Chapter 32 - The 5th day of December, 298 years after Aegon's Conquest
Winterfell was growing more crowded than at any point in the ten-year summer.
For more than a moon's turn the walls of the Great Hall had been disappearing behind a growing display of pageantry. Beside the Stark direwolf soon hung the Cerwyn Battleaxe, the Sentinel Trees of Tallhart, the mailed fist of Glover, the Hornwood moose and the flayed man of Bolton. Later these jostled for space with the unchained giant of Umber, the white sunburst of Karstark, the horse's head of Ryswell, the Mormont bear, and a score of other banners.
Behind the dias, one of the smaller banners hung, a blue rectangle maybe six feet on its longest side, with a complex red and white cross in one corner beside a small assortment of stars. It drew many curious looks as lords and other nobility entered the hall, almost as many as the men who had placed it there at Lord Stark's invitation.
Patrick Huysing stood on the battlements alongside 'maester' Luwin, examining the arrival of the Karstark host through a small bronze spyglass. Brandon Stark, Robb Stark's younger brother, was present also, albeit carried around in a basket on the back of the huge stable boy, Hodor. The conversation turned to numbers and logistics. Near twelve thousand men were now housed in the castle or the Wintertown outside it. Even this considerable number was far from the total strength of House Stark and its sworn houses. More were preparing to join all along the kingsroad - the Dustins, the Manderlys and Flints and Crannogmen.
The column of Karstark men, by a rough count a little over two thousand strong, marched past about a quarter mile from where their chopper, an MRH-90 Taipan, was parked. Huysing saw the men giving it curious looks, but none approached. Two of the commandos and a pilot remained present at all times and Robb Stark had provided a score of men from the Winterfell garrison as a sort of outer perimeter to ward off onlookers.
One by one, the small party made their way down the inside of the tower, using a series of handholds cunningly chiseled into the stone. Huysing made his way back to his quarters to freshen up before the feast that evening. It had been six weeks since they had delivered the Stark daughters to their home. It was hardly enough time to absorb everything about a culture as alien as these Northerners, but he thought he was starting to get the basics. The climate here was harsh. Winter was a regular occurrence and simply not survivable by all. It bred hard men, men who had long accepted that their lives would likely be short and thin on luxuries. He thought of the cultures of northern Europe, who might have been the closest parallels. They weren't quite Vikings here, but Ivan the Terrible and the rest of the Tsars might have felt right at home.
There were many candidates for the most shocking moment so far. Robb's Stark direwolf biting the fingers off Lord Umber 'The Greatjon' of Last Hearth probably took the cake. Ever since, the big Northerner had turned into his liege's fiercest supporter. The man had looked at the Australians suspiciously as well, challenging them in his own way. He had flatly refused to believe their machine could fly, until Huysing had taken him and half a dozen other bold lords up for an hour's flight around Winterfell. The Greatjon had landed, green-faced and spewing up his guts, though laughing nonetheless. After that, he had treated them with a similar sort of reverence. It was a curious pattern. The Northerners were almost simple in a way. All the cunning and subtle plots of the south seemed to be lacking here. Perhaps that explained Ned Stark's demise at the hands of the queen.
Huysing had cited all this and more in his nightly reports, radioed home via three or four solar powered drone relays. They now hovered some twenty thousand meters over the continent and would do so for weeks at a time. It had taken a while to get the system set up. Absent satellites, they needed some other way to send signals reliably. They had confirmed Planetos did have an ionosphere off which they could bounce signals via shortwave transmissions if need be, but Huysing was glad that was only a backup option now. With the laptop in his room, they could stream Youtube anywhere from Dorne to The Wall.
After a while they'd progressed beyond showing mere images and sound. The Australians had begun showing nightly movies after supper. After some discussion they had decided to stick with historical dramas. Lords of the Rings or Star Wars might have led to too much confusion so they had started with Gladiator.
