Oh, come, that last one was Arianne and Theon plotting together. What can they possible plot wrong? :D
Back to the Wall now with a short Jon chapter, filling in the blanks with everything that transpired to the Watch while Jon was busy fighting wars in the south
Jon VII
The cold night gust caressed him in the cheeks, colder than it was at Winterfell. Seven hundred feet below him, he could hear the noise of hammers beating swords in the armory, where a hundred of the men he lead to the Wall were sharpening blades and fletching arrows in preparation for the wildling attack. Or at least, he wished it was a wildling attack.
"How far do you think they are?" asked Slayer, mounting guard by his side
"Far enough to interrupt my breakfast. Or my sleep. Wildlings love to attack when I'm sleeping" answered another of the Brothers of the Night's Watch, standing on his left.
Smiling, Jon pulled Maester Aemon's far-eye and place it in front of Ghost's face. He had practiced that particular use of warging a few times since he left Maester Aemon's chambers, and the results so far were impressive. Coupled with Ghost's acute sight and the Wall's formidable height, he was able to see deep into the Enchanted Forest. The results were not encouraging. Slipping back in his skin, he put away the far-eye. "There are a day away. It looks like Mance Rayder, with giants and mammoths. I haven't seen the Thenns, but even Ghost can see that well in the night, Slayer"
"Don't call me that" said Tarly, cowering next to a fire
"Well, it's better than Ser Piggy or One Ear" told him Jon, trying to encourage him, but it was to no avail. He slipped into Ghost again, trying to discern the sounds coming from the Wall, but nothing seemed amiss. He wondered if he should send Ghost to guard the Ice Cells. The men of the Dreadfort had been unruly regarding the prisoners they took. And while he had little to worry from then now, as the wildlings were now held by the Night's Watch, the presence of a dozen or so spearwives in the Ice Cells made everyone twitchy. The men of the Night's Watch weren't used to having women around them, they were all scared and those few who had returned from Halfhand's ranging were craving for some way to discharge. Yet he needed Ghost's eyes on top of the Wall. 'I should have left them in Moletown' he thought 'And when I am at it, I should have also asked Robb to send reinforcements to the Shadow Tower. And found the way to make a separate deal with the Thenns. And why not, hatch a few dragons as well'
"What's so funny?" asked Tarly, causing Jon to realize he was smiling.
"Nothing" he said, contemplating the man next to him. When Maester Aemon and Squire Dalbridge sent for a man called Samwell 'Slayer' Tarly to explain him what little they knew of the White Walkers, Jon expected a well built warrior, tall and strong as Lord Tarly was reported to be. Instead, he met a shy fat boy, just a few years his senior, whose missing ear wasn't due a battle, or the frostbite experienced in one long ranging beyond the Wall, but the rather irresponsible training of Castle Black's Master-at-Arms. As it turned out, none expected him to survive the training, but the Old Bear, as Lord Commander Mormont was nicknamed, stepped in and pointed out the Watch couldn't afford to lose one of their few volunteers who knew the letters and was a highborn heir before joining to boot.
Instead of being assigned to the rangers, as anyone would expect from a son of Randyll Tarly, Samwell was assigned to the stewards and quickly gained a spot attending Maester Aemon. When Qhorin Halfhand was elected Lord Commander, however, Samwell's comfy and menial job changed. The new Lord Commander planned a great ranging to find Benjen Stark, the wildlings and whatever laid beyond, and he requested Maester Aemon someone to handle the ravens on the way North. Tarly turned out to be one of the few who returned.
"What happened Sam? In the great ranging?" asked Jon. He had heard the ranging had failed, Halfhand was killed and, somehow, Samwell had discovered dragonglass could kill White Walkers, but none of the survivors spoke a lot more than that.
"Now? You want me to tell you in the night?" said Sam, cowering against the fire. Even the other Brother on his left seemed uncomfortable.
"Yes, now. We may be fighting tomorrow, Tarly" insisted Jon. Slayer hesitated, but started his tale.
