The Third War of the Kraken

The Third War of the Kraken began in 327AC, when Hrothgar Ironshod and his followers invaded the North during the heart of the Winter of Wolves. There he would crown himself King of the Northern Seas, and rule from Sea Dragon Point for several years until his death.

Background
As winter struck the realm of Westeros - the hardest of its kind in living memory, and not to be matched until the Scarlet Winter of the early fourth century - many in the Iron Islands were forced to face a familiar fate; starve, or break the King's Peace.

Under the banner of Hrothgar Ironshod, a man of great strength and fame, dozens of longships and their crews left the Isles to seek their fortune. The Second War of the Kraken was still fresh on many minds, and thus few were willing to test their strength against the might of the southern kingdoms. To the North, however, they hoped they would find better targets, and so the Ironshod's host aimed their longships northward, and sailed into the teeth of winter.

The Sack of Cape Kraken
The first the the North knew of the incoming invasion was when sails appeared west of Cape Kraken. The Ironborn had skirted the Flint Cliffs and now descended upon the coast, sacking and burning all the way. House Flint at once called her banners, and let ravens fly to warn the North. The meager fleets of Flint and Dustin took then to the sea, hoping to forestall any further advances that might push into the Saltspear.

The Battle of Blazewater Bay
At the sight of seaborne resistance, the Ironshod and his crews rose at once to meet them. The Battle of Blazewater Bay was a decisive and crushing defeat for the Northmen: the superior Ironborn seamanship proving their bane and ultimate undoing.

Those ships that were not captured were sent to the bottom of the sea, with only a few managing to escape their pursuers and land to warn those yet at home.

Red Coast, Red Waters
Flint's Finger and Barrowton armed themselves and waited, expecting at any moment to see those dread sails appear on the horizon. But they never came - Hrothgar Ironshod and his fleet simply withdrew, leaving Blazewater Bay and the houses long it to lick their wounds in quiet.

Instead, the would-be conqueror led his men further north, leaving a trail of broken lives behind him in the Rills and along the Stony Shore.

By now many had heard of the chaotic invasion, and banners were called from across the wide and increasingly inhospitable North. Winter deepened, hard snows and fierce winds making coordination and rallying much more difficult. Many were loathe to leave their homes to fight axe-wielding raiders in the dead of a Northern winter - and so, for a time, Hrothgar went unchallenged, carving his way from south, upwards.

Sea Dragon's Point
Eventually the Ironshod arrived at Sea Dragon Point, and it was there that he made landfall. Taking up residence in the ruins of an ancient First Men castle, he dubbed it Hrothhall, and named himself its King. The Winter of Wolves was deep in effect, the frost and chill so fierce it seemed a foe of its own - but the Ironborn made do with furs and cloth, and great fires that burned all day and night.

King of the Northern Seas
From his new stronghold in the North, Hrothgar sent forth his men in all directions - upon longships that defied the fierce winds and sudden calms, they brought fire and sword to the lands upon the north-western coast. Even so far as the Bay of Ice, and the Mountain Clans who ruled there - all across the land did the Ironborn sails make landfall, engaging in brutal contest with the natives of the coast.

Winter has Come
For months the Ironborn lived this way, subsisting off what they could hunt and fish and steal from nearby Northmen. Their numbers grew somewhat, stragglers and adventure-seekers from the isles traveling to join their brothers in their new kingdom. As the dead of winter came and went, the Ironborn further dug in; casting up great earthworks and palisade walls, and always, always, burning their great pyres.

In 329AC, two years after their first landing, winter at last began to abate, the weather growing warmer by small degrees. Hrothgar Ironshod was not the sort of man to wait for his foes to come to him - and so no sooner than the sound of thawing wintermelt could be heard, did his army descend upon the Wolfswood, intent on driving their enemies before them.

