So sorry for the long wait for this update I was working for the last few months and now since I don't work I was looking for a new job but since I did find one and I will start to work it soon at least I will give you this chapter and hope you are going to like it and if some of you have will to help and free time to be Beta reader for me pleas I need your help so PM so we can work something out.

Vlad Tepes POV:

Unknown Time

In 3 months time, King Torrhen Stark will arrive to inspect my land, people and my castle and with him, he is bringing my Maester that he has requested from the Citadel few weeks before and who will be coming just in time to be escorted in the company of King Stark and his man-at-arms, so for me, that is a win-win situation...but the biggest problem is, I still have only the 20 guards and no servers or cooks in my castle so I am planning to ask for volunteers from my small folk and from the mountains clans that are coming to my village at least once a week to trade so I am going to ask them to take up jobs in my castle, considering they only come to trade iron ore and animal furs in exchange for flour and vegetables that my people have grown and that trade is even going extremely well, and I have enough iron ore now to start making steel armor and weapons for at least 20 or 30 more guards to equip and later even more.

So for a full months time 24 new volunteers from the village mostly young boys between 14 and 16 of age where training in the art of swordplay and archery with the few times going on guard duty with the few older guards to learn faster and hopefully better how to be a proper guards, and for my servants for the castle I have employed 18 women and two men who have shown talent in cooking, serving food and cleaning rooms, so it was not hard for them to learn how to work in my castle for a nice paycheck of 120 copper coins per week and rooms in my castle for the night when they have to sleep in, because the travel time all to way to village is pointless if they are working late at night.

The time for the arrival of King Stark and his oldest son has arrived soo fast that some times I wonder is my perception of time is fucked up, but anyhow as I was saying they arrived in a grand procession of close to 400 man and horses with even few dozens nobles from around The North who live close to Winterfell and who want to meet the new noble who has introduced the new crops which has saved many people from starvation during the short food shortage a year ago because of bad weather and ruined crops at the Eastern coast.

After all the meet and greet was all done for, we all went inside the castle and thanks to my enhanced hearing, I was able to hear all the hush talks among the nobles how my castle is magnificent and some even start to talk about offering daughters or cousins to me to tie their house and my in blood as soon as possible for I must be really good lord to manage to build all of this in only 4 years time.

The Feast started soon and was really short but really grand affair with drunk singing soon making its self knew, luckily there was no drunk brawling among the ''nobles'' who look more like drunk kids what with they're catcalling at any woman who passes them closely, with some of them even old enough to be their mother.

During that drunk show by the Nobles of the North, me and King Stark started a conversation in my solar about my future and one topic came up which made me drink the ale that we were drinking to go in the wrong pipe in my throat, marriage...and apparently he has already chosen a bride for me...a mountain nobles daughter from house Wulls who are one of the most powerful clans out of 40 something different clans, some of them have less than 1000 people among them.

And then he told me about what clan Wull is offering me to accept the marriage, even though I don't have a choice according to his Grace...they are offering the mountain clans fealty for this marriage, and according to King Stark that is because they now have more food then they know what to do with it and what they want from this marriage is to learn how to grown food just like my valley is growing enough to export excess of my food and so that they can finally start to prosper just like me.

Because according to King Stark they have found few old records in Winterfell library that clearly show that the mountain clans once upon time had a massive population, but which was cut in some places by as much as 80% because of food shortage during few bad and long winters some few centuries back, and that they never manage to recover and even had to close down the few mines they had because they needed every man hunting and gathering food unless they will starve during winter which is even worse for them because of the mountain air keeping them away from any longer travel around thair lands.

The time for the ceremony was just a few days after King Stark arrived in Helms Deep, and what a ceremony that was with thousand and thousands of mountain clan members arriving each hour with gifts and well wishes and then during the first rays of the setting sun I meet my future wife and for one second I thought I was dreaming because a dark-haired blue-eyed bombshell was now walking towards me with the face of Scarlet Johanson with around mid-twenties of age and in her face I saw lust upon her eyes seeing my face.

