Hey everyone, I know I have not posted in a while, but I felt my stories lacked a lot of things, one of which was proper grammar, but after taking many writing classes and writing down many essays, and stories, I hope that I have become a much better writer. I took your criticism into account, but I felt I had to keep some of the Original.

Brandon the Builder, when he built the Wall using the Giants and the Children of the Forest, he not only did not allow those who helped make it to stay in the North to create their own houses. He also allowed the Wildlings who otherwise would have been trapped beyond it to come south of it as well, knowing full well what lay beyond the Wall and that it was not safe for any man, woman, or child, no matter how hard and challenging the environment made them. Those who came from beyond the wall would swear allegiance to House Stark and create their own houses. One. Still, before the Giants who would erect a castle near Long Lake and call it Longdale, but what shocked people the most was not the Giants, but the 200 mammoths they brought with them, the Thenns who created Greenhill hold, Giants bane (Clad borough), Dalba (Doran Hill), and Redbeard (Raebershire). These were amongst some of the many houses that became part of the North.

On top of building the Wall, and Winterfell, Brandon also made two canals, one going from the Fever River into the bite, going right through Moat Cailin, this one you had to pay a toll to get through it, there was no way for a ship, or even a row boat, to get through because there were three gates, that had to be opened, one entrance on the Western and Eastern side of the castle, and another in the middle, and on top of that there were chains that could be raised to prevent any invading force from entering from the West and East, and the mechanism that controlled it were in two places, one on each side in chain towers, then those chains went from their into Moat Cailin, but to take out the Chain you had to take out both places in order to do so, and the other canal went up the White Knife to Castle Cerwyn where there was another set of Chain towers, that ere then connected to the Chain mechanism inside Castle Cerwyn, and the same for these chains as were the ones at the Moat, it then turned in the Wolfswood exiting out into Blazewater Bay, and because of this Castle Cerwyn would grow so much that it would become a heavily fortified city, but there was no fortress at the other end, and to prevent any invading force from taking advantage of this Brandon erected a new castle, and named it after his first born Torrhen, calling it Torrhen's Square, and like Castle Cerwyn it had the chain system that was becoming apparent throughout the entire Canal system, and like its brothers on the other side of this Canal it would become so rich through trade, and tolls, that it too would grow into a very successful Fortified city, and through these Castles successes Winterfell would become the Largest City in all of the North, so large that one could spend their entire lifetime in it, and not see every nook and cranny Winterfell had to offer. These two Canals would be called the Winter Canal and the Moat Canal.

However, Brandon saw a weakness in the Canal system, for he noticed there was only one castle in the Moat Canal, so he erected two castles on the West and East coast of the Moat Canal. They like the Moat would have the gate and the chain system, these two castles, Brandon could not trust to any mere Bannerman, so he gave them to his youngest brother and son the Castle on the West coast would be called River Fortress, for it was almost as if it been built on the water. Still, in actuality, it had two sides to itself. Yet, instead of a bridge, it had locks created using the magic of the children of the Forest. The same goes for the castle on the other side, named Salt Fortress, for that part of the canal exited through the Saltspear. Then turned into the Fever River, which in turn exited out into the Bite, and the names of the future house that would call this castle's home were the Riverstarks and the Saltstarks, respectively.

But, those were not the only things he had constructed in his lifetime, for he had surveyed all of the North to try to find anything of value or worth that might give him an edge over his bitter rivals in the Westerlands, and what he saw were diamonds and gems in the mountains, and as such he sent men to mine them, and said miners built their own fortified little town, that would eventually become a fortified city, the second largest in the North, second only to Winterfell, and this town was called Diamond Head, and it would become the seat of House Silverlow, due to the massive amounts of silver and gold they got through selling the diamonds and gems they had mined throughout all of Essos, and Westeros, and on top of this he also had the constructional plans in motion for an Aqueduct that would go through the wall from the land of winter collecting snow through a mechanism that the Children of the Forest helped design and would in turn help build and said snow would then travel at a gradual declining slope to the wall where the only hole was just large enough for water to get through, but not even a child could get through it, even if they could climb the five hundred feet it would take to reach it, and because it, like the wall was built by Giants and Children of the Forest it too had magic, and the hole where it went through the wall had magic in it, so that as long as the Aqueduct and the Wall stood, nothing dead could pass through it.

Unfortunately, Brandon would not complete the Wall, Winterfell, the Canal, the Fortress, Aqueducts, and many others before his death. Still, before that happened, he had written down everything he had planned to do and build. One of these was a particular type of steel that the Children of the Forest knew how to make, which was called Crucible Steel, and to make it was a long and arduous process that required skill and determination to make.

