The snow had been heavy that night. The thick white flakes had beaten brutally against his face, with the sharp stinging force that only existed north of the wall.
The wind had been worse. It had howled - no - screamed, screamed into his numb ears, bitten at his exposed flesh, blinded him in both eyes.
And the darkness had come early that night, unnaturally early. It crept down over the group slowly at first, then all at once. It bore down on them, weighed heavy on their shoulders, disconcerted them. North of the wall, darkness always brought a sense of disquiet - this darkness had been downright menacing.
But far worse than the snow, the wind and the darkness had been the cold. The chilling, numbing sort of cold that set your teeth on edge. The sort of cold you could feel deep in your bones. The sort of cold that penetrated the deepest crevice of your being, that made you forget that you had ever been warm, and that you would ever be warm again. It had hurt to breathe, every breath a knife inside his chest. His eyelashes had frozen together, he remembered. A film of icy sweat had covered his brow.
And with the cold had come the fear.
He had felt it in the pit of his stomach before he even realised what he was dreading. When the cold came, the fear had descended with it from the black sky, slow and ominous, and even the hearts of the bravest men and women has shrunk and shriveled. They all knew no sword could cut through the cold. Their bravado had disappeared with the sunlight and they were reduced to a small crowd of frightened, freezing bundles of fur. Prey. Barely even human.
He remembered the face of each and every member of the party. It wasn't hard; they had all looked the same. Grim, fearful faces crusted with ice, stealing furtive looks behind them as they fought onwards through the snow. Out here, in the battlefield where men fought ice and shadows, every man was a brother and every woman a sister. They were each others' only protection, only hope.
And so they had banded together, driven into each others' arms by the threat that was perpetually lurking behind them.