Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones, The Avengers, or any of the other franchise elements contained therein.

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A Song of Marvels

Book One: The Iron Wolf

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Prologue: The Executioner

The forest was dark and cold and quiet. All was silent and still; the snow lay undisturbed on the ground. The only exception was in one area, where four men stood close together. They were swaddled in black cloaks, their breath rising into the air as wisps of steam.

Skurge, a sworn brother of the Night's Watch, looked around, glancing up at the cloud-filled sky overhead. He sighed, adjusting the sword he carried at his belt, and rolled his eyes as he glanced at the other three Rangers, who were currently arguing over what course of action they should take next.

Skurge had joined the Night's Watch as a young man, not because he was particularly noble or selfless or honorable, but because there was nothing better for him to do with his life. He wasn't of noble birth, he didn't have any lands or titles, and his future prospects anywhere else would have been equally bleak. But the one thing he was good at was fighting, and at least at the Wall he got to do that more often than he would have elsewhere. It wasn't that he enjoyed killing, but he had no qualms about it, not letting emotion or honor get in the way of doing what needed to be done. He even served as an executioner for the Watch, when it came to dealing with any captured wildlings or the occasional deserter.

However, he was also a Ranger, participating in scouting missions north of the Wall to investigate the wildlings who dwelt there. Which was why he was now here, stranded many leagues north of anything resembling civilization, with two boys and an old man as the only friendly faces for hundreds of leagues.

Not that they were behaving in a particularly friendly manner at the moment.

"We should start back," Gared, the oldest and most experienced of the party, urged. "The wildlings are dead."

Ser Waymar Royce, the leader of their little expedition, smiled faintly in amusement. "Do the dead frighten you, Gared?" he inquired.

Gared didn't react. He was past fifty; he hadn't lived that long by letting his temper rule his head. Skurge respected him for surviving this long up here, as most people weren't so lucky. "Dead is dead," he replied flatly. "We've got no business with the dead."

Royce raised an eyebrow. "And are they dead?" he asked. "What proof do we have of that?"

"Will saw them," Gared countered. "If he says they're dead, that's proof enough for me."

All eyes turned to Will, the youngest of the group. His long brown hair was tucked over his ears, helping to shield them from the biting cold. "Definitely dead," he stammered. "Cut to pieces, the lot of 'em."

"Well, what do you expect?" Royce scoffed. "They're savages. One lot steals a goat from another lot, and before you know it they're ripping each other apart."

"Not like this," Will replied, his eyes wide and fearful. "I never seen wildlings do a thing like that. I've never seen anything like that, not ever."

"How close did you get?"

"Close as any man would."

"We've got a long ride back to the Wall," Gared pointed out. "Eight days, maybe nine. Not to mention night's falling." He looked up at the sky, which was slowly darkening.

Skurge felt a sense of unease as he looked around, as twilight fell over the forest. A faint, cold breeze ruffled his dark hair, and he frowned. "I'm with them," he muttered tersely. "We should head back soon; we don't want to be caught all the way out here at night, by wildlings or anything else."

Gared nodded. "Mormont said we should track the wildlings; we did that. They're dead. They won't trouble us no more. But right now there's hard riding between us and the Wall, and I don't like this weather. If it snows, it could take us a fortnight or more to get back."

Royce nodded. "All the same, even if the wildlings are dead… when we get back, don't you think they'll ask us how they died?" He glanced to Skurge, then the other two in turn, getting a reluctant nod from each of them. "Right, then. Let's see if we can find out what happened to them, and then we can head back to the Wall. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Gared and Will muttered, somewhat resigned by this point.

Skurge nodded. "Agreed."

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After several minutes of riding, the four men reached the wildling camp where Will had seen the bodies. His report had been chilling: he'd told of men, women and children hacked to pieces, their bodies carefully arranged into an odd pattern in the snow; of heads stuck upright on sticks, of a little girl impaled on a tree branch that had pierced completely through her torso. The description had been so elaborate that Skurge had been convinced that, foolish though he was, the young ranger had been telling the truth.

Which was why he was even more surprised when, as they came up over a rise and peered down into the clearing where Will had reported the camp to be, there were no bodies. There were still the dying embers of a campfire, yes, but no wildlings anywhere to be seen, dead or alive.

"Your dead men seem to have moved camp," Royce remarked wryly as he strolled down into the clearing.

"They were here," Will breathed, his eyes wide. "Something's not right."

Skurge felt a chill run through his veins. Reflexively, he gripped the hilt of his sword tighter.

Gared glanced back to Will as he moved into the camp after Royce. "See where they went," he instructed, sending the boy back into the woods to check on the horses and make sure there weren't any wildlings waiting in ambush. Skurge waited among the trees by the edge of the clearing, while Royce and Gared carefully searched the clearing.

"Nothing," Gared muttered, scanning the ground, kicking up snow in case there was anything buried. "We should leave. I don't like the look of this place." Then he crouched down, looking more closely at one particular spot, and scooped away some snow, before standing with an object in his hand.