Thank the Old Gods the Northern don't have the fucking tradition of the Andals for the new married couples, so me and my new wife were able to finish our evening with our clothes intact and our dignity almost in similar state to our clothes because dozens of Nobles escorted us to our chamber and promised me one hell of a beating if I don't put a baby tonight in young Lissa Wull's now Lissa Tepes belly.

I don't know if this is a Northern man's tradition or because I now have few dozens of lords who now owe their fealty to me, but since I got married and have risen to the rank of High Lord of the Mountains I have received letters of congratulations from almost every house in the North and even few First Man houses from the Vale and I have fallen madly in love with my new wife who started to show a small bump in her belly after 3 months of our marriage and I must confess she is a real devil in the bed...I don't know what they teach young girls in Westeros but some things she teaches me that are not even in Kama Sutra book, and yes I did show her my book collection, but not my real home, that I will show her after few more month or maybe a year has passed.

5 years have passed, and now I have a Son! his name is Vladimir...Vladimir Tepes my firstborn son, Lissa is not pregnant for the second time, not like we are not trying to get her and as my realm is progressing magnificently we have increased the size of the town to hold the current 20 000 people, yeah that's a fast jump in population. There was an almost a 3-year long winter but thanks to me sending a large amount of food before it to my vassals there was no starvation reported from any of them.

And thanks to my vassals sending men trained for a battle they are used by me to act as my guards, so I don't have to train young boys to guard my castle and city the amount of trained man-at-arms is now close to 800 guards and climbing each day as more and more men are coming and who are looking for job as a guard so I believe I will soon have at least 1000 guards.

But unfortunately, bad news struck us all because as they say black wings bring bad news because King Stark has sent orders to assemble a great war host at Winterfell to fight against invaders from the south who if merchants from With Hourbur are to belive for, have come from East with 3 Dragons...yeah the time came for fucking Aegon Targaryen sister fucker to fuck my time of peace.

So as a loyal Vassal of House Stark I assembled half of my troops and sent messengers to my vassals to assemble their man for hard march to Winterfell as soon as possible for we all agreed beforehand to assemble our troops at Helms Deep and then using the new road from my castle to Winterfell to travel it to shorten our time.

As our Host of 5000 men arrives at Winterfell some of the men start to cheer about the upcoming battles and victories against the Targaryen host but few nobles who think like me actually knew about the futility of fighting the fire breathing flying lizards who can shrug down any arow or spear thrust at them and swords thrusts can't really harm them and what are my thoughts about all of this?, well I know that King Torrhen will bend the knee from the show that I have seen and then from reading about this time period from the books but the reality of this situation is much wors for if he chose to fight I will have to take my men to field and hope to the Old Gods that we will not lose too much of our fighting strength for the future is dark and full of terrors and as the Starks are soo fond of saying The Winter is coming.

Time Skip

The Trident Riverlands

Year 00 of Aegon's Invasion

Vlad Tepes POV:

The King's tent, some would say it must be full of chest full of gold, silk drapes, and half-naked women all around, and then you remember that this is a First men war march a King from the North best know about the boring man and boring wether so who will be just as boring during a war march will not in its right mind start dragging useless things with himself around, so in truth his tent is not that different from any other tent in the camp, with only a bed, armor stand and few chests of clothes and other trinkets, and yes a big ass table so the few more important Lords of the North could discuss about our battle plan or the lack of one because...fucking Dragons man.

King Torrhen Stark '' I will not charge into a battle we all know we can't win so cut the fucking talk and face the reality, my lords, we must surrender''

Lord Bolton ''But your Grace the North has never in 8000 years lost a war, are we to lose this one? and break our tradition about the unbreakable North and let those Andals walk all over us in any future talk about trade or peace or any political talk we could and will enter into?''

King Torrhen Stark '' yes, to save our lives and those of our families back in our castles so they don't have to burn in dragon fire like what they did to Harrenhal''

There was a subdued aye from the gathered nobles who have heard the fate about the largest castle in Westeros after they try to fight against the dragons and then they all remember the story about the field of fire and extinction of house Gardner and a collective shiver run down their spines.

