Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon.

Chapter 139 North and South
They ran for a while in the wild.

Willas had a limp, an injury he sustained when he was thrown from his horse by his opponent, Oberyn of Dorne, during his first tourney. His foot got caught in the stirrup and he was crushed by his mount when he fell, which eventually shattered one knee and left him crippled.

So he could only ride on a horse with a special saddle.

He had the finest falcons, hounds, and horses in the Seven Kingdoms, and it would be a great sorrow if he could no longer ride.

Speaking of which, after Bran became disabled, when the Northern lords gathered at Winterfell for a banquet, people looked at him with discrimination, and some even thought he was better off dead.

The Seven Kingdoms are martial, from the barren North to the rich South, people discriminate against the disabled. Even though Willas is the heir to Highgarden, some people still mock him as "Lame Willas" in private. Maybe this is also the reason why he has not yet married the daughter of a great lord of the same level.

They ran away from the guards behind them and stopped on a high hill.

From here, you can see the castle of Highgarden from afar. It is built of white marble and has three circular walls built of white stones. Inside the walls, Highgarden is like a green paradise with flowers blooming everywhere. Gardens, pools, and artificial waterfalls embellish the entire castle. Many people think that Highgarden is the most beautiful castle in all of Westeros.

Willas watched the castle from a distance, waiting for his brother, Garlan Tyrell, to come closer.

At this time, the guards were already some distance away from them and could no longer hear the conversation between the two.

"The Tyrells are going to have a queen," Willas said. "Should we be happy about that?"

Garlan said distressedly: "Grandmother is right, it is easy to ride a lion but difficult to dismount it. I am still the Earl of Brightwater City in King's Landing, but if I want to lead an army to take Brightwater City, even my father will not agree."

Willas asked, "You could have been a lord. Brightwater is a wealthy castle. Don't you complain?"

Garlan smiled and said, "Don't make fun of me. At first, it was only my grandmother who opposed it, thinking that we shouldn't get involved in Renly's fight for the throne. Later, she was the only one who insisted on writing a letter after Renly's death to persuade my father to withdraw his troops and not to form an alliance with the Lannisters, but to wait and see the outcome. You kept silent both times."

Willas smiled bitterly: "What was the point of my opposition at that time? Father, you, and the lords in the territory, everyone was blushing and in high spirits for the future prospects, and Loras was even more... I am a disabled heir. If I speak and raise objections, what prefix would Lame Willas add? Cowardly? Timid? Redwyne, Rowan, Oakheart, Tully, and the lords in Fossoway all thought it was feasible, and Florent stood by it early. I can't stop it, not even my father can stop it."

"So what now? We follow the Lannisters and fight a 'Raging Fire' like the Gardeners and the Lannisters once did?"

Willas looked at the green fields of the territory. "The more nervous the Lannisters are and the more they block intelligence, the stronger Dragonstone will be. I received intelligence from Dorne. The Dorne envoys set out from Sunspear and sailed north. Calculating the time, they are already halfway through their journey. Dorne is adjacent to the Reach, and intelligence shows that Dorne's troops have been redeployed at the main roads along the border."

"The Dornish have made their choice? Do you think Dragonstone will start in the South?"

"There are only two exits from Dorne, Highgarden and the Stormlands, and you and I both know that the Stormlands cannot stop the Dornishmen who have survived so far. Garlan, it is time to stop this folly. We are on the wrong side of this."

"How can we stop it? Margaery and Joffrey will be getting married in King's Landing soon. Father and many lords of the South are in King's Landing."

Willas said: "Father sent you back to Highgarden for a reason, otherwise you should have attended Margaery's wedding. Garlan, you can protect our Tyrell family's territory in Highgarden."

"What? What do you want to do?"

"I want to go to Dragonstone in secret. If the dragon is real, I will fight for a seat for us from the Targaryen king in the name of the heir to Highgarden. If the dragon is not a concern, Garlan, you have to defend the Reach for the Tyrells."

"You are the heir to Highgarden, Willas. This is too risky. Besides, all the lords in the land are..."

"Lords in the territory, Redwyne? Tully? Rowan? Florent?" These are the second-tier nobles in the Reach, and their submission to Tyrell is very ambiguous, especially the Florent family. To Tyrell, they are like the Boltons in the North and the Freys in the Riverlands, which is already a blatant betrayal. "Tyrell needs to set an example. We can represent the Reach, isn't that the way it should be?"

"But how do you get there secretly?"

"Yes, the spies of the Octopus Spider are everywhere. And I am a cripple, so it is easy to be exposed. But this risk is worth taking. I will declare to the public that I am studying astrology books in the castle tower, and secretly take a boat to the sea along the Mande River. I will stay in the boat the whole time and don't need to move around."

Garlan was worried: "There are many storms at sea in autumn. Without a fleet escort, the journey is very dangerous. It is faster to go to King's Landing by land, but the Lannisters patrol the port of King's Landing very strictly, unless we can cross King's Landing to Duskendale or Crow's Roost, but there are Lannister garrisons there now, which may be more dangerous."

Originally, Duskendale was recaptured and garrisoned by Randyll Tarly, but later the Tyrell army was ordered to move inland by King's Landing.

"There is a 'magician' who promised to protect me, and I chose to believe him."

"Magician?"

"Yes. Ever since he came to Oldtown after hearing the rumor, he believed that the Targaryen dragon was real. He originally planned to travel by land to King's Landing and then take the sea route to Dragonstone. But bandits attacked his caravan on the way, and he 'died'. I found him then."

"If he can't even stop the bandits, how can he guarantee your safety?" "No, Garland, you don't understand, he's 'dead'.