"What's that?" Skurge asked from the edge of the clearing. His voice was quiet, but the other three men could clearly hear him.

Gared didn't respond. Instead, he turned, holding up the object he'd found so that both Royce and Skurge could see it; a human hand, cleanly severed at the wrist, ghostly pale, but not rotten or decayed, as fresh as if it were still attached to its owner.

Skurge felt a chill that had nothing to do with the snow. What the hell? he thought, resting his hand on his sword hilt.

Royce was no longer smiling. He looked up, left, right, scanning the trees, his sword at the ready, clearly anticipating an attack.

There was the soft crack, almost inaudible, of a stick snapping underfoot. All three men turned to look at the far side of the clearing, drawing their swords.

Skurge listened closely. He heard nothing out of the ordinary: only the rustle of leaves in a cold breeze, the rush of a nearby stream, and the distant, echoing hoot of a snow owl. Then the breeze stopped entirely, and a deathly quiet fell upon the forest.

A shadow emerged from the trees. It was tall and gaunt, with unnaturally-pale skin; its hair was pure-white and seemed as brittle as ice. It wore dark, gleaming armor that seemed to shift and change color as it moved, from black to gray to white and back again.

Skurge heard the breath go out of Royce's lungs in a long hiss. He stepped back, readying his sword. "Come no farther!" the young lord warned. He swept back his cloak, freeing his arms, and held his sword in a two-handed grip, ready for battle.

The Other approached, slowly. Its eyes glowed a bright, unearthly blue, looking first at Royce, then at Gared, and finally back to Skurge at the treeline. It held a longsword lightly in one hand, but its blade was like nothing Skurge had ever seen. He had learned to appreciate the value of a proper sword in his life, but this was truly unique. No human metal had been used in its forging; it shone like glass in the moonlight, a gleaming, bone-white shard of crystal. There was a faint blue shimmer to the blade, playing around its edges. Somehow, Skurge knew that this sword was sharper and stronger than his own, far more so.

Oddly, for a moment, he actually wished that he could wield a sword like that.

Ser Waymar Royce mastered his fear, raising his sword and settling into a defensive stance. "Come on, then," he murmured, his face hard with defiance. "Dance with me." In that moment, he was no boy; his eyes burned with a fierce courage that defied his young age.

The Other stopped short. Its glowing blue eyes focused on the man who stood before it, upon his sword. And then it continued its slow, implacable advance.

As soon as it got within range, it struck, with an almost dreamlike slowness. The crystalline blade swept through the air, and Ser Waymar ducked to one side, barely avoiding the strike. He swung a retaliatory blow; his foe swayed casually out of its path, seeming to exert no real effort.

Its return strike came fast – too fast. Royce's parry was an instant too late, and the pale sword sliced through the mail beneath his arm and bit into flesh. He cried out in pain, blood leaking from the wound, and staggered away from his attacker. Gared started forward to try and help; Skurge wanted to do the same, but his legs wouldn't move.

The Other said something in a language that Skurge could not recognize. Its words were like the crackling of ice on a winter lake, not like any form of human speech, but the tone spoke volumes.

It was mocking them.

Ser Waymar Royce found his strength again, and fury flashed in his eyes. "For Robert!" he yelled, the sound echoing in the silent forest, and he leapt at his foe, his sword whirling towards its neck in a flat slash with all his weight behind it. The Other's crystalline blade flicked up to block, the motion almost casual.

When the blades met, the steel shattered. The metal froze solid, then shattered into a hundred fragments, raining to the forest floor like a shower of needles. Royce staggered, his eyes wide in shock, staring down at the hilt and shattered blade that were still in his hand.

He hesitated an instant too long. The crystalline blade rose and fell once more, in a single brutal arc that carved through air, armor, flesh and bone. Ser Waymar Royce collapsed in the snow like a puppet with its strings cut, red spraying from the fatal gash across his torso.

In the same instant, Skurge turned and ran. He could hear Gared running behind him, the two of them fleeing madly away from that clearing, away from the monster that had just cut down their commander.

He burst back over the rise, hearing the horses neighing and the sounds of their pounding hooves as they too fled. Will was still standing there; he slammed into him, grabbing the younger man by the arm. "Come on!" he shouted. "Move!"

But Will didn't move; he was staring fixedly at something among the trees, a few yards away. Skurge turned, following his gaze.

Standing motionless, in a gap between two trees, was a young girl in dark clothing. She was definitely a wildling; no one else was out here. But that wasn't the problem.

The problem was that she was dead. Absolutely, unmistakably dead. Her skin was as pale as milk, a dark stain had spread across the front of her simple clothing around a hole in the center of her stomach, and dried blood had trickled from both corners of her mouth like dark tear-tracks. Her eyes were glowing a bright, inhuman blue, the same color as the Other's. Her head tilted slightly, and she took a slow, deliberate step towards them. Then another.

