The Winter Beast and River Beauty
Chapter Six / On the surface of a dream
"Didn't you read the tale
Where happily ever after was to kiss a frog?
Don't you know this tale
In which all I ever wanted, I'll never have
For who could ever learn to love a beast?"
The northerners start first, voices melding into one bark of disbelief. Except Lord Bolton, who merely looks curious. Ned lets the low growl in his throat warn them into silence.
"I would not leave if I was needed." A half-lie, acerbic on his tongue. He would leave regardless, but in truth he does not think one beast will decide a war. A rebellion needs honorable men to succeed, not cursed ones.
He senses another wave of resistance but Lord Tully cuts into the fray. "Would you hens shut up?" He considers Ned with trenchant eyes. "Your course is your own, but I would not have you go alone." It makes Ned want to snort, but the Lord Paramount continues. "These Kingsguard are Ser Arthur, Ser Oswell, and Lord Commander Gerold. Each is worth a dozen middling swordsmen."
The lord paramount makes no move to dissuade him; like as not he expects him to lose his mind on the battlefield. Or his younger daughter has just learned of her betrothal to the man her sister rejected. Yet, Ned accepts his request, if only because there would be another to rescue Lyanna should he fall.
Ned looks around the table. "Only those who wish to come. I go regardless."
Most northmen have a competition in them. A desire to test themselves. Will this desire overcome following their beastly lord? Ned cares not. A sword through the heart will kill him; he knows this in the way all beasts know their mortality.
When six stand, his tail sweeps in surprise—Willam Dustin, Ethan Glover, Martyn Cassel, Theo Wull, Mark Ryswell, and Howland Reed.
"Why?" he might ask, but for the weakness it would show to say it. He has not forgotten all of his father's ways. Whatever their reasons, they agree to leave at dawn. Ned remains for the rest of the council—they will make for King's Landing, a watchful eye toward Lord Tywin, who remains ensconced at Casterly Rock.
When the council breaks, Howland Reed is suddenly beside him. He first met the Lord of the Neck during a tourney at Harrenhal. Short of stature and sharp of face like most crannogmen, Lord Reed's most striking feature is his eyes. Not the bright green of the Lannisters, but a deeper, earthly color. A forelock of dark hair hangs between them, and a half-smile plays on his thin lips.
"I am hurt you came through the Neck and did not ask for my court's hospitality. As you are now, you might actually find it."
Ned's ears prick in rare amusement. There is no mockery in the crannogman, only a jest. A flash of his canines suffices for a smile. "I could not make a lady wade through your swamp."
The lady approaches his other side as the lords saunter from the chamber. Howland dips his head to her and turns to leave. Soon they are alone. Cat looks at him with sad eyes, and he dreads what might come.
"I understand, Ned."
Why do those three words both abash and hearten him? Her face is melancholy, but she speaks true. Before he can stop himself he noses her hand, a small whine on his tongue. In a rustle of burgundy skirts she sinks to her knees, but their heights are forever at odds and so he goes to his elbows and belly. More or less they are level.
When her arms encircle his neck he wants to jerk away—the only girl to embrace him like this was Lyanna.
"You will come back." she says, face buried in the side of his neck.
He wants to be anywhere and nowhere else. Not answering promises he cannot keep, but still at her side.
"I want to."
She seems to struggle for words, for once as badly as he does. But whatever she wants to say stays caught in her throat.
A week closer to Dorne, Ned knows he could have done nothing else. His companions, if one could call them such, seem of similar mind.
They travel hardest at dawn and dusk—times easiest to disappear into the fog or shadows, if king's men are on the march. So far Ned has seen crownlanders and reachmen, though Howland says Dorne is on the move, bound by their princess Elia.
Ned and Howland fulfill the scouting, Howland because it is his talent and Ned because his companions, however amiable, still put him on edge if he stays close too long. For its part, the beast is amenable. Curiosity makes it eager to see Dorne, to find new hunting grounds and new fights.
Lord Reed is the only one besides Ned who can hunt. While the other men reach for their swords at danger, Howland draws his bow. He has a second odd weapon that Ned had never heard of—a pipe, made from a thin wood or reed. Though he has never used it, he explained once that it fires small needles. Poisoned needles of course, like all his weapons. When others prodded him about his ways, he only jested that not being able to reach your enemy's neck requires other kinds of assurances.
Another of his men hangs in his mind. Ethan Glover is a young knight with raggedly-shorn russet hair, and a resolution bound in rancor. It takes several days to place him, though the boy Ned knew is no more.
"You were Brandon's squire," he says, looking up at the grim rider.
Ser Ethan's shoulders go stiff. "And his friend."
"You went with Brandon to King's Landing." Ned's eyes narrow, less curious than wary—the beast's caginess, no doubt.
