Deep in the Land of Always Winter, blue eyes narrowed and frozen lips curved upward in triumph.
Yes...
Up in the Dreadfort, Roose Bolton stared out the window of his solar in the direction of Winterfell with his hands clasped behind his back. This was a gamble, a very dangerous gamble. One with very high stakes. The Bastard's Boys, as they were called, may have been loyal to Ramsay, but they were loyal to him first and only him. The only one who was not had been that Miranda girl. She was as much a mad dog as Ramsay. Even more-so now, since his bastard died. It was only after a very thorough leeching that Roose began to see how the girl could be useful. A replacement, if you will, for his vicious bastard. The girl was stricken with grief and thirsty for revenge when he had summoned her and laid out the terms of his offer. Roose wanted to exact vengeance on whoever killed Ramsay more than Miranda did. Bastard or no, Ramsay had been his blood, and an extension of himself and House Bolton. Coldhands, the title they'd given to his killer, was still at large and they needed more information. Roose told her that if Miranda agreed to work for him, they would both get the revenge they craved.
Her first commands were to ride to Weeping Water and interrogate the smallfolk for any and all information on Coldhands. Results were mixed and varied. The smallfolk thought him some vengeful spirit with powers over ice and cold sent to punish the wicked. Miranda did him one better and brought the girl Coldhands rescued before him. The girl told him everything that happened the day Coldhands killed Ramsay with little coercion, and her story matched the other eye-witness accounts. He had the girl sent back to Weeping Water, but ordered Miranda to slip her a slow working poison before they arrived. An idea was a powerful thing. The actions of Coldhands could be seen by hotheaded fools as a way to spark rebellion while the girl could be used as a symbol for rabble-rousers to gather around. Roose would not take that chance. A peaceful land, a quiet people; that was his motto.
Roose eventually discovered Miranda's plan to hunt down Eddard Stark's bastard, as the girl fully believed the boy to be Coldhands. Oddly enough, after some quiet investigation, he had found that there was a kernel of truth to that statement. The Bastard of Winterfell had vanished into the night almost a year ago after a strange occurrence of events. The details were few and far between, but what he'd gathered was the boy had nearly been killed by some unseen force. Ghost knives, the rumors said. When the boy recovered, he had gone wayward and strange, then one night, he disappeared. Lord Stark had been hunting for his lost bastard ever since. What's more is that Stark had been trying to keep the whole thing quiet and was ignoring the questions and concerns of his neighboring vassals about his actions. All of the unrest happening in the west could prove advantageous if things continued.
Then came the arrival of the Red Priests and things...changed. They arrived on a boat from Volantis of all places and were ferried up Weeping Water. Then they requested an audience with him, claiming they had information on Coldhands. Curious, he granted them an audience and listened to what they had to say.
The five men claimed to be of the Fiery Hand, sent by the high priest Benerro of the Red Temple of Volantis. When asked what they were doing here, they explained that their god had sent many of his followers visions of a great darkness that had come into the world; an imbalance in life itself. One of the Cold Children of the Great Other, they called it. They spoke more visions; visions of a castle ruled by wolves being a foothold for the Great Other, and how a flayed man and a pack of wild dogs would be their downfall. At any other time, Roose would have had them flayed alive for wasting his time with such nonsense, but then, everything changed when he saw what was in the flames.
He had merely glanced towards his hearth. The fire had been freshly stoked and was warming the whole room, but Roose...saw something within the orange flames; himself, and he was wearing a crown.
Not just any crown; the crown of the Red Kings of old, and it was on his head.
He had seen much more in those crackling flames. He saw direwolf banners burning, Eddard Stark and all of his family's heads on spikes and their bodies flayed. He saw himself wielding the sword Ice! He was Warden of the North, no, King in the North, ruling from the seat of Winterfell itself! He saw a generations of Bolton Kings forging a dynasty that would last over a thousand years! Then, the beautiful sight was snatched away when it appeared. A blue-eyed shadow that stared at him from the dark. Roose saw the dead rising from the grave, the Dreadfort partially destroyed and frozen under thick layers of ice, and the flayed man of house Bolton lost forever; buried deep in the snow. Two paths for him and his House, one was eternal glory, the other death and destruction, and all of that was balanced on a knife's edge; a single course of action that was portrayed in crystal clarity to him in another vision.
