House of the wolf

After a few more days the weather settled down and I got a report that those who were marching behind us were finally approaching Winterfell.

It was not just that they were on foot that they were so far behind but they were also carrying cargo from supplies to trinkets to all the books that were in the Dreadfort.

Books, scrolls, letters I will be curious to learn what sort of knowledge and perhaps secret dealings, that house Bolton has amassed and engaged in for the last couple of decades but even more exciting for me out of morbid curiosity. Will be the old tomes of that mysterious and cruel house.

Wylla and Greatjon should also return soon with Ramsey alive or his corpse, and the Bolton soldiers as prisoners. Since I already am sending over a hundred Bolton men to the wall if I send any more I would be giving Jon more problems than help.

And I can´t just execute them all since our population is already scarce and manpower will be needed for certain things.

Many mines in the North have not been manned properly since slaves were outlawed, I might have a solution to this, we can put prisoners to work in the mines in return for money to their families or even reduced sentences.

Thousands of men of military age are one hell of a workforce, able to mine enough iron to equip a whole army with swords, spears, and armor made of iron.

There are also people from Winter Town and other places who are scattered all over because of the chaotic times coming here one by one. 

Most of them will be employed to repair Winter Town since most of the buildings can be saved and instead of rebuilding the trashed houses, I have half a mind to order them to just make big igloos to live in.

Since I don´t think this will be a short winter, the igloos should last quite a while.   

Then Winter Town will truly live up to its name.

The rest will be employed to tear down the First Keep and Broken Tower and build a new keep and tower.

I and other talented builders will be the architects of the new building. Since I am one of the most knowledgeable in Winterfell with numbers I decided it couldn´t hurt if I made the blueprints with the help of those with knowledge and experience in the field. 

They can help me in my ignorance, stop me from going ahead with plans that aren´t viable and help make things that I have not thought of viable. 

In the past, I studied basic math but was not great at it nor did I take anything seriously since I saw no future for myself in it. But in this life, I took things like geometry, algebra, and trigonometry very seriously.

Even things like celestial navigation, I bought books on astronomy and learned how to read maps of all kinds. 

I tought myself the terrain of the North, like a special operative in the past world I drilled into my head the cardinal directions based on the position of the sun, landmarks, the stars.

Somehow all that I learned stuck to my head like glue. Unlike in my past life where I would forget lessons I was taught ten years prior.

I don´t know if it is because my current body´s brain is just better than the previous one or because all that I learn now has a clear purpose and there are dire consequences for what I don´t learn. 

There are no devices to find answers for me with a snap of a finger or to tell me where to go next when I make a wrong turn. No easy fixes for everything, and even though I found it hard to adapt to in my childhood, sooner rather than later I thrived because of it.

When there are no easy answers for all that you learn, when you have no choice but to work for it and arrive at your own conclusions, your thinking becomes much more… independent.

I can´t find a better word for it, for a couple of years, I hated how much I had to relearn, things I kind of knew already but did not really know the particulars because I never had to, so with each piece of knowledge that I truly studied for the first time.

But after some time what it gave me was confidence. Confidence that I never had before, beyond the vain confidence boost of being better than another or achieving more than my peers.

It is nice when you have more than others and outdo others. But what truly gave me a greater presence was this, just knowing… more.

What to do, where to go, how to get there, how long it will take, how to build that, how to tear it down, how many it will take, and how many it will take to stop you. All of these answers are safely in my head instead of a device.

When you know the answers to these questions, the basics of it all drilled into you. No matter where you are you will feel like a king. No, a conqueror!