House Hornwood of Hornwood

The Hornwoods had already made their mark in the realm's great tournaments before the fighting began: they were among the northern lords who attended the Tourney at Harrenhal.

When Robb Stark calls his banners against the Lannisters, the Hornwoods answer like the rest of Winterfell's vassals. The house soon loses its lord, Ser Halys Hornwood, and shortly after its heir as well: Daryn Hornwood dies at Ser Jaime Lannister's hands while shielding Robb during the Battle of the Whispering Wood.

With no lord or heir left, the house's future hangs in the balance. Lady Donella, Halys's widow, is left holding the Hornwood lands, and suitors soon line up hoping to marry their way into them. Wyman Manderly puts himself forward — a widower himself, and Donella's own cousin by birth — or else offers his younger son, Wendel Manderly, currently away in the south escorting Catelyn Stark.

Other claims follow: Mors Umber proposes himself as a husband, while Leobald Tallhart, married to Halys's sister, offers his ten-year-old son Beren to be fostered and raised as heir. Rodrik Cassel suspects similar interest from the Flints, the Karstarks, and the Boltons, all tied to the Hornwoods by blood or by border. The Glovers, who foster Halys's bastard son Larence Snow, watch as Bran Stark suggests the boy be named heir — a solution Rodrik thinks would please the Glovers, and perhaps Lord Hornwood's memory, but not Lady Hornwood, since the boy is not of her blood.

At the harvest feast in Winterfell, Donella warns Bran and Rodrik about Ramsay, Bolton's bastard, who is massing troops at the Dreadfort instead of sending them south, his eyes fixed on Hornwood land. Rodrik promises swift punishment if he moves and urges her to remarry; Donella makes her preference for him plain, but he refuses, knowing his protection would only last his own lifetime and that it would put his own daughter at risk too.

On the road home, Donella and her six guards are ambushed by Ramsay's men. He forces her to marry him under threat, making her speak vows before a septon and a heart tree, consummating the marriage that same night before witnesses, and forcing her to sign a will naming him her heir.

After the wedding, Ramsay locks her in a tower and lets her starve. By the time Rodrik Cassel learns of the abduction and gathers what few troops Winterfell has left, it is too late to save her. He finds Ramsay in the woods raping and killing a peasant woman, and has him shot dead with arrows on the spot; his companion, known as Reek, is taken prisoner to Winterfell as a witness, in case Roose Bolton should ever press a claim to the Hornwood lands.

Despite Rodrik's efforts, the Hornwood woods become a battleground for Bolton and Manderly skirmishes that Winterfell has no way to stop. Later, after Theon Greyjoy seizes Winterfell, Hornwood soldiers join the forces besieging the castle under Rodrik's command; Ramsay's men approach them posing as allies and cut them down instead, leaving no survivors.

A hundred Hornwood archers who marched south with Robb Stark fight under the joint command of Helman Tallhart and Robett Glover, and are defeated at the Battle of Duskendale.

Soon after, King Tommen Baratheon legitimizes Ramsay, who takes the Bolton name and becomes Roose Bolton's official heir as Roose is named Warden of the North. By royal decree, the Hornwood lands revert to House Bolton, with Ramsay as their lord in the eyes of the Iron Throne.

Among the Bolton loyalists gathering at Barrowton are men of Hornwood. Roose Bolton demands that Wyman Manderly give up any claim to Hornwood's castle and lands, promising in return not to touch the rest of his holdings.

Roose himself brings Maester Medrick, once in the Hornwoods' service, to Winterfell to help work Luwin's ravens and try to restore messages in and out. With the castle crowded and loyalties uncertain, Lady Barbrey Dustin tells Theon Greyjoy she doubts the Hornwood men remain loyal to Bolton, or that they've forgiven what Ramsay did to his last wife, nor what they now hear in the sobbing of his newest bride, Eddard Stark's daughter.