The icy cold winds swept snow around him, reducing visibility until he could barely see more than ten feet into the distance. Not that he needed to see any farther; all three of the Others were far less than ten feet away.

He twirled his obsidian tipped spear in an arc above his head, keeping them at bay. No stranger to fighting Others, he had been doing it since he was a boy of eight. So had his father and his father's father and his father before him. So had his mother and his mother's mother, and her mother before her. It's what everyone did this far north.

He plunged his spear into the first Other, and it disintegrated before his eyes. Spinning away from the others, he lowered the spear as a challenge to the remaining two, who seemed stunned to realize he had a weapon that was deadly to them. White Walkers never seemed to remember that weapons to kill them did exist.

He feinted at the White Walker on the left, before spinning again to his right and jamming his spear into the exposed flank of the second one, which melted. In some ways the Walkers were even more vulnerable than human: a human wouldn't disintegrate if the wrong metal was shoved into them.

The final White Walker was wary of him now. It watched the spear, blue eyes glowing with fear. The man relished this look in its eyes. To see a creature like an Other, confident in its ability to kill anything that moved, with the same look as a rabbit caught in a trap was as exhilarating as anything else the man had experienced.

But this time was different. This time the man wanted more from the Other. He wanted it to pay for what it had done. The man had hunted this particular Walker for days.

He tossed the spear aside and drew a smaller, obsidian dagger.

"Are you prepared to die?" he asked the Walker.

The Walker responded by swinging its sword of ice, which the man leapt back from. It swung again and this time the man parried with his dagger.

The two circled each other, each waiting for an opening. After a trio of rotations, the Walker attacked again. The man was a hair too slow to evade, and the blade of ice left a very shallow cut, almost imperceptible, on his arm.

The Other laughed as the man looked at his wrist, but the laughter was cut short when he spoke.

"I really hate it when this happens" he said. Noting the look on the Walker's face, he continued. "Yes, you lot think the slightest touch from your blade causes a mortal wound, don't you. Well, you're wrong.

"But, this does mean I'm going to have to cut short my fun. Before you die, I want you to know that their names were Cate and Alyse, and they were my family. I put my spear in the skulls of the wights that were once my wife and daughter because of you. I wish you were human, so I cut you apart slowly and send you back to the Night King in pieces. But I will have to content myself with your demise."

He darted at the Other, who raised its sword between them, but the man switched directions, and in a single smooth motion threw the obsidian dagger. The dragonglass blade buried itself in the eye of the White Walker, and it disintegrated.

The man spat on pile of ice that had once been the Other who killed his family. Then he set about gathering the things to build a fire. It was dangerous to build fires this far north. Fire was a dead giveaway to the Walkers that a human had invaded their domain. But fire was necessary if he was going to live much more than a few minutes, even though he had suffered such a minor wound to the hand.

The man considered not building the fire. Why save himself? His family was all dead. There was nothing left for him here. But something pulled on him, something as strong as the hate that had pulled the man to this place. Like a fishhook buried in his spine, something was pulling him south. Looking down at the pile of ice, the last thing that held him to this place, the man decided to answer the call. As soon as he was sure he would live through the night, the man decided he would head south.