A flayed man unleashing a pack of twenty dogs upon Winterfell, taking and burning it with five candles lit with red fire.
Roose was a northman and followed the Old Gods, but this...this was something solid and real in a way no amount of time spent praying in the godswood compared to! There was no mummery, no tricks. Only what was, without a doubt, pure magic! The warriors of the Fiery Hand saw his expression and followed his gaze into the hearth as well. One of the the dark-skinned men asked, "What do you see?"
And Roose told him.
"It seems the Lord of Light favors you, Lord Bolton." The same man said in heavily accented Westerosi, "Some take years to see visions in the flames and even more time to decipher their meaning, but your path is clear. Help us, Lord Bolton. Help us purge the taint from this world, and R'hllor will light your path to victory."
Of course, Roose did not immediately agree. As pretty and tempting as the visions were, it would be beyond foolish for him to just accept. Simply attacking Winterfell was not something one does on a whim. His family had took and burnt Winterfell more than once, but that had taken time and planning. So, he told the five warriors that they will remain as his guests for the time being while he thought on this matter. That night, Roose underwent a thorough leeching to clear his mind. For once, the leeches did not work as he had hoped. Every flickering flame from his hearth to the candles on his desk displayed his family's grand and glorious triumph over the Starks and the banner of the flayed man hanging high for all to see as the rightful rulers of the North. Whatever this Lord of Light was, it was very persistent. Roose thought long into the night while he idly went through old tomes and written accounts by his ancestors that had been Red Kings. Royce II Bolton succeeded in taking and burning Winterfell, and his namesake, Royce IV Bolton, did the same three hundred years later. It had taken large armies, strong leadership, and strategy to perform such actions. Of course, the Starks retook Winterfell with the same methods everytime .
Now, Roose was not one for flights of fancy, but as the night progressed he found himself captivated by the continuous visions in the flames and pondered how he might go about taking Winterfell. He'd need time to muster his forces and getting the logistics in place, not to mention keeping such hidden from Stark's attention. Then again, Stark was already distracted with the arrival of Robert Baratheon in Winterfell. An attack on the seat of the North while the King himself was in the walls of Winterfell would be a blow against Lord Stark's image. If the Warden of the North could not control the lands he governed, than he should not be governor in the first place. No one would dare attack a castle that the king resided in, especially in the home of the honorable fool. It was unheard of! Inconceivable! So much so, that such a thing just might work...
Yes, he could see it now. The gates of Winterfell would be well guarded yet open for all merry-makers and fellow Northern Lords to come and greet the king. A team of men could slip in and cause a fair bit of chaos while the revelries were about. There were certainly enough bloodthirsty madmen and cravens that would be more than happy to undergo such a task. Better yet, they could ride hard and join the royal procession. Then, when night falls, kill as many people as possible and get out just as quickly. If he was lucky, the blood of one of the royal children on Stark's hands would suffice as a fitting distraction while Roose mustered his forces. Roose knew what Robert Baratheon was doing here in the first place; to name Stark as his Hand. If he took Stark along with him, that would leave Ned Stark's son, a green boy who knew nothing of the ways of war, as Lord of Winterfell. He could overwhelm the pup and take Winterfell with ease if he so chose.
Yes, it would be glorious, but there was one problem holding him back. Ned Stark was friends with the King. In his opinion, Baratheon was a warmongering, short-sighted fool who thought winning and ruling to be the same thing. A terror in battle and a failure terrible king. If Roose did take Winterfell, Baratheon would turn right around and march back to reclaim the ancestral home of his friend just for the sake of being at war again. He could take Stark's remaining children as hostages, but Roose knew it would not last. If only there was some way he could turn the King against Stark. That would be a masterstroke!
