HRONAR

The crossing had gone as planned. No fewer than a score died from the sheer numbers on the bridge, perhaps a score more from the archers. He kept Grinya close by him, admonishing it was best to see what the toll was before crossing the bridge. Once across, the man with the masque of black and gold held firmly shut the door to the bridge area on the gate of the imposing castle. The horde of bodies forced their way after the fastest among them, some scaling the wall, others held back.

A commander, advanced in age, came into being atop the gate, slicing the first head from its shoulders at the sounding of a horn.

"What is it this time?" He said in a sneering voice, perhaps more annoyed than anything else. "Would you settle on the Gift as have your friends?" One of his men kicked a second from the wall. "Bad news!" He barked. "Until I have orders to allow passage, I mean to hold this castle and the West Wall until I die. Who among you leads?" On the ground, a spearwife pushed her way to the front.

"This crossing was mine. Tell me your name."

"It must be, then! My name is Dondel Stone, commander of Westwatch-by-the-Bridge!" He shouted. "Tell me your worthless name!"

"I am Rylla, slayer of ironborn and wife to Geris of the Frostfangs!" The woman shouted merely to make her words clear against the wind. Hronar detected little annoyance. "We seek passage!" From a tree near him, his daughter lowered herself to the ground, moving closer to the voices. Allowing that the arrows would not reach them and they, on the other side of the gorge, would not be targets, the red bearded man descended himself.

"Seek elsewhere! You will find naught save death here!"

"We know your garrisons are light! We know you have little in your stores! Allow us to farm the land to the South, and we survive the winter together!" Silence sounded across the land, down from the castle, up from the chasm. The realms of men waited as a ranger near the commander of white hair talked with him. Nodding, he allowed the younger to speak.

"We have been preventing you from the Seven Kingdoms for a number of reasons, the first being the threat you pose and the second your disregard for the kings and their laws. Should you prove yourselves aught apart from a threat, you will be free to pass." Words flowed between the free folk.

"What, in your mind, would prove our intents?" The spearwife's question was critical, but fair. Grinya drew closer, but her eyes were not set on the speakers.

"You may volunteer a great number of men about you to garrison the Shadow Tower." A resounding tone of complaint came, but the ranger continued to speak. "The night is dark and full of terrors, and if you would prove you are not one of them, you may do so by helping us to face them." Silently the idea passed between them, some, perhaps a moiety, agreeing. It was not a clear choice. Many had questions.

"Would you have but men?" The woman was of stable frame, her weapon a steel sword, like taken from a crow no longer needing it. "I should like to defend Thenn from White Walkers."

"You should like to do naught but cause trouble!" the commander shouted. "By the gods, we have but one garrison of you lot and it's a damned disaster!" Rage came up from the lower ranks, weapons raising. "Are you hard o' hearing?! Clear out if you don't like it!" Hronar had seen nothing like the scene unfolding.

Perhaps this is how we know all men are threatened by the dead men on dead horses. Crows and free folk are talking. Do the nameless gods laugh?

He and his daughter stood alone on the opposite end of the long bridge, its skulls on stakes forced from their places by the forceful crossing. They could only just see the man in black pelts, his greatsword holding the door firmly shut. Unmoved was he by the talking around him. The girl stared silently at him, perhaps wondering how long his strength would hold. He had been wondering the same himself. The armored man tested his back against the force of all the men mere inches away.

"We would hear your opposition." A free woman called, unwilling to dismiss the offer entirely.

"The Night's Watch is a brotherhood of no children. Men are sworn to protect the Wall with their lives, and no man may have means in his mind for other lives." It was the younger man once more, and for a brief moment the free man wondered if all negotiations in the Seven Kingdoms went in the same manner. The idea behind it was clear enough to him, but perhaps he simply stood far enough afield to see. The commander, Dondel, was to be misliked. He shouted, he did not explain. The other was just the opposite.

"Do you not forswear the love of a woman? Must you have them out of your sight?"

"Our oath comes from a day the kings did not thrust upon us their vilest criminals and blackest sinners. Honorable men here remain, yet so long as others do, we remember the words mean only as much as the man from whose lips they come." The words were well considered, it was like that many of the free believed them a confession of what they had suspected or known. A mass of them gathered and words flew swiftly.

"We have come to a decision, brother of the black. We are greater than six scores, and two shall serve among you, ranging into the dark. We would lose no more men." Acknowledging it simply without offer, the younger crow nodded, calling for the way to be made straight as the commander held the archers at ready. The red bearded man wondered how much of the plan, so carefully worked into shape over the past few days, the men atop their walls had pieced together.