A fear like nothing Skurge had ever known, a creeping, primal horror, overwhelmed him. He dropped Will's arm, turned, and bolted.

The snow crunched under his boots; his heart was pounding, his air coming in ragged breaths. He'd lost track of Will, of Gared, of everything except his own overwhelming desire to escape. The trees rustled overhead, a cold breeze echoing around him. He could see occasional flashes of movement in the shadows; a chorus of chattering screeches rose up all around him, but that only added speed to his flight.

He burst through a line of trees, into another open clearing… and skidded to a halt with a sharp gasp.

Gared lay motionless before him, the snow around his body stained red. His severed head lay several yards away. There was an expression of mingled terror and pain on the dead man's face.

That was when he heard the sound of a soft footstep, coming from directly behind him.

Hands trembling, Skurge turned slowly.

What he saw wasn't what he had been expecting. It wasn't the gaunt, pale form of the Other, or the dead, blue-eyed girl. Instead, it was a tall figure wearing a long cloak, black lined with what looked like emerald-green velvet. There were no glowing blue eyes within the shadow of the hood, and the figure didn't appear to be carrying a sword.

Skurge stared, nonplussed, at this new interloper for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure. He drew his sword again, leveling it at the figure's chest. "Don't come any closer!" he snapped, trying to conceal the terror in his voice. He tightened his grip on the hilt, keeping the sword level.

Unperturbed, the figure straightened up with a calm, fluid grace. A lithe hand reached out from the sleeve, pulling back the hood to reveal the face of a strikingly beautiful woman. Her skin was pale, her long black hair cascaded down past her shoulders, and her eyes were piercing blue-green, but without the eerie glow of the Other's eyes. She murmured something under her breath, in a language he didn't recognize, and a shock ran through his body.

Skurge swayed unsteadily, feeling a strange numbness creeping through his muscles. His sword suddenly seemed to weigh as much as a boulder; his arm sagged, and the blade dropped to his side.

The woman drifted closer to him with an almost-liquid grace. She didn't even disturb the fresh snow with her soft tread. Stopping within arm's reach of him, she gazed intently into his eyes, and her own eyes ignited with a soft emerald glow. Suddenly, she was all he could see, filling his vision; she seemed somehow overwhelming, all-encompassing, in a way that he could not comprehend. His arms went limp, and the sword slipped from his nerveless fingers.

And when she spoke again, he heard nothing else.

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A/N: Hello, everyone! So, I hadn't been planning on writing this story, but I got bitten by the inspiration bug a few days ago and I ended up planning out the whole story arc, so I figured why not give it a go? I was partially inspired by the excellent story "A Man of Iron", by Mr. Chaos; that story is based on a similar premise to this one, although this story is going to develop quite differently as it goes on.

First off, I'd like to answer a few general, fairly important questions that people may have, namely:

– What's the setting? This story will be set entirely in the Game of Thrones/ASOIAF universe, but it will include many different characters from the Marvel universe (although they will, obviously, be heavily adapted to fit in this universe). This story, The Iron Wolf, is the first "book" in a planned series, titled A Song of Marvels. The basic structure for the overall saga will be based on the TV series, with one "book" per season (so yes, there should be eight "books" by the time I'm done).

– Regarding Game of Thrones: Book or show canon? This story will be mainly based on the TV series canon, but I will be including various elements from the books to improve the narrative in whatever way I can, to make it more entertaining for the readers.

– Regarding the various Marvel elements in this story: What canon/source material are they from? The vast majority of the Marvel characters that will be featured in this story are being adapted from the various recent Marvel live-action movies and TV shows, although their characterization will, of course, be adapted to fit into this universe. Some Marvel characters will definitely be in it, while some I'm not sure about yet. A few will almost certainly not be appearing at all, such as Ant-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy, simply because those characters really don't work in the context of this story, but whatever characters I can work into this universe will likely make an appearance, with varying levels of importance for the overall plot.

– How are you planning to narrate this story? I'm planning to do it in the same style as the ASOIAF novels, with numerous POV characters; all of their individual story arcs will combine to give a complete picture of the story. Like in the books, I'm also planning to have a Prologue and an Epilogue chapter for each story, from a one-off POV character's perspective, that will either provide foreshadowing or set up future plotlines. So, if anybody's slightly confused by the contents of this chapter, that's what it is. Speaking of which, actually, if anybody can figure out who my narrator for this chapter is supposed to be, and what that means for the overall story, feel free to guess! (Hint: he's a Marvel character from an upcoming movie).

I really appreciate feedback on my writing, so if anybody has any questions or comments regarding this chapter or the story as a whole, please review and let me know what you think! (No hate, though, please; that's no fun for me or anybody else).

Next chapter, we get into the story proper, as we meet the Starks and get our first real introduction to this story's universe… stay tuned!

See you next time!