WINTERFELL: 301 AC
Winter had come. All about the castle, it painted the landscape white. In the distance, the road was an icy black gash pushing the banks of snow and ice apart. The castle was the last bastion of life in this wasteland, with its broken towers and walls dark from the burning just a few years before.
She stood on the battlements, bearskin mantle wrapped tightly about her shoulders, and raised a skin of postrún to her lips, quickly readjusting her scarf over her nose as the air bit her skin. At her side, Shoni elbowed her, taking the skin from her hands and drawing a long mouthful. He sighed as he alcohol heated his innards and pulled his hood more firmly over his head. They both wore their helms; hers, a young white bear; his, a monstrous black dire wolf. The Stark men eyed the latter uneasily, viewing it as an ill omen. Shoni found their southern superstitions amusing, and loudly bragged about how he had skewered the beast with his spear as often as possible - at least until Tormund had clocked him round the head and threatened to wear his skull as a hat.
"Tis cold."
"No shit."
"Remind me why we're standing up here again?"
"Just to look."
"We've looked, sister. There's no one coming."
He was right. The road was empty. The lands completely still. For months since they came here, she had stood up on these walls at midday, gazing south. Shoni stood with her most days, Aosidh occasionally. On the worst days she told them to leave her alone, and whispered into the North Wind.
The southerners told her he was dead. The younger Stark girl told her she had left him to die in the Saltpans. The elder just stared at her with those sorrowful eyes. The boy hardly looked at her. And the bastard king pitied her. She glared right back at all of them. He had promised her. She knew he would come.
"Qerhan, I'm in no mood to freeze to death up here." Shoni grumbled. "Let's go."
"Right."
The castle grounds had gradually evolved into a refugee camp, packed full of free folk, peasants, and southern itinerants. Qerhan and Shoni picked their way through the flimsy shelters to their tent, where she bedded down between his family and Aosidh's. It was cramped, but at least it was warm, with them all huddled together.
Wysu, Shoni's southern wife, sat by the fire nursing their youngest and chatting with Aosidh. Her sister's two boys, Friegert and Sigmund wrestled on the floor behind them.
"Nothing?" Wysu asked sympathetically.
Qerhan shook her head, accepting the bread her sister offered her. She and Shoni sat opposite the two. Behind their mother, Sigmund's fist connected with his brother's jaw, and Friegert determined the fight to be over, shoving him off.
"Where's Polfrud?" Shoni asked, glancing around for his brother-in-law.
"He took Lynn to see the horses." Wysu, replied, burping little Byron. "She wouldn't sit still all day."
"Oh dear."
"The sooner this winter's over, the better."
"Aye," Aosidh agreed. "Before we start throttling each other."
Qerhan went to where she had left her bow propped against the wall. She had hardly picked it up before the boys were on either side of her.
"Where you going?"
"Are you going hunting?"
"I made new arrows yesterday!"
"My spear's over here!"
"We're coming, right?"
"Right?"
"Sigmund, for the umpteenth time, stay where I can see you!"
The boy had skidded down a snow drift, out of sight. She could hear him giggling on the other side. He appeared round the bole of a dead tree a few yards away.
"Mammy said the walkers'll get you if you keep doing that!" Friegert called after his younger brother. At twelve years old, he had a level head, and quickly grew tired of his sibling's antics.
Sigmund stopped, stiffened, and assumed the slow shamble of the death, letting out a low, rattling noise as he edged his way back to them. Qerhan pushed him and he stuck his spear into the snow to save himself falling face first.
"Walkers move faster than that." She remarked. "Far faster than you could imagine."
The ten year old liked to joke and act like the dead, but every time his aunt reminded him of the realities of winter, the blood drained from his face. Now he was rapidly turning white as snow. He knew Qerhan had seen the dead at Hardhome, had bawled his eyes out when she told him about it, clinging to his mother. He pretended to be tough, this one, but the truth was he was afraid of everything.
Friegert tugged at her mantle. "Look!"
Something was moving through the trees. A big, brown something. Qerhan and the boys slowly dropped to a crouch, watching as the creature crept forward. She and Friegert both knocked arrows as Sigmund gripped his spear hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
It did not know they were there; it was coming from the opposite direction and the wind was against it. At a gesture from their aunt, the boys moved off to either side, and she loosened her axe in her belt as she crept forward. Ahead, she heard a crunching sound as it chewed the bark off one of the pine trees, followed by a loud snort.
