The Wall
The nights had begun to run longer than the days. There was no Sam on hand, let alone a proper maester, but Edd only had to look at the empty boxes to know for sure. Going through candles near as quick as we are firewood. They scarcely needed bother- what fires the Night's Watch could light were meager flickering things that no wood nor oil could coax to burn any brighter. Or any hotter.
"Lord Commander." Satin's voice made him turn from the much-diminished storeroom to his squire.
"How many today?"
"That's generous of you, my lord."
"Sun sees fit to pop its brow over the horizon a scant few hours, it's day in my book." Edd's words made Satin smile humorlessly.
"Seven men, all on sentry duty or atop the Wall. Found frozen to death this morning." Fuck. That leaves us at what, five-and-eighty?
"Eighty-three, Lord Commander. Including our brothers from the Shadow Tower and Eastwatch." Satin said, as if reading Edd's mind. "We might be eighty-seven if you saw fit to let our…guests join the rest of us."
"That one with the red knot, he's of the same faith as the red witch was. I'm not sure I want him wandering around the castle."
"She did ah, assist Lord Commander Snow."
"Only because it served her purposes, or supposed it served her god's. To count her an ally is to count fire an ally. Fire burns living flesh as well as dead." Satin gulped in response. "Don't suppose we've got anything good for dinner?"
"Not unless you want to try squirrel again." Edd made a face.
"We'll skip dinner, then." he said, a phrase that had all but become the motto of the Watch. "Cheer up. At least there aren't so many of us to feed." he told Satin as they left the chambers that had been Jon Snow's before Edd's and the Old Bear before him. If only he'd stayed around, this would be his mess and he'd see us through it.
They were halfway across the yard, headed for the ice cells, when a snort had Edd ready to catch a charging bull's horns. Instead a massive stallion was milling about in the tiny lichyard aside the keep, primly sniffing at the frostbitten grasses that poked up from the stones. "Oi! Away from there, you!" Satin cried, waving a hand at the horse. A braver man than I, Sat, Edd thought as the stallion regarded them. He bared his teeth but made no further move to aggress, continuing to move through the overgrown stones and small cairns.
"Never mind, Satin. He likes the company of the dead so much, he'll have all he can handle before much longer."
"Where did he come from?"
"No idea. I've never seen him before, I'd remember a horse like that." Edd said as they slowly descended into the cells beneath the castle. No matter how many times he tried to light the sconces, the flames spluttered like a nervous suitor before going out.
"I suppose you know what that means." A flat voice called out from the darkness, making Satin jump. Edd stared into the cell until his eyes adjusted, spotting a man with a rag over one eye and a ghastly pallor leaning on the far wall.
"Aye, I have some idea. It was like this at Hardhome."
"Where they were feet from you instead of leagues. More now, and dearly mightier. Were I you, I'd keep the last of your flock off the Wall when night comes. It might keep them out a bit longer, but a man doesn't need their meddling to freeze to death."
"Are you going to let us out of here or not?" Another voice, younger, brasher.
"Leave it, Anguy. The Lord Commander will do with us as he sees fit." Still a third voice, rough but warm. The red priest.
"Where's the fourth?" Edd asked.
"In the corner. He doesn't talk much." Anguy said, pointing to a huge shadow.
"Not many of us left topside. Those that are remember Stannis and his red witch, they have no love for followers of Red Rahloo." Edd explained.
"Hang R'hllor. I'm cold and hungry. If you can keep me fed and warm I'll send arrows at anything and anyone."
"Well, you're where you belong then. You can call the Night's Watch many things, but 'fed' and 'warm' aren't on the list." In reply Anguy cursed and laid back out on his bench.
"Bleed this. Lord Commander, we'd do better to recruit the horse, at least he dresses to fit the Watch."
"What horse?" A fourth voice, gravelly and short but entirely engaged. The shadow moved and a great burned brute stepped into view, eyes locked on Edd.
"Seven save us, you got him to talk!" Anguy congratulated Edd.
"Some hellwhelp just escaped from the hereafter." Anguy's smirk disappeared.
"Hang on." He turned to the shadow. "You were riding such a beast at the Hand's tourney, and after when we sent you on your way." A huge hand slapped the bars of the cell.