Roose was just about to give up his thoughts of treason and bloody conquest when the visions in the flames changed. Now, he saw a crowned stag along with the twenty dogs. It led the charge towards Winterfell with antlers lowered and puffing with rage.
Roose finally had enough.
"It will take much more than pictures and metaphors to convince me." He spoke to the open fire, "Give me something I can believe."
A log shifted and sparks flew up the chimney, and it was there he saw the king himself, as if Roose was some crawling thing too small to see, cracking open a letter that bore the sigil of House Tully. There was a second letter folded within the first.
To His Grace Robert Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals, The Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.
Your Grace, I write to you of treason within the North. Attached to this letter is one I received from Winterfell, written by my daughter, Catelyn, wife of Eddard Stark. It is written in her hand, and she has never lied to me before.
It was only for a moment, but when Roose saw the words, they became burned into his mind forever.
Father,
I write to you from Winterfell with news of the upmost secrecy. My husband never sired a bastard. The stain upon his honor that I have dealt with for so long is not a Snow. The boy is a Targaryen. What is more, he is Ned's nephew; son of Lyanna Stark and Rheagar Targaryen. Ned tells me that he found him in the Tower of Joy when Lyanna was on her deathbed, and my goodsister named the babe Aegon Targaryen. There was no rape or kidnap. Ned tells me they must have married in secret. By blood and birth, the boy is the VI of his Name, rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms. What is more is that the boy has somehow discovered the truth of his birth and has run off. No one can find him, and I fear the boy has the Targaryen madness, for a string of murders have been occurring across the North. Please father, you are the only one I can trust with this secret. Whatever council you may offer, I am in desperate need of it.
-Cat
Your Grace, I do not know how much of this is true, but if so-
Roose never got to read the rest of Hoster Tully's letter. He watched the King fly into a rage and disappear out of his tent.
Then, the scene was replaced by a white wolf with blue eyes and dragon's wings.
Roose had stared into the flames of his hearth for a long, long time that night. When the sun finally rose, he called forth the five members of the Fiery Hand as well as Miranda, and put the plan in action. The Red Priest had rode out to meet Robert Baratheon's party with Miranda's troop a days behind so as not to draw suspicion; it would look very odd for them all to ride in together.
Outside, his men were readying themselves for the march on Winterfell, and soon, the North would be his.
Damon Dance-for-me was the one holding the knife to Bran's throat, and he froze when he felt a hand wrap around his ankle. When he looked down and saw the dead Stark guard he had killed mere moments ago staring up at him with eyes that were open and blue, he screamed and dropped the knife from the young Stark to plunge it into the head of the dead man that leaped up at him from the ground. Damon screamed again when the corpse kept attacking and savagely bit into the flesh of his neck and tore it out in a spray of gore. Miranda and her men collectively turned and stared in shock without noticing the other previously slain guard rise to his feet, heft his spear, and drive it into sour Alyn's back. The man arched and yelled in pain, and once more, all heads turned to see another one of Miranda's men fall dead to a corpse. Grunt jumped forward and bashed the blue-eyed corpse in the face with his mace, barely staggering it, before it lurched forward and stabbed him in the gut with its spear; its face a bloody ruin with the nose crushed and one eye dangling loose.
Bran chose that moment to run. He darted around the dying form of Damon and the corpse atop him. One of the Twenty was hacking at it with a sword, but it did little as it rose and attacked the living again. He ran in the direction of his father, who was shouting orders at the Cassels and four other guards surrounding his family. When mother saw him, she cried out his name and he all but jumped into her arms. Everyone else seemed to have run into the safety of Winterfell.
Jon was...overwhelmed.
He had no idea what to expect. He expected he would find it difficult or feel resistance, perhaps the sensation would leave him feeling wretched and sick, but he would have never guessed raising the dead came so easily! It felt like all this time, he had been a small stream, but only now joined a vast and powerful river of pure magic flowing into the great beyond.