A boar. Perfect. Hoping that the boys were in position, she drew and released. Her arrow sang through the air and landed in the beast's shoulder.
At once all hell broke loose. The boar let out a scream, bucking against the pain. Qerhan spotted Friegert in the shadows of a tree just a few feet behind it, and stepped out of her own hiding place. Enraged, it charged at her. She rolled aside and slipped in the snow as it checked its course and came again. Another whistle, and Friegert's arrow hit the animal in the leg. No good. With another cry, it came on, thundering close on Qerhan's heels as she darted among the trees. She caught a movement off to the side. Sigmund had clambered up onto a rock, spear in hand.
"No!"
Too late, with a bellow, the boy leapt down and thrust the point into its side. The beast leg out a roar, turning to meet his attacker, and ripping the weapon from Sigmund's grasp. Friegert shouted at him to jump aside, but his brother stood frozen in place as the animal lowered its head to charge.
Crunch.
Qerhan's axe landed in its neck, near taking its head off, and the boar at once dropped. Friegert ran out to shake Sigmund back to reality as she hacked the head away. Qerhan knocked each of its tusks off and handed them to the boys as trophies.
"Friegert, pick up the head. Sigmund, wake up and help me with this."
She did not tell her sister what Sigmund had done that afternoon, but proudly declared that he had finished the boar when it was down. Aosidh gave Sigmund extra portions for that, and the boy seemed to shake off the last of his shock.
A whistle from without, and at a word from Shoni Tormund Giantsbane came to sit at their fireside. He declined a bowl of stew, but happily chewed on half-burnt boars ears while they finished.
At last Shoni set his bowl down and eyed him across the fire. "I take it you're not here to chat?"
Giantsbane accepted a sip of postrún from Polfrud and sighed. "Afraid not, cousin."
"So where are we going?" Qerhan asked, dropping chunks of stale bread into her stew to soften them.
"Eastwatch." Tormund answered.
"Where the fuck's that?"
"Far eastern end of the wall, believe it or not." He replied. "Snow believes that's where they'll be going next. Says it's undermanned."
"You mean it's a deathtrap?"
Shoni chuckled darkly.
"Sounds like it, doesn't it?"
"Who's going with us?"
"I've already spoken to everyone else."
Qerhan exchanged glances with her brother. "Only Free Folk?"
Tormund nodded, not meeting her eye.
"Well that's one way to get rid of us." Shoni sneered.
"It's not like that." Tormund said weakly.
"It isn't? And what will his people be doing while we sit and wait for the dead to find us?"
"...preparing."
"Preparing?" Qerhan interjected. "We're to go north, to meet this army, and get slaughtered while they sit about preparing?"
"Tormund." Shoni urged. "Don't you see what's happening here?"
"Aye, I see that you still don't like these southerners." Their cousin replied. "Even you, Qerhan, you don't trust them. You still think it's us versus them -"
"For fuck's sake, Tormund!" Shoni exclaimed. "I know you're not this dense! We're being sent right into the thick of it, with no hope of reinforcements when we need it, and you don't think this is wrong?"
Throwing a particularly black corner of ear into the fire, Tormund finally bowed his head. "Of course I think it's wrong, but I trust Jon. I don't believe he'll abandon us, when the time comes. If he does, I'll be the first to tell you all to get out. Then we'll come back here and skin every single one of these southern pricks."
Qerhan put her bowl down. "When do we leave?"
Tormund blinked at her. "You're coming."
"Sick of sitting around here." She responded. "I still think its a fucking stupid idea… But if I'm going to die I'd rather get it over with."
Tormund looked to her brother. "Not exactly the mentality I was looking for."
Shoni stood. "I'll go only to make sure you don't get my sister killed."
"Shoni -"
"Shut up Qerhan, I'm not done." Her brother stalked over to Giantsbane and crouched so that they were nose to nose. "And if she dies. If any of them die. I'll carve you up. You and your southern wench."
Tormund grinned up at him. "We leave at sunrise."
