Battle in the ice

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Battle in the ice
Conflict War of the Five Kings
Date 300 AC
Place Between the crofter's village and Winterfell
Combatants
House Baratheon of Dragonstone:
Southron Houses

Northmen Stark loyalists

Iron Throne/House Baratheon of King's Landing:

The North, led by House Bolton

Riverlands

Commanders
King Stannis I Baratheon
Ser Richard Horpe
Castellan Mors Umber
Lord Hugo Wull
Ser Godry Farring
Lord Roose Bolton
Lord Ramsay Bolton
Ser Aenys Frey
Ser Hosteen Frey
Hother Umber
Strength

5,800 men:

6,200 men:

  • ~4,000 soldiers (mainly Bolton men)[3]
  • ~1,500 Freys (~1000 spearmen, mounted archers, bowmen, freeriders, and peasants; 100 knights; 400 cavalry)[3]
  • 400 Umber greybeards (300 spearmen, 100 archers)[4]
  • 300 Manderlys (100 knights, 200 men-at-arms)[5]
  • Dustin, Tallhart, Cerwyn, Hornwood, Locke with unknown number of soldiers
Casualties
Aenys Frey


The battle in the ice is an upcoming battle between the forces of Stannis Baratheon and the forces of Ramsay Bolton. It is set to take place at the start of The Winds of Winter, the as-yet-unpublished sixth book of A Song of Ice and Fire.[6]

Prelude

At Castle Black, Stannis Baratheon secures the support of Arnolf Karstark, the castellan of Karhold, but finds himself unable to convince others to join their strength to his.[7] When Arnolf informs him that only fifty men remain at the Dreadfort, the seat of House Bolton, he considers marching on the Bolton castle. However, Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, counsels against it.[8] Unbeknownst to Stannis, Arnolf's loyalty is a pretense; In reality, he is loyal to Lord Roose Bolton, and was attempting to lure Stannis to the Dreadfort to trap him.[9]

Lord Bolton arrives in the north with a girl he claims to be Arya Stark, the youngest daughter of the late Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell. In reality, however, the girl is Jeyne Poole, the daughter of Vayon Poole, the former steward of Winterfell.[3] Roose marries the fake Arya to his bastard son, the recently legitimized Ramsay Bolton at Winterfell.[10] Their presence at Winterfell is meant to force Stannis to march on them,[9] and indeed, after following the advice of Jon Snow, thereby securing the support of the northern mountain clans, and retaking Deepwood Motte from the ironborn—resulting in the capture of Asha Greyjoy[11]—Stannis leads his army from Deepwood Motte through the wolfswood to Winterfell. Although the southron knights and lords oppose the march, the northern lords insist that Roose must be removed from Winterfell and "the Ned's" daughter rescued from Ramsay. The march on Winterfell is a hundred leagues long, and is estimated to take fifteen days. However, snows begin on the fourth day, and the harsh weather slow the army down significantly. After thirty-three days, they arrive at a crofters' village, located three days from Winterfell, but find themselves snowed in. After eleven days, Arnolf Karstark arrives with four hundred and fifty men.[12]

At Winterfell, the forces Roose Bolton has gathered—consisting of Houses Ryswell, Dustin, Frey, Cerwyn, Hornwood, Manderly, and part of House Umber—suffer from divided loyalties, infighting, and a series of mysterious murders, which cause tension in the castle between the Freys, Boltons, Manderlys, and other northern houses. At first, Theon Greyjoy is suspected to be the murderer, but that idea is quickly dismissed by Roose, who declares Theon to be too broken and weak to have carried out the deeds.[5]

At Castle Black, the red priestess Melisandre sees a grey girl on a dying horse in her flames. Bbelieving the girl to be Arya Stark, Lord Commander Jon Snow's younger half-sister, she enlists the help of Mance Rayder, the former King-beyond-the-Wall, to rescue the girl.[13] The girl eventually arrives at Castle Black, but she turns out to be Alys Karstark, who informs Jon Snow that her uncle Arnolf is plotting to betray Stannis.[14] Jon sends ravens to Deepwood Motte in an attempt to warn Stannis.[15] At Winterfell, the tensions among the army finally erupt into a brawl (in which Lord Wyman Manderly becomes injured) after Little Walder Frey is found dead. In response, Roose sends out the forces of House Frey and House Manderly, to engage Stannis into battle at the crofters' village.[16]

Theon and Jeyne—believed by Roose's host to be Arya—leap from Winterfell shortly before the Freys and Manderlys leave Winterfell, and the pair are found by Mors Umber beneath the walls of the castle. By Tycho Nestoris, a Braavosi banker searching for Stannis, they are brought to the village where Stannis and his army remain. Stannis is informed of Arnolf's planned treachery, and arrests him, his son Arthor, and his three grandsons.[17]

Battle

Because it has been snowing severely, the men on the battlefields of Winterfell cannot see anyone beneath the walls, giving Mors Umber and his green boys the chance to dig pits outside the gates. Next, they blow their horns to lure their enemies out.[17] Roose Bolton sends out the Freys from the main gates and the Manderlys from the eastern gates.[16] The Frey men fall into the snow-covered pits placed by Mors, and Ser Aenys Frey breaks his neck.[17]

Aftermath

At Castle Black, Lord Commander Jon Snow receives a letter, supposedly written by Ramsay Bolton, which claims that Stannis is dead and his army is broken. Though it is unknown if the letter's contents are true or if it was indeed written by Ramsay, it galvanizes Lord Commander Snow into breaking with tradition of the Night's Watch and forming an army of volunteers—black brothers and free folk alike—to march on Winterfell and defeat the Boltons. Jon is attacked in the mutiny at Castle Black, however.[18]

Notes

  1. Stannis had come north with no more than fifteen hundred men from the south (A Dance with Dragons, Davos III), and has five thousand men after the mountain clans, House Mormont, men once sworn to Houses Hornwood, Cerwyn, and Tallhart, and smallfolk who had fled from the ironborn join him (A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII).
  2. Arnolf Karstark had brought four hundred and fifty men with him. Upon learning of Arnolf's planned treachery, Stannis has Arnolf and his family members arrested, and his men disarmed. However, he believes the soldiers likely did not know of the plan, and as such might decide to use them in battle.
  3. It is said that Hother Umber has half of the remaining strength of House Umber with him at the side of the Boltons, while Mors Umber has the other half with him on the side of Stannis Baratheon (A Dance with Dragons, Jon VII). Hother is known to have brought four hundred men with him to the siege of Moat Cailin (A Dance with Dragons, Davos II), meaning that Mors has about four hundred men with him.

References