As his hands rose, that very power gathered and grew inside the corpses, bid them to rise, and filled them with one terrible purpose; to kill the living! The magic suffusing the corpses made them were extensions of his will. Jon knew this, not just from the memories of the Night King or his own experiences, but an instinct brought on by the cold power inside him. He knew he could easily control them like a puppeteer with puppets, but that required focus. It was much easier to let them run wild.
Two were not enough. He knew this, watched it happen as his two wights were hacked to pieces.
"More." Said the voice in his head.
Jon agreed. Behind him, the corpses of the redcloaks and the horses he'd slain all at once opened their eyes to reveal orbs of blue. As one rose to their feet and clustered around Jon. It was so easy, so simple, to bid them to rise!
This is what he had been afraid of?
This power?
This gift?
Unbeknownst to Jon, frost was blooming from where he stood and spread outwards to cover the ground in distinct spiraling shape.
"A second chance!"
Yes! He had been given a second chance! One where he had the power to conquer the known world if he chose! No one would ever be able to threaten them again! Not the Lannisters, Baratheons, Ironborn, or Targaryens! Against the realms of men, the Night King's power was unstoppable!
But first...
Jon's eyes focused on Miranda. He saw her sick, sad little flame flickering in her heart as she and her foolish companions stared down death. He did not move, did not speak, nor made a single motion. He needed not utter a word. All he had to do was think, and his wights obeyed.
"Kill them."
They did.
All at once, they surged forward at the Bastard's Boys while the foolish curs tried to retreat into the First Keep and died at the entrance. The horses reached them first and trampled Ben Bones and Luton to death. Then the human wights slammed into the rest of them. Twenty good men died under a mass of dead men with slashing blades, gnashing jaws, and grasping hands. Miranda died screaming as the wights tore her apart.
He did not watch the rest of the slaughter. Instead, he stooped to pick up his Other blade from the ground and turned just in time to catch Jamie Lannister's blade in the face.
He blinked as the blade shattered into pieces against him. Why was Ser Goldenhand attacking him?
Then, memory caught up to him and he scowled. This was not the just man he remembered, no.
This was the Kingslayer.
Jon glared into the wide, green eyes of the Lannister knight before he smashed his hand directly into Jamie's golden breastplate, and sent him flying across the courtyard. Air exploded from Jamie's lungs when hit the cold ground and he lay there in a daze, coughing and seeing double. All of a sudden, Ser Arys Oakheart charged through the open gates accompanied by the rest of the kingsguard and what looked like the rest of the redcloaks. The king was nowhere to be spotted, but the second they saw the surrounding slaughter, they all tensed and zeroed in on Jon.
Before they could react, Jon commanded the rest of his wights to attack with Miranda and her Twenty to rising up to join the horde. Over thirty wights threw themselves at the opposing group, which numbered around sixty, and more screams filled the air. All of this happened with Jon not even breaking his stride as he bore down on Jamie Lannister.
Slowly, as the air returned to him, Jamie looked up into the unforgiving blue of his attacker looming over him, and froze as Jon lifted his blade high with both hands, a cold scowl playing across his face, and brought it down!
SCHWIIIINNNGGG!
A harsh and discordant sound, the sound of two materials that were complete opposites in every way reverberated in the ears of all who witnessed the Other blade crash into the greatsword Ice.
Ned had gathered his wife and children death while chaos raged around them and ordered Rodrick and Jory along with a contingent of guards to get to safety. His ward had been the only one unaccounted for, but Theon had shown up not even a minute later out of breath with the ancestral blade in his shaky grasp, which he shoved into the hands of Warden of the North. Ned had ordered him to go with Catelyn and unsheathed Ice just as Jon sent Jamie Lannister flying, and ran to intercept. He'd seen what the blade in Jon's grasp did to normal steel, and if Valaryian steel didn't hold fast, then nothing would. Despite his ire at Tywin Lannister's eldest son, he did not want him to die. More importantly, he did not want Jon to kill anyone else.
