The North is cold and harsh and everything the stories say it is. Beric pulls his cloak tighter around him in an attempt to keep the warmth from leaving him. But it's no use. Winter has settled deep within the bones of this place and even the faintest trace of warmth is fleeting in the face of such.
The Black Brother assigned to guard this high up on the Wall barely looks at the King's man. He stares with haunted eyes at the endless sea of snow that spreads out before them. He is one of those who claim to have encountered the walking dead. The man has lost an ear apparently. The battle, he'd claimed, had been fierce, for those creatures were a hardy lot. Beric is almost certain 'tis the fever talking. The man is drawn and pale, he shouldn't even be up here. But the Night's Watch has so few men that even the ailing are not spared. Cruel is this land and its people, a cruelty which is best understood only among themselves; a necessary weapon as it were. One cannot hope to survive in the realm of frost without cruelty; it is as vital as air.
He feels atop of the whole world, standing on the ice wall that separates two worlds. Beric shifts slightly, careful of the edge. Should he slip and fall over, there'll be nothing left of him to bury. And he does not plan to die here and be burned. He has something to live for.
"My lord," Benjen Stark calls out from being him, almost startling him, and Beric looks over his shoulder. "We should leave now."
Indeed, they should, Beric thinks, glancing up towards the sky. The sun is shining, though its light is pale and weak. Still, it shall be dark soon. Very soon. In the North it is the night one should fear, Benjen has said to him on the way to the Wall. There are so many stories he's heard and all of them should scare any vertebrate into a perpetual catatonic state. But they are only tales, myths, stories old women tell before the fire to scare the little children. It's been a long time since Beric was a child, though, and stories have stopped scaring him.
"Is everything ready then?" he offered by way of reply.
"Aye, provisions and men have been accounted for. The only thing left to do is open those gates and go beyond the Wall." There is something vaguely alarming about leaving the relative safety of the Wall. The feeling is perpetrated by the skittishness of these supposedly brave men defending them all. Beric nods his head and the matter is settled.
From there on it is only a little while until they are riding on horseback out the gates and into the blanket of snow. A weak breeze pushes against them as they ride forward, lashing against their skin, whipping and scratching. Snowflakes no longer fall as they've done when they first arrived.
Beneath them hooves of the horses the snow crunches. A few paces behind him, a few men are exchanging japes, speaking of the thin blood of the Southrons. Beric can hear his men reply and he laugh, because these things are neither here nor there. Blood is the same for every man and it flows through the veins of all.
Their pace is good and they make much progress, though not as much as the Old Bear would like. The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch is one Jeor Mormont who had for some unknown reason entered the rank of the Watch, leaving the rule of his house to his son, Jorah, who is by all accounts not at all successful. The Bear Isles have lost a good leader.
But the time for thoughts is past. They have entered the thicker part of the woods and the branches crack under the weight of snow, bowing towards the ground. The dead boughs touch their heads, a kiss, a condemnation, a warning, no doubt.
Dolorous Edd, a man with a dry and pessimistic humour, is telling a story of an abandoned Wildling village, from where all people had seemingly vanished into the night. It is not the story itself that has a seed of humour in it, but the way the man tells it stirs within all hearts a smile, a stretch of lips. The human mind is dark indeed to conceive such thoughts. Yet it is what it is and there is nothing to be done of it.
Light is leaving them fast, bleeding through the trees and over the glimmering snow, the stench of danger filling their nostrils. Tension builds, glaring and crushing in its manner as strange sounds sound out all around them. The Black Brothers draw their swords and torches are lit though the last glimmer of sunlight is not yet gone.
"Fire is our most effective weapon against anything that lies beyond," Commander Mormont speaks. His mere words seem to soothe the fears of his men. He gives them courage. A man should die with courage.
Beric draws his own sword out and behind their party the last light leaves them. With darkness comes fear and fear breeds chaos. Chaos is the death of success.
At first it is merely sounds as they make camp. The men of the Watch claim that those should be ignored. "It might be Wildlings. It might be squirrels. It might just be the wind," Dolorous Edd says softly. "If they don't engage we keep to ourselves." What goes unsaid is that these wild men do not engage usually. They fear the sharp steel of the men they should face. Unless they are in great number they shan't launch an attack.
"Benjen Stark has said they've amassed into an army of sorts," Beric points out. That he does not like the sound of. A few men are easily crushed even without good weaponry. However an entire army of Wildlings will not fall even to the sharpness of knights' swords.
"Aye, but they are yet a long way off. They have children and women with them." Edd spits onto the snow. "I doubt they'll even make it to the Wall. The dead, you know, and the cold ones."
"Wives tales," Beric protests.
"That what they all say until they see with their own eyes." The man shrugs as it makes no difference to him whether the knight believes him or not. Beric merely shakes his head. The cold must have addled their brains.
With a long sign the knight stands to his feet. He walks away from the firelight, behind a line of trees, to make water.
The only warning is the sound of snapping bones. Beric turns around with a start in time to see a legless creature that had once been human crawling to him.
The horn rings out into the night.