Leo Tyrell, do you remember that boy, the one who went to the Citadel, the son of Morin? That boy was an accompanying apprentice who survived and came to the castle for help. He claimed that he was going to see the dragon with the doctor, but now he was scared by the bandits on the road and dared not go out. I sent guards to escort him, and he dared to return to the Citadel.

I went to the scene where they were attacked and found the traces of the "magician" who faked his death and escaped. I followed the traces and found him. He was a man named Marwyn, who claimed to be a doctor of the city. He said he knew magic. "

"Is he a liar?"

"No, he's 'The Magician'."

-

Maester Aemon woke up early in the morning and called to his old steward, "Clydas, go to the Crow's Nest and see if there's any new news from the south?"

Clydas was a short, bald, small-eyed, and poorly sighted, hunchbacked man of sixty, but even so, he was responsible for taking care of Maester Aemon and the ravens at Castle Black. Samwell Tarly was originally another steward responsible for taking care of Maester Aemon.

The commander-in-chief led the rangers north. Maester Aemon was unable to accompany the patrol due to his age, so the responsibility of acting as the maester to send and receive messages with the rangers and lead the messenger raven fell on Sam.

Clydas had taken care of the old maester for many years, working hard without complaint. He immediately got up, put on his black clothes, and went to the Crow's Nest: "No, Master Aemon." He was only sixty years old and was not qualified to look old in front of Master Aemon, who was over a hundred years old.

"Ah, yes, not so fast." Maester Aemon stretched out his bony, wrinkled fingers and gently stroked his heavy collar. "And Robb Stark may not come. He may not listen to the Targaryen king. He is also a king, the king of the North and the Riverlands. He is taking all the armies south to fight the Lannisters. There are also the Ironmen in the North. Even if he goes north, he has no time to take on the responsibility of the Warden of the North. He doesn't even have a letter. Their armies are eager to attack each other. It's a pity that the only king who responds does not have a Warden of the North who can take responsibility for him."

There was an involuntary curve at the corner of his mouth as he spoke, but unfortunately Clydas's eyesight was very poor and he could not see the slightly proud smile of Master Aemon.

At the beginning, the Wall received a letter from the Targaryen Dragon King of Dragonstone, advising the domestic princes to live in peace. When Clydas read the letter to Master Aemon, both of them found it incredible and thought it was someone's prank.

But after a while, the Wall received a reply letter from Dragonstone, which stated that the Targaryens on Dragonstone did not have extra manpower to support the Wall, but could provide a batch of supplies, and the Wall needed to send people south to Dragonstone to receive them.

The reply still had the three-headed dragon mark of Targaryen, and they believed that Dragonstone was now in the hands of King Targaryen. Even Bowen Marsh, the acting commander of Castle Black, took this very seriously, of course, because Dragonstone was willing to provide a batch of supplies.

Maester Aemon really wanted to use a raven to talk to King Targaryen of Dragonstone and inquire about the situation there, but the Wall was in urgent need of various things right now, both manpower and supplies were very important, so he did not use the raven, but only stated the shortage of supplies in the letter, hoping to get help.

After that, another raven came back and forth, bringing a letter from King Targaryen ordering Robb Stark to serve as the Warden of the North, or to appoint another Warden of the North to support the Wall. Although this letter can be interpreted as a plot with ulterior motives to disrupt the North, the fact that a king is willing to turn his attention to the North has given the defenders of the Wall a lot of spiritual encouragement.

Eastwatch has a fleet of the Night's Watch, including larger ships that can cross the Narrow Sea. The fleet there is mainly used to patrol the Bay of Seals to catch smugglers who sell weapons to the wildlings.

Now that there was a mission to go south to receive supplies, of course there would be ships going there. Master Aemon had been looking forward to the people coming back to tell him about the situation on Dragonstone, although logically, they had only been on the journey for a short time and were probably just out of the Bay of Seals, still far from Widow's Watch and the Five Fingers Peninsula.

"Master Aemon, even if King Targaryen is willing to send us supplies, our shortage of troops remains the same," said Clydas. "We haven't heard from the Fist of the First Men for a long time. Could it be that Sam has lost the raven?"

The situation outside the Great Wall is not optimistic.

The last reply brought information that many villages outside the Great Wall were completely abandoned. At night, they said they could see fires in the mountains, huge flames, burning from dusk to dawn. It is said that Mance Rayder summoned all his subjects and gathered almost all the wildlings outside the Great Wall in the Frostfang. As for his purpose, only the gods in heaven know it.

Speak of the messenger crow and it will come.

The cry of a messenger crow was heard from the messenger nest.

Maester Aemon urged, "Go and see where it's coming from, Clydas."

Clydas took down the raven and looked at it carefully. The bamboo letter tube on its ankle was engraved with the source: "It's Bear Island. Great, they are close enough." He took the letter from the raven on his foot and read it to the old maester in the sunlight. The letter said something else, "'I'm sorry, we can't help the Wall's request for help. But please tell Commander Jeor Mormont that his son Jorah has brought a letter via Dorne's raven, claiming that he has been pardoned by the true king and will swear allegiance to him until death.' Oh, the commander-in-chief's exiled son was pardoned?"

Maester Aemon commented: "While this is good for Lord Commander Mormont, I say that it is beneath honor for one of the kings to pardon such a heinous crime. He should be required to wear black."

As he was speaking, another crow flew over.

Clydas took the raven closer and looked at it. "It's the raven that Sam took away. It's a letter from the commander-in-chief from the Fist of the First Men." The letter contained only a short sentence, "'We are under attack on the Fist of the First Men.'"

The letter was written by Sam in advance. The only task given to him by the commander-in-chief was to deliver the letter. For this sole task, Sam secretly wrote the content of the letter in advance and put it on the raven, otherwise it might not be delivered. When the letter was received, it meant that the Rangers' encounter with the White Walkers had already happened and ended.

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(End of this chapter)