Blue eyes shot up to glare into wide, Stark gray as Valaryian steel made contact and held strong.
For a moment, Ned stared into the face of his nephew, and Jon stared right back. Jon's skin had become so pale it looked to be acquiring a blue tint, and his cheeks were stretched taught against his flesh like he'd been starving. Ned swore Jon had not looked like that just a few minutes ago.
Jon, in turn, saw the man he had called father, but was his uncle. The most honorable man he had ever known, someone he had striven to emulate, his hero, had taken his very identity from birth and cast in shadow and shame; his name, his heritage, his family, his life.
Jon looked upon the face of the uncle who had raised him and knew him only as a liar.
Ned all but begged him as their blades remained locked, "Jon, stop! I don't want to fight you!"
"KILL HIM!"
Lips pulled back in a wolfish snarl as an unholy, freezing rage coursed through him that bordered on hatred. His even colder blade reared back for another swing, and the Other blade clashed against Ice with another explosion of sound. Ned grunted hard and dug his boots into the dirt before swinging his greatsword down to parry the bastard-sword. Jon all but shouted and pressed him forward with a barrage of fast and strong swings that Ned barely managed to block. Their blades locked again in a brief stalemate, and Ned found himself dumbfounded. His nephew always possessed a talent with a blade, but this? Ned was finding himself hard pressed to keep up with the skill, power, and finesse before him. It was like fighting Arthur Dayne all over again!
The next time their blades locked, Ned slammed his shoulder into Jon to knock him off balance. It was like ramming a block of frozen meat, but it did the trick. Jon stumbled but found his footing a second later, and Ned backpedaled to create some distance. Jon's unblinking eyes locked with him and he slowly started stalking after him.
"Jon, listen to me!" Ned gasped.
"Listen?" Jon hissed, before shouting "WHY WOULD I LISTEN TO A LIAR!?"
Jon charged. Ned gritted his teeth and met the charge head on. He side-stepped Jon's thrust and swung Ice in an arc that Jon leaned back to avoid. The bastard-sword whipped around in an overhead arc and caught against Ice. Ned held him there for a moment with a strength he knew he didn't have, then he caught Jon's blade on Ice's crossguard to shove it away and contort his body to throw an elbow into the side of Jon's head. It connected and Jon's head whipped back as numbness shot up Ned's arm. Jon's skin was harder than any man's ought to be, and Ned quickly made space between them while the pain in his elbow died down.
"Why are you doing this!?" Ned cried out. With Jon's words echoing in his ears, he then yelled, "I never lied to you!"
"You lied to everyone, uncle!" Jon spat and jabbed the tip of his blade in Ned's direction "Your wife, your king, your family! You may have never told a lie to my face, but you never told me the truth, either!"
"I had to protect you!" Ned pleaded, "Your mother-"
Jon's eyes flared like blue coals in a stoked hearth. "My MOTHER? You mean, your SISTER?! My AUNT LYANNA? Seems you did tell me a lie, after all! How honorable, Lord Stark!"
They met again in a clash of bitter yells, discordant steel, and wounded hearts while the snow came down thicker and thicker. Uncle and nephew circled each other like combating wolves with blades flashing and teeth bared.
"She made me promise to protect you!" Ned said through gritted teeth during a lull in the fight.
Jon, unforgiving as winter itself, looked into his eyes and snarled, "You failed!"
Jon lunged and Ned dodged, twisting Ice up to catch him. Jon smacked the greatsword aside with enough force to break Ned's guard and leave him open for his next thrust that was aimed right for his uncle's chest. Ned side-stepped and swung Ice up in an arc that shredded through Jon's roughspun cloak and caught skin. A bead of red dripped down the tip of the greatsword and left a single red dot on the falling snow. Ned stared at it in horror.