It had been interesting to watch the Westerosi reaction. Huysing had heard of the result when one of the first short films ever produced, The Arrival of a Train, had screened in France in 1896. Supposedly, the image of an approaching train pulling into a station had terrified audiences unaccustomed to moving didn't quite know if this was true or not but he was leaning in favor of it now.
As the opening battle scene unfolded, the Winterfell audience were like a group of children. Some covered their eyes at the violence on screen or clutched at a neighbor. After a while Septon Chayle stepped out, muttering about swords and death and 'too much blood'. Huysing offered to pause it then, but Robb and Theon had urged him to continue. When the Roman's jars of flaming pitch started to burst open over the barbarian army, a few had screamed and a Stark guard everyone called 'Alebelly' had fallen over backwards in alarm, to much laughter. The Northerners cheered and booed at all the right moments, and loudly applauded when it was finished.
They'd since screened Gladiator three more times as Robb showed it to his bannermen as they had arrived in turn. They'd followed it up with Troy, Braveheart and Robin Hood. Animated discussions of the films had followed after and when breaking their fast the next day. After a while, Huysing had cautiously asked Robb if he wanted to see depictions of more modern warfare, to which the young lord had enthusiastically agreed.
He'd started with Dances with Wolves and The Last Samurai, two films he thought would send home the guns vs swords message. He'd thrown in a few other movies, Titanic for instance, before moving on to WW2 flicks, starting with Battle of Britain.
This one had proven a favorite, and they had watched it several times since. After showing it to his lords, several had asked if the North should attempt to build a 'Royal Air Force' of their own. With great tact, Huysing had said that such a thing "may very well be possible". He pointed out that they had already sold Renly Baratheon a plane and that "my people will trade with honorable and civilized men." Robb had listened to all this and promised to examine the Maidenring himself when he marched south. "I am not sure how you define civilized" the young lord had replied "but in the North, we are nothing if not honorable".
Huysing thought the movies had gone a great deal in helping the mood in Winterfell. There had been sad moments too. Barely a week after their arrival, a Chinook had arrived with the body of Eddard Stark. The commando officer, Captain Findlay, had handed back 'Ice' – the Stark greatsword, to its new owner. The feelings of the Stark family had been mixed, to say the least. Robb had accepted the sword and his father's body stoically. Bran had just seemed sad, while little Rickon wailed. Sansa and Arya of course, had been despondent. "Why didn't you help him?" the younger one had screamed at him. Maester Luwin had taken her aside and urged her to be calm. The queen had killed father, and would have killed the flying men too, if she'd been able. It was not their fault he had been betrayed. Huysing still frowned at the memory. He'd had to use all his diplomatic skill explaining that one.
After tonight's feast they were planning to screen 'Pearl Harbor'. As he was dressing in his quarters however, there was a knock at the door. At the command to enter, one of the commandoes poked his head in. "The uh…wildling woman, Osha? She's come back again."
Several times the woman had tried to talk to him when he was with Robb, though the lord had been dismissive of her presence. Just yesterday the Greatjon had knocked her to the ground right in front of them when she'd tried to approach. Huysing had held his tongue. It was not the place of a guest to chastise the Northerners for their behavior in their own home.
The woman was a curiosity however. As far as he could tell, no one else here at Winterfell had ever gone beyond the great Westerosi 'Wall', let alone lived there.
"Let her in" Huysing replied.
The wilding woman was tall and lean, of a height with him. She had a look about her that made him suspect she was not accustomed to feather beds or hot baths. This one is a survivor he thought. The movies they'd been watching always saw modern actors trying to impersonate people in medieval times. Despite all the makeup and costumes, he saw they couldn't quite get it right. Their skin was just too unscarred, their teeth too perfect, their eyes too innocent. He suspected that if he asked, she'd freely admit to having killed others, probably with her bare hands.
"Did you wish to talk to me?" Huysing asked.