King Torrhen Stark '' Now my Lords please leave me, tomorrow we shall meet with Aegon and start our talk about what the future will bring to us all''

It didn't take long for all of the nobles to start leaving for theirs part of the camp and as I was approaching the exit to join my bannerman King Stark called me back to have a drink with him.

King Torrhen Stark ''So, what are your thoughts about our upcoming surrender?''

After we finish our tankards of ale and in that time I manage to finish putting my thoughts in some kind of order I decided to give him the honest truth.

Lord Vlad Tepes '' Well considering that you will be saving thousands of life today, and who knows how many in any possible repercussion from us fighting the enemy host...I would say you are actually doing the smart decision even if your other Lords don't see it that way for the lives of my and yours subjects are more important then some misguided honor of fighting a fight we all know we are going to lose so better for all of us to surrender and try to get the best deal out of it, maybe get lower taxes or more autonomy from the Ironthrone or any possible other little thing to placate you Lord, Your Grace that is my opinion''

King Torrhen Stark '' Thank you for your council, I appreciate it and you where always mutch smarter then you let others see so I will try to do it tomorrow I will talk to Aegon and see what kind of deal he offers, maybe if we are lucky no Northerner will have to go South and become a hostage''

Lord Vlad Tepes '' Good, I will leave you now Your Grace and if nothing more you will be no matter what happens the only King I recognize, goodnight''

King Torrhen Stark '' Hahahahaha Thank you, Vlad, for everything you did for me and the North, goodnight''

Early morning, Field of the Trident, Riverlands

The Northern Host numbers around 24 000 man and around 6000 of them are cavalries on the side of the river is at least 40 000 strong host of King Aegon Targaryen with tens of thousands of horses and 3 full-grown dragons ready to unleash death at us, but instead of charging at us they as is the same with us we all are actually watching our respectable Kings talking in between our two hosts about the future of our two people.

For what seems like the whole day but in actuality was only around one and a half hours King Torrhen and King Aegon were standing and talking about matters of the Norths future and in the end we all witness King Stark going on one knee and giving away his crown and standing once again up not as a King but as a Lord Paramount of the North and even I felt some of the sadness about giving away our independence without a fight but I hope Ki...I mean Lord Stark manages to earn some goodwill with his surrender and not doom the Northerners prosperity that has started to show since me becoming a Lord into the crapper and start the trend about southerners calling the Norther Kingdom the poorest Kingdom, we can only hope for the best.

After Lord Stark has reached our lines he simply stops his horse and from on top, he looks at us all of the assembled Lords and simply with a defeated voice says to us all to gather in his tent so he can share the details of our surrender that has transpired today.

The mood in the tent was a weird affair with most of the Nobles feeling defeated some of them even angry and some of them even happy for not having to fight and die in the end for a lost cause and then our new Lord Stark started explaining to us the terms that he and King Aegon agreed upon for the North to follow them and in exchange, we give them our fealty and that of our children's children.

1. The Lord Paramount of the North has to pay a 30% tax to the crown.

2. The North must answer any and all calls to arm against any enemy of the crown.

3. The North must allow free and tax-free movement of any person working in the capacity and authority of the crown, say a tax collector who wants to make sure the North has as many people in any given town as they have reported to our Lord Paramount.

4. The Norther Lord must enact any and all laws put forth by the crown and enact them in there lands, basically, no more nobles having free authority to fuck any women who live in there lands or do what they want without any consequences.

There were many other small points of agreement as is the agreement that the North will supply 300 shiploads of wood for the building purposes of the new capital of Westeros and sent builders who will help build the new city...for free.

For a couple of days now we all stayed at the Trident preparing our supplies and allowing our man to have few drinks at night so that they don't have to feel too much defeated by our surrender and hope we can lift their spirits for the return trip even though they have won no glory or have stories about glorious battles they at least feel good about getting out of this whole thing alive and can now go back and start preparing for winter.

Short chapter and long fucking time it took me to write it because of the new job I have no time to write or play any games only to sleep and I have to go back working my 12 hours shift.