Howling Wood

The kingswood lay south of King's Landing, separated from the city by the Blackwater Rush. Ever since the Targaryen kings made King's Landing their capital, the forest had served as the royal hunting ground.

Because of that, no one had lived there for a very long time, and no one had cut its trees. It held the richest variety of plants and animals in all Westeros. Some even said that creatures from the oldest tales, such as the children of the forest, still lived somewhere inside that vast woodland.

During the Mad King's reign, however, King's Landing's control over the kingswood weakened. Many smallfolk who could no longer survive in the city entered the forest to make a living.

The forest could not offer a comfortable life, but anyone who knew a little hunting and could recognize useful plants could survive along its edges.

More and more commoners came to live there. They were no longer only people from King's Landing, but debtors, refugees, and desperate folk from other lands as well. In the later years, more than twenty villages and small towns had taken shape throughout the kingswood, with a population reaching into the tens of thousands.

The kingswood also occupied a crucial north-south route. The Roseroad had to pass through it to reach King's Landing. Countless caravans traveled that road, and so a great number of bandits gathered in the forest. The villages and towns built illegally within the trees became perfect cover for them.

At first, those bandits operated in small groups. At most, they could rob lone merchants and small caravans. Then the Kingswood Brotherhood appeared and drew all the bandits in the kingswood together, forming a force said to number five thousand.

The Kingswood Brotherhood was not merely large. Its leaders were formidable fighters: Simon Toyne, the Smiling Knight, Wenda the White Fawn, Oswyn Longneck who survived three hangings, "Big Belly" Ben, and others. All of them could fight back and forth with men of the Kingsguard. And the Mad King's Kingsguard had been known as perhaps the strongest Kingsguard in history, with Barristan the Bold, Ser Arthur Dayne the Sword of the Morning, Ser Gerold Hightower the White Bull, and other knights counted among the best in the Seven Kingdoms.

With such strength, the Kingswood Brotherhood's ambitions were large. They completely cut the Roseroad's north-south link through the forest, set checkpoints, and collected taxes. Against caravans that refused to obey their rules, they showed no mercy. It did not matter whether the caravan belonged to some lesser lord, to House Tyrell as Warden of the South, or even to House Targaryen's royal merchants. They attacked without hesitation.

The Brotherhood's actions badly threatened King's Landing's safety and tax income. Aerys II sent men more than once to suppress them, but the results were always poor.

When large forces came to hunt them, the Brotherhood hid among the villages and towns of the kingswood, waiting until the pursuers left before emerging again.

Because the Brotherhood sold its stolen goods in the surrounding villages, the villagers gained great profit. Many of the smallfolk in those settlements had also joined the Brotherhood themselves. The two sides were tightly connected, so the people of the forest were willing to shelter them.

If only one or two thousand men came to suppress them, the Brotherhood would slaughter that force in the forest. They cut off the heads of the dead and hung them along both sides of one section of the Roseroad inside the kingswood, displaying their strength and cruelty to increase their terror. The forest around that road came to be called Howling Wood. Before the Kingswood Brotherhood was finally destroyed, more than a thousand heads had hung there.

After the Brotherhood's destruction, the heads in Howling Wood were taken down and buried. Even now, however, caravans passing along that road were said to feel a terrible air and hear the howls of those dead heads.

Perhaps out of the Mad King's particular cruelty, he built a waystation in Howling Wood and claimed it would offer passing caravans a place to rest. To make sure the waystation would be used, he even had every other resting place along that stretch of road torn down. In other words, on this part of the Roseroad within the kingswood, Howling Wood held the only station.

Most caravans still chose to rest for a night at Rattail Rock, the closest place to Howling Wood, because it was one of the rare open spaces in the kingswood. It had a broad field of view and suited a camp well.

After spending the night at Rattail Rock, a caravan could leave at dawn and pass through the unsettling place called Howling Wood in a single day.

This time, the Tyrell party was unlucky. Like other caravans, they spent the night at Rattail Rock, but the next day a light rain began. It grew heavier and lasted for several days. If they remained there any longer, they might miss the tournament in King's Landing, which could very well displease King Robert.

So Garlan had no choice but to force the party onward. Rain already slowed a marching column, and worse, when the Mad King built the waystation at Howling Wood, he had deliberately ordered the paving stones on that stretch of road torn up, turning it into an earth road.

After Robert Baratheon took the throne, he was busy with other matters and had no mind to repair roads, so the dirt road remained as it was.

In clear weather, the road could still be traveled. Once rain fell, it became a mire. Wagons struggled badly, and even men on foot would sink if they stopped too long.

By nightfall, the Tyrell party had still not passed through the muddy stretch of Howling Wood. Worse still, darkness arrived just as they reached the waystation. They had no choice but to stop there for the night. Otherwise, they would have had to make camp in the mud.

The waystation had been built only a few years earlier, but it stood deep in a cold, damp forest. No one had used or maintained it for years, and much of the timber had rotted until many rooms were unfit to live in.

Only the front hall remained passable because its foundation and walls were stone. The roof was damaged, but it was still better than the other buildings. Once the hearth was lit and the damp air inside driven back, it could barely shelter them for one night.

