On the Way to Return to The Dreadfort Castle
POV of Domeric Bolton
450,000- 600,000. That's the amount of people that lived in the Bolton lands.
The number was disappointingly small for how large his lands were. In fact, the Bolton lands were so large that they would have easily matched the size of a small country back on Earth. And to know that only so few people lived in his lands irritated him a bit.
After all, although such a number might seem quite large, he was well aware that all the people in his lands could easily fit inside one King's Landing.
And it was a medieval city and not a modern-day one.
A modern-day city could easily hold a population of tens of millions of people in it with ease. So, no. He was not impressed by the small number of people living in his lands as a small number meant smaller revenue.
Still, perhaps not everything was as bad as he thought it out to be.
After all, the fewer people he had under him, the easier it would be for him to control them.
Or so he thought, but even he was not delusional enough to believe that all the minor lords under him would just follow him without putting any effort into putting him down.
After all, he was just a 7-year-old boy. So why would they support him when they can intimidate him and pressure him into giving them more lands, more privileges and more everything.
Which was why he had to resort to magic and some trickery.
So, once he, his aunt, and their party heard about Roose Bolton's death and started returning to Dreadfort, he snuck out of the camp on the third night.
His aunt found him missing from his tent quickly and to say that she was terrified for him would be an understatement.
She quickly sent out all the guards to search for him, not caring about her own safety in the dark woods.
They found him three hours later. Except that they didn't find him all alone.
This time he was riding a Direwolf the size of an adult horse. It was fully black in color and had blood-red eyes that would intimidate even any man.
The men lost control of their horses as soon as they found him the horses neighed and cried out in fear, trying to run away from the Direwolf before he decreased the intimidation effect of the Direwolf by a little bit so that his own men wouldn't lose their lives by getting crushed under their own horses.
The direwolf was of course nothing but a magical construct. Something that he had created by using almost all of his magic reserves and losing two different wands in the process.
It was a good thing that he always kept a dozen spare wands on himself.
He had never seen a real direwolf, so he had just taken the shape and form of a wolf and increased it by a little. And even if he got something wrong and the direwolf wasn't as accurate as the real deal, it wasn't like anyone else had seen a real direwolf either. At least not in the south of the wall.
The intimidation and fear caused by the wolf was trickier to pull off and he had to fill its whole body with runes to pull that off. Runes that were not visible due to its black fur.
He hoped that this little transfigured direwolf would be enough to intimidate the other lords and make them more compliant but if they didn't then he could always use other unsavory methods.
Being a powerful wizard with loose morals in a medieval society was awesome.
Then he met with his aunt. And despite being scared of the direwolf, she had still scolded him for leaving the camp without telling her. He felt bad for scaring her like that and decided not to do so in the future.
As for the Direwolf, he had the strange urge to name it Sirius Black. Since both the direwolf and his godfather's animagus form had a lot of things in common. But he didn't want to name a mere magical construct after his godfather, so he settled for naming it Grim.
Like Professor Trelawney and Ron called him when they saw him. One in the fortune-telling and the other one near the whomping willow.
When he returned to Dreadfort, most of the lords in his lands had already arrived to swear fealty to him even though their main motivation was to intimidate him into submission or gain something from him.
The man working under him had already received several offers of bribery from the other minor lords so that they could keep an eye on him.
Thankfully, his men were now loyal to him and gave him the name of each and every lord who tried to bribe them.
The fact that all the minor lords under him were trying to gain some semblance of control over the boy lord made his decision to take away their power in the future all the easier.
Roose Bolton was a feared person, but nobody loved him. So, when the news of his death reached the other minor lords, they were no doubt happy and ecstatic to raise the power of their own house by controlling the little lord.
They were not so happy anymore when he entered the Castle while riding on top of a Direwolf nor were they happy by the fear they felt by even being near his presence.
"I'll take your oaths of fealty in the solar one by one." He said and left on his direwolf before they could utter another word.
The minor lords under the Bolton banner quickly gave oaths of their fealty after that. But not before he used a deep legilimency on them to find out their long-term plans regarding him before obliviating them. Thankfully, none of them were particularly smart or what he would call a long-term thinker and wouldn't pose any problem to him in the future.
There was a small feast held in his honor once he had taken care of Roose Bolton's funeral. Though none of the lords really enjoyed the feast because of the constant presence of Grim standing beside him like a fierce protector put constant pressure on them, showing them just how unwelcome they were in his castle.
They left the Dreadfort with their men quickly the next day. He was sure that he'd have to keep an eye on them from time to time, but they were cowed enough for now and wouldn't try anything as long as the men in Dreadfort remained loyal to him. Which they will.
And now that he had taken care of his 'father's' funeral and had taken the oaths of fealty from the minor lords under him, it was time to go and give his own oath of fealty to the Lord Paramount and Warden of the North.
He just had to take care of a few more things before he did that.
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