"Father, why do free women fight?" It appeared as though the question had been on her mind for some time.

"In Thenn, women fight because not doing so will not save you. All who die may take up arms to guard themselves, to keep them from fighting would be cruelty, against the ways of a free realm."

"Why do women of the Seven Kingdoms abstain?" It was a logical enough request.

"Kneelers rely on other men to preserve their lives. When a man does battle south of the Wall, he believes other men will fight by the same rules. He dies. The same is true with the women. They believe they will not come into suffering by a man because they believe in the men with crowns. Though they are aware the rules will not protect them, they are unwilling to be rid of them. They act the way they would have other men act, and pray it will truly work."

Silence passed between them as the men who wore black stood on both sides as the mass of them, mostly women, walked slowly through. Hronar could see a few hands touching spears, as though readying for some manner of trap to spring. Once through, they turned to see the rangers had closed the way behind. Many and more carried but a spear, but one and another raised a weapon, then more. Men of the Wall continued, hedging them in with shields and taking them through the narrow way through the wall. Screams rang out as it became clear what had happened. Though they were far afield of him, he doubted little that they could see what happened at the gorge. As the mass of them were being hedged through the wall, another line of shields formed preventing the two scores of men from nearing. Jabbing through their line with shortswords, the crows pushed them back, toward the bridge and the chasm.

"Father, we must act!"

"I have your life to mind, my daughter. These men chose to leave Thenn and trust the crows. I swear to you on this day that there will come a time when winter winds rage and we shall cut them down for their crimes against us. They will regret leaving us alive." Silently he prayed his words would convince the both of them.

"In the Seven Kingdoms, they would not allow such injustice to stand!"

"These men are from-"

"Wicked things happen north of the Wall, father, wicked things we as Thenn could control."

"Wicked things happen south- Thenn is not one man."

"You're just like Hraen! You would never fight for our land!"

"It is no man's land and I have fought for it! I fight for freedom, not order- this is order!" He was shouting, turning her to the commander shouting at his men as the free folk were forced into the gorge. "This is what men may do if you allow them to rule over you! Do you believe every last ranger does as he wills? Men of the black are killed for deserting!"

"And killed they must be! They forsake the defense of their realm from the White Walkers. They fight the cursed wights and we but stand in their way."

"We would not be in their way, as you put it, had they allowed Mance Rayder through. There are those of us who would be anywhere else than among the dead." The father could see his words were to little effect. He pointed toward the top of the Wall. "Do you recognize that man? You should, we have been following him for days." He stood there silently, staring down at what unfolded below him, perhaps having been simply mistaken for a ranger by the others for his blacks. "What is his name?"

"I know not his-"

"Therein is the trouble with armies, Grinya. You know not his name, and he knows not yours. If he were ordered, he would kill you."

"He spared me before."

"He spared your brother, and that was his own choosing, not that of his new master. Have I told you he once dragged an old man through ice and snow, leaving a trail of blood? He was an ironborn, and I committed him to the sea. He is a cruel man, driven by vengeance. I should not have left him alive, but I owe him the life of my son."

The girl's face flashed red and words would no longer settle the matter.

"You permitted Hraen to leave. I should like the same."

"He did not walk into a losing battle unarmed."

"I'll have yours, then."

"You will not. In Thenn we make our own weapons and choose our own battles. Leave if you wish, you are older than your brother. I do not expect you to possess the folly to walk into that bloodbath and be slaughtered. I expect you will become Queen Beyond the Wall, with men bowing and scraping to fight off the Seven Kingdoms and return to the Eighth. Your brother acted in folly, but he acted as a free man." Turning, he loosed an arrow at the top of the castle, missing the first. "I expect, if you are true to your word, you will have your subjects look for ways to kill the White Walkers, to fight the war of the South so that it lifts not a finger." With the second arrow, he killed a man on fire, wishing to if nothing else show mercy in the bloodbath. "I expect you will create order, justice, borders- you will destroy the freedom we have fought to protect and make Thenn all the easier to invade." Hearing a horse behind him, another arrow caught the rider unaware. "Do not disappoint me."

Hronar scanned the area long after his daughter had walked into the wood, like to seek men among the Frostfangs. The battle of Westwatch-by-the-Bridge had resolved, though he knew not what happened to those on the other side of the Wall. Perhaps they had been separated to be killed, perhaps they would truly be allowed to settle. He knew not, and found it difficult to summon it within him to care. These were deserters, much the same as Mance Rayder, who for all his boasting of a former crow, meant merely to become a subject of Winterfell and take free folk with him.

The nameless gods were silent as he prayed alone.