Day of the Blacksword

> *"It's a tragic day, Lord Commander! When the sun sets, your men will all be dead, and the south won't even call me Kingslayer!"* - Barthogan Stark, 183 AC
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The **Day of the Blacksword** refers to the rebellion of a strong part of the Night's Watch under Lord Commander Zachery Hill. Though, once Zachery Hill and his Brothers at Castle Black were defeated, the Shadow Tower and the other rebel castles fast surrendered.

## Day of the Blacksword

When Jonnel Stark met his end face down in a bowl of soup, it was to his younger brother, the third son of the late Lord Cregan Stark that the titles of Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North passed. Ever since his earliest days had Barthogan Stark been a brazen and headstrong boy, and such were not traits which had left him as the years had grown on him.

When Barthogan Stark inherited his brother’s lands and titles in 182 AC, this Stark brought with him to the winter throne both a reputation for dueling and jumping into fights whenever he could, alongside a sturdy belly made for the consumption of beer and mead. But, what the North and the wider realm did not yet know was just how far Barthogan’s appetites stretched. It was a question they would soon see answered.

Early the very next year, the first test of Lord Barthogan Stark came a-knocking. A rider from the Wall, bloodied and beat, dragging ice air into his lungs, and exhaling barely a whimper. The man’s name is not remembered, but his words were. His words were.

*“L-Lord Commander . . . Hill . . . Made ‘imself King.”*

It was enough. The histories tell us that at this time, Barthogan grew so very red in the face one thought he might well pop. Alas, he did no such thing. Instead, the Lord of Winterfell called together a hastily gathered force of men, from all Houses that sat between Winterfell and the Wall. He knew he needed no great host like the one his late lord father had raised decades ago, but he would not wait for a small number of lords to bring him his men. Barthogan marched. Within weeks, he sighted the Wall.

It was there that fresh report finally reached the Lord of Winterfell, with reports by the Northern Mountain Clans stating the Shadow Tower had so too turned for this ‘King’, while Umber scouts reported East-Watch-by-the-Sea and the other keeps to the east, for the most part, remained true to their task. But, alas, it was that Castle Black held nigh on a thousand men, and the Shadow Tower a formidable three hundred, while the other keeps across the Wall barely managed to grow past a few dozen.

Yet, even with Castle Black firmed strong by the thousand men, Barthogan had the upper hand. The castles of the Night’s Watch had long been barred from fortifying themselves on the southern side, for this precise reason, and so, even with the hastily developed defences, Barthogan and his two thousand men would not wait. Barthogan Stark was not a patient man.

In the wee hours of an early-spring morn, Barthogan attacked, a direct assault on Castle Black. At first, things appeared to be playing to his favour, but within a handful of minutes, the corpses had begun to fall, and the snows with them. Barthogan soured. He would not watch any longer. Commanding the second assault was Barthogan himself, clad in hazy grey plate and Ice within his grasp. The gates of Castle Black were not smashed open with any ease that day, but once they were swung from their hinges, the men of the North charged in, Ice carving the widest path.

By the day’s end, Barthogan Stark had slain the mighty King of the Wall and All Beyond, Ser Zachery Hill and his lieutenants alike, with their heads meeting with spikes and their corpses the dung heap. For this, and for all the turncloak Brothers of the Night’s Watch who lay dead and rotting, more than some nine tenths of the men present, Barthogan’s men bestowed upon him the name “Barth Blacksword” in a triumphant chant.

The Shadow Tower fast surrendered upon hearing of the fate of the King, binding their Commander and his lieutenants and travelling them with great haste to Castle Black where Barthogan awaited them. They too, met with death.

In place of Zachery Hill, the newly monikered Blacksword named a Morgan Karstark Lord Commander, bypassing the Brothers’ right to choose. Karstark would go on to lead the Night’s Watch for over two decades.