Jon didn't even seem to register the sluggish leaking of his blood from the slice on his bicep. Pain was an old friend to him. He knew pain and everywhere it could hurt; body, mind, heart, and soul. Throughout his life, it seemed all he knew was nothing but pain! Pain and cold!
Cold.
Cold, ice, frost, and snow.
That's all he was now; cold.
Jon looked towards his uncle who was looking between his face and the wound on his arm.
"Jon," Ned croaked, "Don't make me do this!"
Jon said nothing and just attacked.
Ned's resolve was shaken. He barely got his blade up in time to parry Jon's attack and defend against the following exchange. His nephew's speed was incredible, and each strike sent shockwaves down his arms. Everything changed when Jon feinted left and slashed at his legs. When Ned blocked the attack, Jon swept his sword upwards and nearly ripped Ice from his hands. He was on the back foot now, and could barely block as Jon hammered his sword down onto his again and again, like he was trying to beat him into the ground. With a final yell from Jon, Ice was knocked from Ned's grip with one mighty blow and clattered into the snow. Ned collapsed to one knee, defeated and tired, breathless from the fight. He looked up and found the tip of a sword made of solid ice pointed between his eyes.
Jon was standing over him, and his face shook Ned down to the very core. Pure blue eyes were wide and manic, his skin had turned even bluer and drawn even tighter across his skull, patches of solid ice formed across his nephew's skin like lesions, and the beginning of what looked like spikes were growing around his forehead. Jon didn't even look human anymore. Idly, Ned noticed that a few of the dead had separated from the main pack and were surrounding them in a loose circle. All of them were staring at Jon who stood still as a statue clumps of snow collecting in his hair and on his shoulders.
Ned's shuddering breaths came out in puffs of steam as he looked up into the alien eyes of the boy he had collected from his dying sister's arms, the boy he had loved as his own, the boy he had lied to...
"I'm sorry." The words tumbled from his mouth. Whatever his nephew had become...he still loved him. "Your mother...she...she begged me on her deathbed to protect you. I-" Ned's voice caught in his throat, and his next words came out hoarse and ragged."I did what I thought was right, Jon! You are not my bastard, no, and you do not carry my name, but even if you are my nephew, I love you as my son, and I always will!"
A muscle in Jon's face twitched.
"Please, Jon! I know not what has happened to you, but I beg of you, put down your sword! Whatever's wrong, we can fix this! Together!"
The tip of Jon's sword began to tremble. His brow furrowed and the arm holding his sword began to shake.
"No..."
The words were whispered in a low, frightened tone; the sound of someone who had just discovered something terrifying.
"No, I don't want this!"
Jon's left hand shot out and gripped his sword-arm. He seemed to be trying to pull it away from Ned, who looked on it utter confusion. The wights surrounding them began to close in with slow, shuffling steps. Jon's eyes were wild and scared, now. His body jerked oddly, like he was trying to move but was stuck in place. His sword-arm seemed to not want to budge. A low moan ripped from Jon's throat; a desperate and tortured sound of struggle that struck Ned's core. The sword fell from Jon's twitching fingers and he stepped away from Ned with his hands flying to his head, palms covering his eyes, and he screamed.
All at once, the dead closed in around them.
Ned ran for his nephew.
His arms caught Jon and pulled him into a fierce embrace, pulling his icy body against his and held him tight, held him so that he would never lose him again-
A howl ripped through Winterfell. Something large and furry that was all teeth and claws, tackled the closest wight to them from behind and tore it to shreds. Ned looked up and watched a wolf the size of a pony spin and tackle an undead horse to the ground.
A direwolf, and it was not alone.
Six smaller shapes darted about the feet of the wights; biting ankles, leaping high for throats, and ripping out tendons and gnawing off fingers. The wolves surrounded them in almost a protective fashion as more wights seemed to be coming at them. They tore them apart with ease. Ned turned back to Jon and saw that he was clutching fistfuls of his snowy hair. He was muttering something that sounded like "Get out of my head!"