The War in the Wolfswood
The War in the Wolfswood might have been a conflict of its own, so fraught was it with victories and defeats, daring battles and crushing blows. House Glover, House Forrester, and the people of the North, warred valiantly with their foes - waiting all the while for aid to come, as the Starks fought to rally enough men and march through the still-high snows.

After months of campaigning, the Ironborn foothold had only secured a small portion of the wood, and they were still hotly contested by Deepwood Motte to the north. Talks of besieging it were underway, when at last the Starks arrived.

The banners of the Direwolf at once changed the atmosphere in the Ironborn camp; they fought only one engagement in the Wolfswood before the invaders resolved to withdraw to safer ground. As they pulled back to the very edge of the forest however, House Stark and all her bannermen followed - engaging in a battle in the shadow of the trees that came to be known as the Ironshod's Anvil. Despite the stalwart defense of the Ironborn reavers, their lines were broken by the heavy charge of Northern infantry - in the ensuing brawl King Hrothgar himself was slain, cut down by Lord Stark's eldest son, Eddard, before the host of all his men.

The Battle for Bear Island
Whilst the Ironshod and two of his sons warred in the south, it had fallen to Sigrin Blackarm, the second son of King Hrothgar, to hold Hrothhall. The youth had been so named because of the terrible frostbite which had cost him his left hand - the same wound that had caused him to be left behind, charged with the defense of their new stronghold.

Angry and frustrated, ambitious and vain, the Blackarm took a portion of the garrison and set sail. Hungry for conquest, he led his men into the sea - and struck out at Bear Island even as Hrothgar fought his fabled - and final - battle on the edge of the Wolfswood.

Sigrin's attempted conquest of the lands of House Mormont proved a savage and bloody defeat - the Mormont resistance was fierce and instant, resulting in the deaths of nearly all the Ironborn. Sigrin himself was killed in battle by one of the Mormonts, though his body was rescued by his men.

The Hunting Wolf
With Hrothgar defeated in the Ironshod's Anvil, it fell to his eldest son - Ulric the Warlock - to lead his fledgling kingdom. Ulric at once retreated, drawing the Ironborn back towards Sea Dragon Point, and behind him the Northmen followed.

Theirs was a relentless and hungry pursuit, halted only once by the resistance of the Ironborn. All the same, they came on, growing in number as more men joined them, until at last they found themselves besieging Hrothhall.

The Fall of Nagga's Point
The last battle of the war was a tragic one for the Ironborn - half of their army only now learning of the death of their king, and the other of the death of their prince. Northmen surrounded the keep, preparing for a long and tiresome siege - but instead, under the banners of the Warlock, the Ironborn threw wide the gates and struck.

The Fall of Nagga's Point took nearly the whole of the day, so red and fierce and savage was the fighting. Prince Hrothgar the Younger was slain in a charge, when his vanguard struck the waiting ranks of the Northmen. Ulric himself was defeated much like his father had been, in a battle with a valiant Northern foeman. Despite his name, no great works of magic saved his people, who went down fighting nearly to the man. In the end, the sun set upon thousands of dead, with only the Northmen left standing -- victorious.

Thus Ever for Conquerors
With the Ironborn destroyed, the Northmen set out to dismantle their erstwhile fortress. Hrothhall was torn down, its palisades broken and its ditches filled, to serve as a reminder to all of the fate that met those who attacked the North. The ground was yet too hard to bury thousands upon thousands of Northern dead, and so the Northmen burned their own - and left the Ironborn where they had fallen. To this day, those fields outside of what was once Hrothhall are littered with the bones of the slain.

Aftermath
In terms of longevity, the Kings of the Northern Seas proved to be the most successful of the Sons of the Kraken, establishing a kingdom that lived for five years and defied the Starks for far longer than many might have expected.

As with any war, the loss of life and exorbitant costs proved damaging to many of those involved, but the largest change won by the fall of the King of the Northern Seas was the capture of nearly forty longships, who soon joined service beneath the banner of the North when Lord Stark granted them to Barrowton, Torrhen's Square, and Flint's Finger.