Well," said Lemward, scratching at his beard. "A thousand, then. If we use it all. Maybe a few more, if the wood is as good as this lot."
"If you want shields as well, Four to five hundred of both," said one of the smiths, a dark-haired woman named Talla. "Proper round shields, iron-bound with a steel boss. That's our ceiling, if you want both spear and shield for every man."
Hosteen leaned back in his high seat, thoughtful.
"Four hundred spears. Four hundred shields. And all bound with the crowned helm of House Mudd at the base of each socket, and the ironwood's weight in their hands."
He drank, then smiled faintly.
"Begin with the spears. Four hundred. For the houseguard. If there is enough for more let the rest follow after."
The smiths nodded. Plans were laid before the fire, schedules inked onto parchment, wax seals pressed. By sunrise, wagons would be on the road to Riverpeak, and forges would burn through moonless nights.
The ironwood was more than timber. It was a signal.
Alysanne was not idle during this moon of forging and thought. Though her training had never matched his in breadth, her precision with a bow was near legendary in the Raventree hills. She often stood by the training yard's edge as Hosteen brought down practice dummies with the warhammer, her black hair tied back, her dark eyes tracking each swing like a falcon watching its prey.
Sometimes she loosed arrows alongside him. When she did, her shots struck true every time. It was she who told him, after one bruising bout against a shield-bearer, "Your follow-through is too high. You strike like a hammer, not a mace. Let the weight drop through the arm."
He adjusted. She was right.
The bronze armor tailored for her remained untouched in the armory. Yet Hosteen found himself watching her more often, wondering. The runes had keyed themselves to him—and to her. One day soon, she would wear that armor, and when she did, they would ride side by side not merely as lord and lady, but as heirs of old. War-lords and ladys, if need be.
He would ask her to train beside him soon. Not yet. But soon.
The Godswood too saw change.
In a quiet ceremony one morning, as dawn spilled pale gold across the hills, Hosteen planted the first of the ironwood seedlings gifted by the Flints of the North, the other seeds too. Black roots slid into sacred soil beneath the old heart tree, pale against the dark bark. The weirwood loomed above, its face newly carved, eyes red with sap.
Only a few seedlings had taken root. But they had. That was enough.
Growth would be slow, slower than even his reign. Yet Hosteen felt something stir in the earth when he knelt beside them. They will outlive me, he thought, but they will remember me too.
So he left them there—five saplings in all, spaced in a rough half-ring around the heart tree, as if in silent worship.
And the gods, if they watched, said nothing.
But the wind rustled the leaves in a way thatfelt almost like approval.