Only Garlan, the nobles, and their servants could avoid the rain inside the hall. Everyone else had to pitch temporary shelters outside. Even a poor tent was still better than standing watch in the rain.

Alden, now assigned to the scout party, should also have been able to rest under a tent. But one of the nobles traveling with Garlan wanted fresh game, so the men in the party with hunting backgrounds were gathered into a hunting team and sent into the nearby forest. Among all the hunters, Alden the Bear-Hunter was naturally the most famous, and so he became their leader.

"I think this is enough game," Raul said deep in the forest, lifting a fawn with an arrow through its head onto his shoulder.

After more than an hour of hunting, nearly every member of the team carried some animal. It was not enough to feed the whole party, but it would satisfy the noble lords.

Alden's own hunting skill focused mostly on setting traps, and he was not especially good at tracking game. But his senses were beyond the ordinary. With his heightened hearing, sight, and smell, he could find suitable prey even in the rain with little difficulty.

The only flaw was his archery. It was still a little lacking. On a dry day and in open ground, he might hit prey. Under these conditions, striking anything with an arrow depended too much on luck.

Fortunately, the hunting team included men skilled with bows. Otherwise, they would have needed far more time to catch enough game.

"Let us go back," Alden said, accepting Raul's suggestion.

Perhaps because the men thought warm fires waited for them in camp and that they could change out of their heavy, soaked clothes, their steps became lighter. Some even began to joke with one another.

"Stop. No one speak. Guard yourselves." After they had walked for a little more than ten minutes, Alden suddenly stopped, halted the others, and looked toward a thicket to the right.

Because the others had already seen his impressive searching ability, they stopped the moment he gave the order. Without a word, they set down their game, took up their bows, and prepared to draw.

Alden looked at the dense wood ahead with some confusion and concentrated on finding the unknown presence that had made him feel danger.

Just now, a powerful sense of threat had struck him. The hair on his body had risen because of it. He had immediately ordered the party to halt, stand guard, and search the thicket that had triggered the feeling.

After a careful search, he found nothing. Even the sense of danger faded. Just as he began to think it might have been an illusion, his extremely sharp hearing seemed to catch a faint breath from that patch of wood.

"Careful. Guard yourselves." The instant Alden sensed the faint breathing, he also saw the bushes under the trees begin to tremble. The shaking did not come from rain but from something moving through them. He warned the others at once and drew the two swords at his waist.

Then a huge, blurred black shape burst from the trees. It rushed at astonishing speed toward the hunters nearest the thicket. Before they could react, it passed between them, seized the fawn on the ground in its jaws, and charged into the forest on the other side.

Everyone was stunned. None of them had expected a black shape to erupt from the trees, and still less had they expected its target to be a dead deer.

Because of darkness and rain, even those the shape had brushed past had not seen clearly what it was. They could only make out that it was some kind of beast. Alden, however, saw it clearly. The black shape looked like an enormous panther, and the only animal in his memory with such a form was the legendary shadowcat.

Although shadowcats were mostly black, the black in their fur was not uniform. That made the coat appear striped, somewhat like a zebra's pattern.

"What was that?" Raul asked, looking toward the direction where the black shape had vanished. Fear made his voice tremble.

"A shadowcat," Alden answered truthfully.

The men drew in sharp breaths. All of them came from hunting backgrounds and knew very well what it meant to meet a hungry shadowcat in a forest at night. They were also deeply grateful that the beast had not attacked a person and had taken prey instead. After that, it should not return, and they should not have to fear another attack.

"You go back first." Alden set down the boar he had been carrying and gave the order.

The men froze. They all thought he meant to hunt the shadowcat. For a hunter, killing such a beast would be a great honor.

Among hunters in Westeros and Essos, there was also an old legend. It said that if a hunter could kill ten kinds of powerful prey, the ancient Old Gods would bless him, and in the end he would gain the strength to hunt dragons.

The lists of the ten beasts differed from place to place, but mountain bear and shadowcat appeared on all of them. So everyone unconsciously assumed that Alden wanted to complete the legendary hunting list and become a hunter capable of killing dragons.

"Are you trying to complete that legendary list?" Raul asked, curiosity overcoming fear.

Alden felt a flicker of confusion at Raul's words and quickly realized what they had misunderstood. He did not explain. He only gestured for Raul and the others to return quickly and told them to report the truth if anyone asked about him.

Seeing that, the men said no more. Raul took over as leader, lifted the game again, and before leaving, each man reminded Alden to be careful. Then they continued toward camp.

In the half month since leaving Bitterbridge, Alden had been demoted from squire to the hardest and most tiring work in the scout party. But none of the Tyrell guards, servants, noble knights, or nobles believed he had truly lost favor. They all understood that his demotion was more a trial than a fall. Before long, he would return to the position that belonged to him.

For low-ranking soldiers, this was actually a good chance to form ties with him. Once Alden became a true knight, those who had befriended him might gain some benefit. At the very least, as his friends, they would no longer be easy targets for bullying.

Because of that, quite a few guards had volunteered to join the scouts and work with Alden. Raul, who already had a good relationship with him, was one of them.

x

x

x

If you're enjoying the story so far, consider supporting me on Patreon ❤️
You'll get weekly early access to chapters, along with some exclusive content:

https://www.patreon.com/cw/auroraclairevale