The basics were the same things Dalbridge and Tarly himself had said in Maester Aemon's chambers. After being elected, Qhorin Halfhand led two hundred men from Castle Black beyond the Wall, Tarly, Dalbridge and the other brother on Jon's left included. They were supposed to link up with a hundred men from the Shadow Tower, led by Ser Dennys Mallister, at a hill named the Fist of the First Men. The meeting never took place, and none knew what ended up happening to the hundred men of the Shadow Tower. Two days before reaching the Fist, Halfhand's two hundred were assaulted by night by wights and worse things. Sam spoke of White Walkers, of hundreds of wights impervious to arrows and swords and even dead, moving, bears. Jon remembered Lyanna Mormont's bear killing Lannisters at the Battle of Oxcross and shivered at the thought of standing at the opposite end of a bear, specially a dead one only vulnerable to flames.
With everything lost, Qhorin Halfhand ordered them to abandon all supplies and release the ravens. He then led a cavalry charge himself to break through the enemy lines, but was injured by a White Walker when his horse smashed upon them. Apparently, some of the men closer to him claimed the White Walker blade penetrated clean through the Lord Commander's armor. Sam, however, couldn't confirm it, scared as he was and surprised the horses were charging at all. Maybe their fear was what drove them to go head on against the Walkers.
With Lord Commander Qhorin and too many Brothers injured, the rangers regrouped at a placed called "Craster's Keep", where Jon remembered the Umbers and Karstarks had also rested during his father's punitive campaign so long ago. In there, Qhorin Halfhand sucumbed to his wounds, along with several other survivors. What happened next came as a surprise.
"Do you mean you broke guest right in there?" asked a shocked Jon to Samwell's discomfort.
"Well, not us, M'Lord Stark… I would have stopped them, but…" started the other Brother
"I am not a Lord" retorted Jon, stopping to feel Ghost "Damn, help me with the cage. That man Reek is out in the open"
"What's the deal with his smell?" asked the other brother while following Jon to the cage. Samwell, who was still getting used to Ghost, remained in his spot.
"In, Ghost" said Jon, and his wolf slipped into the cage. He closed the door and begun sending it down "I don't know, and I don't care. But he's afraid of Ghost, and I'm sending him to guard the Ice Cells" said Jon thinking in the red haired spearwife "Hey" he whispered "How did Slayer kill the White Walker? I get the dragonglass part, but how did he get it?"
"It was right there, M'L… Jon. Out in the open, covered in a black cloak, as if someone wanted us to find it. Wish that they had left some hot meal with it, Jon, but you can't have it all, it seems. Except snow. We have plenty of that"
"And Tarly has been in the library since he returned?" asked Jon, and the other man nodded. Jon reached the fire where Samwell was and warmed himself "Tarly, have you read anything about a three eyed raven?"
"A three eyed… No, Stark, but I've barely went through a small part of the books in the library. There are hundreds of them… did you know they say the Children of the Forest used to give the Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year? And that during the fifty-sixth Lord Commander's tenure…"
Jon smiled and looked into the wilds to the North. At the ground level, Ghost was sitting in front of the Ice Cells, to discourage Reek and any other from hurting the wildlings he took prisoner. And if he was to expend two more hours watching into the pitch black night, he might as well do it listening to the stories of the Night Watch. He was still pretending to join once he found an adequate replacement to lead the Northern reinforcements, or Robb rode North, and he might ending up learning something from those old books.
And when Mance Rayder and the Thenns came, he'd kill them. And then kill them again when they raise as wights. The Thenns might be granted lands south of the Wall, if Robb agreed. But it took ten years and plenty of blood to accommodate Lord Twoskins and less than ten thousand wildlings south of the Wall. As much as Squire Dalbridge insisted and sympathetic as Jon actually was, he also knew there was no way he could let Mance Rayder and his hundred thousand of wildlings through while still keeping the King's Peace and Justice in the North.