Outside the wind tore through camp, shuddering against the canvas walls of Jon's tent. Winter was truly upon them, and while the Vale was not nearly as buried in drifts as the North, the air cutting through the mountain passes was cruelly biting.
The cold did not bother Jon as it once might have, before the Red Woman had reborn him of fire, but he knew his men would not last much longer in these mountains. He had seen how they desperately huddled under their furs, keeping close to meager cookfires and praying for the distraction of battle.
One would think they'd had their fill of fighting.
The men he led were good men. Northern men. Men who had faced the horrors beyond the Wall, who had fought at his side against White Walkers, wights, Boltons, and Ironborn.
And to what madness do I lead them now?
It was a fool's errand.
While the Vale had never declared for any claimant to the Iron Throne, its Lord Protector had long been in service to the Lannisters. Even should Lord Baelish willingly bend the knee there would be no trusting the man. No good could come from such an alliance.
And if it should come to arms?
Jon sighed, staring at the jagged line on the map, indicating the narrow mountain path to the Eyrie.
Maester Luwin had schooled his charges well in the history of the realm. No army had ever penetrated the Bloody Gate. No hostile force had ever held the Eyrie. He was already losing men to hunger and the cold. Should they march on, their numbers would dwindle further, dashed against the rocks like a boat cut free of it's mooring.
Jon was still shaken from the aftermath of the ill-fated battle at Blazewater Bay. The Ironborn fleet was destroyed, it was true, but they were not all that was put to dragon flame.
What little control his aunt held over her 'children' had ended with one blow of that cursed dragon horn. Rhaegal fled over the water before the battle had even commenced and had not been sighted since. Meanwhile, Drogon and Viserion proved insensible to both Euron Greyjoy's bidding and Dany's commands, raging through the sky, half-mad, setting fire to all that crossed their path.
It took Dany several hours to coax them to the ground, but by then it was too late. Over 1,000 Northern spears and some 500 cavalry were lost that day, including a great many of the Dothraki who had braved crossing the Narrow Sea for their beloved khaleesi.
He would never be able to unsee that field of charred bodies in the snow, nor could he forget what they meant.
If they were to take the South, to defeat the Lannisters and reclaim the Iron Throne, they must do so without dragons at their back.
When he'd left Dany in the Neck, she'd been clear in her instructions. He was to secure the Vale's support through any means necessary. Though Jon was flattered to be entrusted with such a task, he did not look forward to what awaited him at the Bloody Gate.
Jon had never met Petyr Baelish, but he had heard enough about the man from Varys to know the former Master of Coin was to be feared as much as any foe Jon had faced.
Rumor had reached as far as the Wall of the man's dealings in the capital. Whispers of his involvement in Lord Stark's imprisonment and execution had fueled Northern tempers. Jon knew many who joined him on his march South did so in hopes of spilling Littlefinger's blood.
We'll freeze to death before we come within a league of Baelish.
Likely that was Baelish's plan. A few scores of ragged, half-starved Northmen were hardly a threat to the Eyrie's defenses. Baelish need only wait, and the Winter would do his killing for him.
The flap of Jon's tent lifted suddenly to reveal a sentry.
"There's a man from the Eyrie requesting an audience, Your Grace."
Jon raised a brow, surprised.
"See them in, lad."
Jon sighed, running a hand over his tired eyes. He had not expected to hear from the keep, trusting the coward Baelish to hide behind his rocky gates rather than meet him in the field. Whatever had lured the man from his keep did not bode well.
The tent flap rose once again. Ghost tensed at Jon's feet, his hackles raised and his teeth bared.
"Ser Lothor Brune," the sentry announced before ducking outside into the cold once more.
A knight of middling years stood in the tent's entrance.
"Prince Jon," the man gave a curt bow, his eyes drifting for a moment to the direwolf at Jon's side. "I have come to offer you terms of alliance from the seat of the Eyrie."
"Alliance?" Jon scowled. What was Littlefinger playing at? Of all the tricks Jon had anticipated he had not expected this mummer's farce. "Tell me, ser, what alliance can there be between the crown and the Vale when your Lord Baelish is proved a Lannister man? An enemy to my aunt and her claim?"
"Lord Baelish has been dead these past six months. It is his baseborn daughter who has taken his seat as Lord Protector. It is from her I have come."
Jon frowned.
"Why have I heard no report of this?"
Varys had mentioned something about his 'little birds' not surviving in the Mockingbird's nest, and as such, Jon has had little news from inside the Vale these past months. Still, he would have thought word of Petyr Baelish's demise would be something that even Jon's dwindling number of scouts and spies would have reported by now.
And what of this bastard daughter? Jon couldn't make sense of it. Why should the lords of the Vale follow the word of a woman who does not bear the name Arryn (nor any noble name at all, for that matter)? Something was not right about it, and it left Jon feeling uneasy.
"The lady did not wish to draw the interference of the capital. Not with winter come upon us," the knight explained gruffly. "She wishes to settle peaceably with you, Your Grace."
It was too good to be true. Surely this was a trap, a scheme of some sort. Any daughter of Baelish's, baseborn or otherwise, was to be treated with caution, that much was certain.
But if he could avoid battle, spare his men from more bloodshed…
Jon looked the knight in the eye, his face stern but resolved.
"Take me to her."