"Brandon told me to run, so I ran." He smells of bitter grief and anger. "When I reached White Harbor, you had returned to Winterfell."
Returned, he said. Fled, he meant. Ned feels his own prickly temper, half for the boy's insinuation and half for his own course. His lips are doubtless curling when the knight raises a hand for peace.
"I barely believed what they said happened to you." He bites his lip, and at once seems a decade younger. "Brandon's temper took over—he forgot we were there to rescue Lyanna, not just avenge her. I have not."
The way his eyes shift away and his mouth struggles to hold a neutral expression says more. Ned knows he grew up with Lyanna. Like most boys, the squire thought himself a little bit in love with her. Lyanna carried a curse of her own. Stories might paint the face that launches a thousand ships as a treasure, but Ned sees it for the poisoned gift it is.
It did not take long for the horses calm to him, except for Willam Dustin's stallion, which looks at him less in suspicion and more in challenge.
"He's a bastard." Lord Dustin chuckles and rubs its fire-colored neck. "But I promised my lady wife I would bring him back. I think she cares more about the horse than me."
The sun grows warmer the further south they go. Snow is soft and paltry in the Reach, as if it hates to freeze their famed gardens. As they reach the Red Mountains, the cold slinks away by late morning. His companions like it, but it leaves his tongue hanging from his mouth like an idiot.
He learns more of his men as they travel the month to Dorne. Whose wife is with child, whose love gave him a dagger instead of a favor. Mark Ryswell talks to him as kin, on account of Ned's mother.
It is strange to him, not just because of his curse. The burly chieftain Theo Wull snorted at the idea of a scrap of cloth given as a woman's talisman for her man, and said his wife showed more devotion by giving him a blade.
He left for the Vale soon after his eighth name day. Was ten years so long? The land he understands, now most all after a year of smelling and hearing the countless things normal men will never know. The people are a different matter. If—he cannot think when, no matter what Cat says—his curse is ever broken, he will need to change that. But first he must return from Prince's Pass alive.
The beast readies for a melee, clicking its jaws and slavering for meat that will not just squeal in terror but fight back. Ned knows the beast is rousing when the horses start snorting; they sense rage and bloodlust better than men do. In these times he must breathe deep and picture a face, one that seems like Cat sometimes and Lyanna others. Lyanna reminds him why he is here; Cat reminds him why he must return. Diplomacy was never his strength, less so now with fur and fangs, but he would avoid a bloodbath with the Kingsguard.
They stood and watched as your brother and father died…the beast's influence, he knows. He bears them no ill-will for keeping their god-sworn and liege-sworn vows. Except sometimes he imagines Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, standing there as Dawn reflects the fires of his father's execution.
But as they enter Prince's Pass, Ned knows there will be blood.
The Tower of Joy is slender and silent, undefended but for its stone walls. They had left their horses when the path narrowed to the tower. The three Kingsguard are there, in front of a black and gaping door. Ned smells their steel long before he sees their white armor. And…blood. The smell that soaks the Seven Kingdoms to its bones.
Ser Gerold holds up a gauntleted hand as the approach. All hold their helms, all look like implacable sentinels as uncaring of right or wrong as the walls behind them. The White Bull bears his age with indifferent strength, face shadowed by the tower.
They stop—a voice in his head snarls at him to strike now, while their necks gleam bare.
"I come for my sister," Ned says.
"And we were ordered to guard her," replies Ser Gerold.
He speaks with no malice, but Ned feels his nerves sharpening, his blood simmering. The beast knows there will be a battle. Attack now! Eyes, throats, all the soft, painful parts that end a fight in moments, rest unguarded. He forces his limbs not to move. His men stand at his back, weapons in reach, silent as they await the moment he orders the attack.
"I do not want to fight you." He tries to mean this, almost does, but not quite.
"You wish to fight our king," Ser Arthur says. "There is no difference."
Difference? "I fight an injustice."
You want to end this as bloodlessly as possible, strike now! It almost undoes him. His mouth is watering, his heart hammering, his honor wavering.
"I am sorry our vows and your treason bring us here." Ser Gerold pulls on his helm, leaving not a finger's width of bare flesh on him.
That is the moment Ned realizes he has made a mistake. He has led his men here and not pushed every advantage. The beast growls in fury, hungering for the inevitable.
"And now it begins," Ser Arthur says, voice hollow within his helm as he draws his sanctified blade.
"No, now it ends." With a snarl, Ned leaps for the White Bull.
Killing a man in a battle has little in common with killing a man in a duel. A man in battle defends against a thousand deaths. A man in a fight defends against one. Ser Gerold's sword slices at Ned's skull, and the beast ducks and lunges only for his claws to slide uselessly off the gleaming white shield.