"Yes, I do…my lord" she said suddenly. She seemed to hesitate a moment, then got down on one knee.
"No need for that" Huysing said immediately. He grasped her hand and helped her up, then motioned for her to sit on one of the chairs by his desk. The chain around her ankles clanked loudly. "I'm not exactly a lord" he said as he went to pull on a sock. "You can call me Patrick if you like."
"Yes…Patrick" she said, like it was still a formal title.
"What do you wish to talk about?" Huysing asked.
"The lord, Robb Stark, he won't listen to me, no one else here will."
"About what?" Huysing asked patiently.
"He's marching his army the wrong way my…Patrick. He should go going north, not south."
Huysing frowned. He had seen the aerial shots of the Wall. He would have dismissed claims of it being eight hundred feet tall as just another wild tale if he hadn't seen the images himself. Aside perhaps from the Dragon skulls, it was the greatest anomaly on this world they had seen so far. Even with modern methods, it would have been a nightmare to build. The only real explanation they had was its incredible age. The Westerosi or their ancestors must have started building it one day and kept at it for a thousand years or more. The how was one thing. The why remained an open question.
"You were born beyond the Wall?"
"Yes, Patrick."
"I know of it. My people have flown that far north, and gone a bit further. We see endless forest and mountains, maybe the odd village. It seems not many people live north of it."
"Its not people, Patrick. Its worse than men, worse than giants even."
Giants? Huysing had heard talk of this as well. Maester Luwin, usually a reliable aid in separating fact from fiction, claimed they did exist, or at least had. Supposedly farmers dug up their bones from time to time. Greatjon Umber later claimed to have a complete skeleton in his dungeon. The Australians were temped to fly to Last Hearth just to take a look.
"Have you seen a giant then?"
"Oh yes, many" Osha replied. Her face lit up a little. "My brother killed one, teen foot tall she was, and stunted at that. I've seen others twelve or thirteen feet. They're fierce things, all hair and teeth…"
She went on for a little while. Huysing listened politely. Despite appearances, the woman did not sound mad. He felt a twinge of doubt at his own skepticism. Her description didn't sound like the fantasy image of a giant.
Even on Earth, a whole lot of megafauna had gone extinct over the eons, especially once humans had started running around with spears and axes. Mammoths had once existed, Megalodon sharks, giant wombats the size of rhinos…not to mention the dinosaurs. He vaguely recalled too learning about the remains of a giant ape twice the size of a modern gorilla being found in Africa…or was it China? Maybe it wasn't too much of a stretch for people to start calling them 'giants'.
"Alright" he said after while. "I'm curious about the giants. I'll tell my people to look for them, but what's out there that's worse than them?"
For a moment Osha had almost looked glad at his reaction, then she went quiet again. "It's the cold winds…my lord. They're rising again. At night men go out from their fires and never come back, or if they do, they're not men anymore, but wights, with blue eyes and cold, black hands. It's the Others. They turn them, until they're not breathing no more, but they can still move and they come for you in the night."
Huysing blinked. He considered all he had heard about the Wall and the folklore that surrounded it. Maester Luwin had told him the story of the Long Night. He had done so in a skeptical way, describing it as a mere 'tale for the children' but even he had acknowledged the sheer scale of the Wall was hard to explain. He had put the 'Others' in the same category as giants or the 'Children of the Forest'. Perhaps they had once existed, he conceded, but they were gone from the world thousands of years past.
"I have heard of these Others" Huysing said diplomatically. "They're also called White Walkers aren't they?"
"Yes, my lord, that's them for sure."
"Have you seen one?"
Osha seemed to shudder a little. "No, I have not. Whenever one's seen one, they don't live long to tell others do they? But I have seen the dead walk. They're real, I promise you that."
Huysing was tying up his boots now. He rose. "Then I thank you for what you have told me. I will pass it on to my people. Perhaps we need to take a closer look at what lies beyond the Wall."