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To do so you had to first use Iron, and Cast Iron into a Crucible, which is a Ceramic container in which metals or other materials may be melted, it was extremely easy for the Northerners to make, and they used it in almost everything, then they put direwolf bone, from already dead those that were already dead, into it, and this would give them their source of Carbon, Sand, and glass were added so as to help clean away the slag, or impurities in the metal, and to allow the carbon to be absorbed that much more, then you top the crucible and seal any cracks with clay, to prevent anymore carbon from getting into the crucible, because you already have a set amount, and you do not want more to be added, then that crucible is put into what is known as an oven, made of clay and brick, then you add charcoal until it is to the top of the oven, then when that is done, you add more clay, and bricks until you have completely sealed it at the top, but it is vented at the sides, the oven traps more heat than any other in Westeros or Essos, and while you heat it up with bellows the Children of the Forest imbue it with Magic, so that it can kill anything that is dead, even the White Walkers, and once the bellows have heated up the fire providing more oxygen, and this would help it reach 3000 degrees Fahrenheit, the crucial temperature in which the slag is melted away from the metal, and after five exhausting hours of heating they tear apart the bricks carefully, so that they may be used in the future, until they reach where the original oven is, grab the crucible, and to get the steel ingot they break the crucible, and hopefully all the slag has been absorbed by the Crucible where you have created a slag free steel, but to forge into a blade you must be extremely careful, because if you aren't, it will crack, and you will have to start the process all over again, so only the best blacksmiths loyal to house Stark are able to make it, it takes eight hours to forge the ingot into a bar, in which it then can be forged into an even longer bar, and only afterwards can you start to make it into a blade, which takes an additional eleven hours to do so, and depending on its purpose and what the Northerners did in combat which was a combination of stabbing, slashing, and cutting very similar to that of the Romans and knights, which required a point just sharp enough for said purpose, and the blade would be wider than a pure thrusting weapon, but skinnier than a pure slashing weapon. The blade's actual handle was made of Ironwood, and the crossguard was made of the same Crucible Steel, but with a direwolf carved into said steel, and the pommel was also crucible steel melted into the blade to prevent the hilt from falling off. The metal was used in all weapons and even buildings to decorate them and strengthen the battlements. Brandon also wrote all he knew about the children of the Forest, the others, the white walkers in books, and everything he wanted to do with the North, including making a standing army, and all of the things he had planned would make the North Stronger and Richer.

With the death of Brandon, the Builder, all of those loyal to him, mourned. Even his enemies mourned his death, for they knew that the North would not be as great without him and have so many building projects. And because of the many projects of the Builder, the population of the North grew, such that at this time, it did not matter if the North was so cold, but what mattered was the amount of work you could do to make money.

Torrhen Stark, his eldest son who had ambitions that would make House Stark the rulers of the North, and he knew the perfect way to do it. He was going to create a standing army, one whose allegiance was sole to House Star. Thee North and the organization of that would be legions, which would be about 6,000 men, the makeup of that is 2100 sword infantry, 1100 pikemen, 1100 spearmen, 700 cavalry, 800 artillerymen are controlling Trebuchets, Heavy Onagers, Ballista, and Scorpios, along with 200 archers, making this army would take time. He estimated that the training of it would take at least ten years to train 36,000 troops, and 6,000 would be an elite unite could the Wolf Guard, these men were the second sons of lords, bastards, farmers, anyone who was good with a weapon could be in this elite unit. Still, it took ten years to train them, and there was a 90% drop rate at that time. He hoped that it would be enough to take the rest of the Northern kings and add them into the fold one by one.

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Ten years later:

In the time spent training, the Starks have amassed an army of 36,000 men, and with them was an additional 100 mammoths and 200 giants. This army would help Torrhen take the North, and his first target was the Barrow Kings. They would be the first to enter into the fold.

There were many battles in the war against the barrow kings. Still, the most significant was the battle of Barrowtown, where Torrhen was outnumbered two to one by the opposing force, but he had chosen a narrow front that would give him an advantage with the forests behind, to the right, and left. He was up against 50,000 men, but by choosing the area he did, the enemy could only send out 36,000 men at a time, and so when the enemy moved in, Torrhen commanded, "Once they come into range, fire the artillery." When that happened, once the enemy was in range, all hell broke loose, and within 25 minutes, out of the 36,000 men sent, 16,000 were killed, but once they got close to the range of the archers, "Hold fire on the artillery, commence skirmishers fire." With that, all of the troops who were not archers threw one of the two Javelins they had, piercing anyone in their path, and those who had shields found that they had to abandon them, for the Javelins were designed that once they were used, you could do so again, and any shields were useless. However, the actual killing would be up close. Once the enemy got to the first line of the shield wall, they found that they could not break it. They were either punctured by pikes or were shot at in the eyes if they could get to the shields and face by archers. One soldier even remembers a man being shot in the eye by an arrow right in front of him. All around him, soldiers were dropping left and right either through pikes or archers, and within ten minutes of the 16,000 men, only ten were able to escape, then the next wave came, and there was an order "Rotate!" The entire Stark line moved as one, the front ranks going to the back, and the next rank moving up to take their place. Then the same thing happened all over again, and before the Barrow king knew it, the entire stark line was advancing, cutting and killing anyone in their path, but they had to be careful not to trip over the dead that had been mounting up, it was over.

The Barrow king had no choice but to surrender. He had used everything in this attack. He had nothing and only hoped that the Winter King would fight one on one, to see if he would die or live. He challenged Torrhen to a duel, and Torrhen accepted. They fought with each other, and when he struck the King's blade, he broke like a twig. He bent to his knees and said, "Please, if anyone else is to die, please have it be me. These people are innocent. With that, Torrhen replied, "Renounce your crown and proclaim me your King in the North, and only then I might spare you!" With that, the Barrow king bent the knee, giving up his crown. When Torrhen took the crown, he ordered it to be taken to Winterfell and put on a wall.

With that, Torrhen marched through Barrow kings' former lands and saw what he could do to make it even better. So he began a ten-year campaign to take the entire North. He took the Three sisters, the Neck, the Lonely Hills, Wolfswood. Still, before he could take the rest of the North, Rodrik would kill Torrhen on the battlefield. His son Rickard was proclaimed King in the North by the soldiers, but he marched to Winterfell; other lords and smallfolk could swear fealty to the new king. However, like Brandon, Torrhen had written down everything he had learned and taught his son, and so continued the Kings of Winter, and the start of the Winter Empire

It had begun, and nothing could stop it, but only time would tell if the Kings of Winter and their Direwolf companions would be able to control all threats or if Dragons would take it away, but one thing was sure the Starks were proving themselves.

Thank you, guys; please Read and Review, criticism is welcome and much appreciated, and the next chapter will be up as soon as possible, until next time Freakdogsflare out.