"Father!"
Ned looked up to see Robb and Theon running towards them, swords in hand. Theon stopped just short of them and stared dead ahead at the tide of dead men fighting off a much larger force just in front of the main gate.
"What are you doing!?" Ned bellowed at Robb, "You're supposed to be with your mother and siblings!"
"I'm not leaving you here!" Robb shot back. His Tully blue eyes were hard as they were afraid. Then, they fell on Jon.
"...Jon?" He muttered, utterly shocked.
Even though the sounds of men fighting and dying were just behind them, Jon seemed to hear him. His whole body jerked, and he looked up through his fingers towards Robb, who stared back with eyes wide and face pale.
Jon's eyes were no longer blue. They were dark; Lyanna's eyes, Ned knew. Frozen tracks of tears trailed down Jon's gaunt cheeks, "Robb?" Jon croaked.
"Jon," Robb gasped, "What happened to you?"
Jon chuckled a hollow, broken sound, "Last time we saw each other, you said that the next time we meet, I'll be all in black. I'm not joining the Watch, again, but it's still my color, eh, Robb?"
"What the fuck, Snow?" Theon's voice rang.
Jon's eyes flashed back to blue and he twisted in Ned's grasp to glare at Theon with such hatred that it made the Ironborn step back. Jon hissed the word "Traitor!" and made a lunge at Theon with only Ned's grip to keep him from fully rising.
"Stop!" Ned yelled. It seemed to be the few things he was able to say today.
"He's going to betray us all!" Jon raged, eyes still a burning blue.
Suddenly all of the direwolves, save the she-wolf, the grey one, and the white one with red eyes, took off in the direction of the Great Keep.
Bran's beating heart matched his mother's erratic breathing as she ferried him and his siblings down the halls of Winterfell. Sansa was wide-eyed and scared, as was Arya, and Rickon hadn't stopped crying.
So was he.
Afraid, that is.
The guard barracks had been set ablaze with men still inside. They had seen the column of smoke and the burning barracks as they ran for the halls that led to the keep, as well as people out and beating at the flames engulfing them. One of the guards had told Jory that the men in orange robes were seen heading inside.
Jory and Rodrick Cassel in front of them and a quartet of guardsmen flanking them. Robb and Theon had doubled back at the last moment before anyone could stop them. Catelyn nearly ran after them with Rickon in her arms. Rory and Jory had to pull her back. She had cried out that they were only children, that Robb had no idea what true battle was like, and damn that Ironborn boy for not stopping him!
They were almost at the entrance to the Great Keep when they were ambushed.
The Red Priests charged around the bend of the next corridor, silent and stealthy as smoke, and two gutted Rodrick and Jory with their spears while the other three came in past them with spearheads ablaze. Mother screamed and pulled them all back as the remaining guards rushed to defend them. They didn't last long and were quickly killed by the expert spearwork of the Red Priests.
"Run!" Mother screamed, "Run!"
They ran back down the corridor and away from the sounds of screams of pain as men died behind them, and the Red Priests gave chase.
Pt 2 of the battle of Winterfell. Might break it up into 4 parts with how things went here. I got really excited writing this but started running out of steam towards the end and broke it off there. I'm happy that I got some important parts of what I envisioned in here, and the next chapter is going to be even better. Please put all questions, comments, and concerns in the reviews or PM me. I know there's going to be questions for this chapter, but I'll address them in the A/N next chapter if you guys want.
Side-note I keep going back and re-reading my previous chapters and finding little mistakes and misspelled words. I've been correcting them but I know I've missed a few. Don't you hate when that happens?
Thank you, everyone who reviewed/followed/faved! I'm blown away by many people like this lol! Longest chapter by far and ANOTHER EVIL CLIFFHANGER MUHAHAHA! Don't hate me....Please?
Can't really answer any questions without spoiling anything, but y'all had me cracking up with some reviews.
Expect the next chapter soon because I know I am!
