A loud slamming of a cup against the wooden table snapped Sansa back to reality. She couldn’t have been more right when she thought sleep would be a comfort she no longer could afford. Each night felt longer than the previous, turning the hours of the night into days.
The last groups of refugees were arriving from Karhold, overcrowding Winterfell like the Queen feared. Tents were being laid out in front of the gates for the younger crowd and all those who could endure the coldness of the North. While the pregnant women, children and their mothers were accommodated inside the gates, filling the very last capacities Winterfell had to offer. No different from the shortage of heated rooms and comfortable warm beds, the food supplies were running low as well, which was the main concern discussed on these council meetings.
Once again, the wildlings outsmarted their enemies and this time, it cost the northern people gravely. With all of Sansa’s armies surrounding the walls of The Dreadfort, all the wildlings had to do was pick their next target. And so they did. White Harbor. The main supplier of food, weapons, gold for the whole North. Whenever a ship carried valuable supplies, it would release it’s anchors and dock on this very harbor.
Using the ignorance of their enemies in their advantage, the Free Folk sent their own wargs to scout out their former target. The Dreadfort. Little to the Queen’s knowledge, Bran was not the only one capable of flying amidst the clouds and spreading his wide black wings into the skies. Her armies were already on the enemies radar before they even reached the castle. However, the wildlings knew Sansa might have her brother’s abilities to help her win this war. Aiming to trick Bran into thinking their target hasn’t changed, they sent a hundred of them as a decoy, dispersing into the woods, disabling him to count their numbers. These were now trapped inside the walls of the Dreadfort with the northern armies surrounding them. As for the rest of the thousands of them… they were enjoying all the fresh supplies arriving from the South and East and unloading on the docks of White Harbor, including those for Winterfell.
Her advisers all had their own opinions and would-be solutions, none of which the Queen found useful. Most spoke only in the interest of their own lands and not the whole northern Kingdom. Some suggested the time to attack was now, meeting their enemies in White Harbor before they moved onto destroying more villages or cities, others claimed a trade was in their best interest. Tormund for White Harbor. The Queen listened to all of them patiently as all queens should, in hopes one would strike her interest. None did. Sansa learnt enough about her enemies in the past few months to know that they valued the life of one of their own far less than White Harbor. Or that they wouldn’t leave the most valuable city of the whole North just to destroy more villages. Or that if they were to meet the wildlings on the open field, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
With the wildlings abandoning Karhold to move onto their more alluring target, the city was left for the taking. Not long passed before the North took it back and made it their new main harbor. Which meant all the ships loaded with supplies would dock here and not in White Harbor. However, it took great amounts of gold to persuade the captains to sail their ships that far up North, adding more days to their previous routine routes.
Nothing about Sansa’s situation was simple, her own people were against her. Relying on her brother or Tyrion was a mistake that cost her gravely. From now on, she would make her own decisions, her own mistakes. At least be disliked for something she was guilty of.
When she was finally determined what her next move would be, the Queen disappeared into the darkness of the cold hallway, where in the last cell, awaited her very last shred of hope.
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