His companions charge as the Kingsguard make their stand. The beast acts faster than Ned can think. He sees flashes of Dawn's pale blade and of Ser Oswell's black bat on his helm, but all he perceives are the creaks of Ser Gerold's armor and the whistle of his longsword.
Ned's fangs can bite through bone, his nails can tear through a wooden shield, but the Kingsguard's steel gives no purchase. He cannot take him down without the sword finding his heart, but neither can the White Bull do more than parry with his shield. Until Ned lunges for his swordhand.
He will later remember that Ser Gerold took an arrow through the hand in recent years, but a scrap of buried memory sends the beast's fangs snapping at his fingers. Few men entirely lose their protectiveness of a grievous wound, even after it has healed.
Ser Gerold jerks back, overbalanced for a single moment. It allows a bear-like arm to hook around his throat and drag him back into the chest of Theo Wull. The northman grins crookedly as his dagger plunges through a slit in the White Bull's visor. His grin stays even as steel crunches behind him, and Ser Oswell kicks him to pull his sword from the chieftain's back.
Ned gathers his haunches to leap over the dying men, but Ser Oswell is already pivoting to Lord Dustin. The Barrowton lord is in mid-swing with a war axe when the shield catches his throat. Ned does not need his wolf's ears to hear the crush of a windpipe. Yet axes have minds of their own, and care not what for happens once they are whistling through the air. The swing has all of Lord Dustin's falling weight behind it. Screeching through his gorget, the blade hacks into the Kingsguard's neck.
Where are my men? Blood and grass muddle together in his vision, but the glint of armor accounts for two more dead.
Ethan Glover is on his knees before Ser Arthur, their dance taking them close to the tower wall. The Sword of the Morning has Dawn held high an instant before it swings down. Ser Ethan holds up a gauntleted hand, but all stories say Dawn treats steel like leather, and leather like silk. With hardly a sound it cuts through his palm and shears into the collarbone beneath.
Ned has only a vague notion as he hurtles toward Ser Arthur. The knight is pulling steel from bone when the beast smashes into him, driving him into the wall. His paws ram his helmet into the stone and he smells fresh blood.
He twists away, just as a scream pierces the morning. Lyanna? He knows her voice, even contorted by pain. The sound makes him glance up at the highest windows. Just as Dawn splits open his side. It takes a half-moment for the fire to ignite—Ned yowls when it does, in a red line across his ribs, soaking into his fur. The only reason he is not dead is because Ser Arthur is blind.
The Kingsguard's gleaming helmet is dented and askew, and his only choice is to wrench it off. Ned sees his purple eyes, as much of Starfall's legacy as Dawn, just before Arthur hurls the ruined helm at him.
Hardly a deathblow—he means it only to distract, as he charges the wounded beast. Ned leaps back, pain roaring as his ribcage bends. Agony is sweet poison to the beast—it fans a fire, just as it makes him witless with rage. His jaws get a hand's width from Ser Arthur's jugular when Dawn's crossguard shoves him sideways.
The Sword of the Morning, mouth bloodied, raises Dawn for its last blow, and Ned realizes it is he now backed against the tower wall.
The flitting shape moves too fast for him to see. All he knows is Ser Arthur staggers and grabs at his neck. Ned takes his chance. This time, nothing stops him from battering the knight to the ground and snapping his fangs through the man's throat.
Howland Reed stands several yards away, wide-eyed, a piece of wood in his hand. Blood trickles from his cheek. Blow-pipe—Ned remembers that strange weapon, its needles dipped in the venom of swamp snakes. Ser Arthur was a dead man before Ned finished him.
"Ned?"
Grief and relief shake in his voice: two feelings that only come together after a bloody battle. Ned is riddled with this feeling too. Five—no, eight—of the bravest men in the Seven Kingdoms, now only crowfood. The beast has no concern for comrades during a battle, but now Ned can only imagine the tears of their wives.
"I'm fine," he growls. Not a lie. The wound hurts like seven hells, but Dawn cuts true. It only sliced through fur and flesh, not muscle. "Thank you," he adds at last. Small words for the man he knows saved his life. Ser Arthur's next strike had no intention of cutting only fur and flesh.
The Sword of the Morning has no wife, only a sister—panic lances though his heart as he remembers Lyanna's cry.
The Tower of Joy has a single dark entrance. His sister waits within. Ned breathes deep, forces himself to ignore his wound, and breaks for the door. Somehow, the battle has taken him halfway around the tower.
Only a tightening in his neck, a bristling of his ruff gives him warning. He is not the first to the door. His haunches drag him to a stop and his lips snarl back over every fang.
"Hello, Lord Stark."