"Don't let him leave." The burned man said.
"We've not got any sugar cubes to tempt him with-" Satin began, interrupted by the sounding of the horn atop the Wall. At the first sounding, Edd waited only for the second. The Watch had no one left in the Haunted Forest. At the second sounding, Edd's ears strained. Had a few wildlings not followed Jon Snow south? At the third sounding he heard chaos break out in the castle above, steel being readied and prayers muttered.
"I think now would be a good time to let us out, Lord Commander." Eyepatch said evenly.
The world ends around him and all he cares for is his horse, Edd thought on watching the burned man bull toward the lichyard. On spotting the stallion his nostrils flared and he broke into a run. Let the fiend kick some sense in that seared skull of his. Though they had no want of arrows or swords, there was a dear lack of men loose or swing them. They aren't dragonglass, either. Edd was joined in the lift by loyal Satin as well as Eyepatch, his pet priest and their butt boy Anguy. The winds got worse the higher they got until Edd could see tears beading in Satins eyes, but neither of the other men gave any sign they were cold.
"Piss from up here and it's like to freeze solid on the way down."
"It'll freeze before you loose in full, lad. Try explaining that to the next girl you have in bed." Edd said without looking at him, making the priest chortle. The lift's tickings creaked and ground to a halt when they made the top, Edd stepping out and turning toward the Haunted Forest at once. There was no sign anything was amiss.
"Don't be fooled. They're out there, sure as death and taxes."
"Oi. You've died a half-dozen times and haven't paid a copper in taxes since you turned outlaw, my lord." Anguy said indignantly. Eyepatch's remaining eye went wide in surprise and even Satin gave a snicker.
"Say rather, sure as snow in winter then." Edd said. The Haunted Forest looked just as it had the last time he'd gone atop the wall. Cold, dark, thoroughly miserable. And all in daylight. The sun, firing up first light shortly before he'd skipped dinner, was already sliding out of sight. "Lazy bastard." Edd swore over prayers to the red god. He was about to give it up when the trees moved. Hundred-foot pines, shaking and swaying like wheat. They were too far away, too high up to hear much beside the wind and their shouts to each other but Edd knew the forest floor must be rumbling, shaking as something enormous moved through it. All the wights ever to rise couldn't do that. He held his breath. Then something stepped out of the tree line, a sliver of white in an ocean of ark green.
I thought it'd be bigger, he thought numbly. Through a Myrish tube with a cracked glass he beheld something man-sized, shrouded in mist and cloaked in a fog that seemed to cling to it regardless of its movements. Straining, he could just make out the figure hidden in the glamor, even the blue eyes that stared out of the squall. He's looking right at me, Edd realized. The sun did not impede or forestall it in the least, though Edd wondered detachedly if that was because of the piddling show Day had become. More figures emerged from the womb of the woods, some armored and others clad in sweeping cloaks. One stepped up to the first, a she-Other wrapped in diamonds and ice, slipping her hand into the storm to perhaps take its bearer's hand. Still another in a mantle with an owl in her arms let the bird fly, heading straight for them. So fixed was Edd on the bird that the others' curses and cries were lost in the wind, yet when the owl reached them it contented itself with perching on a barrel and observing them uninterestedly. It hooted.
"Uhh…do we kill it?" Anguy said uncertainly. The sun disappeared a moment later, the last light fading before it had time to be missed. Something is about to happen. A sound that stirred Edd's memories of Hardhome carried even over the gusts and cries. He sucked in a frigid chestful of breath. Oh, fuck. A star he'd never seen before broke through the cloud cover, bringing queer light to the night. At its appearance a chorus of terrible beauty hit his ears. They're talking. To each other, to us, to the big lads they found who-knows-where. The giants that emerged were no wights, but neither were they the kind the Free Folk held in such high esteem. They had flesh like ivory, hair like snow or straw, and must have stood a dwarf taller than the giants he'd seen before. Horned helms, mammoth pelts and full beards were their raiment, some braided with silver rings. One giant even wore skulls in his waist-length beard. They held huge greataxes or mauls chipped from blocks of ice for the most part, though some few held only wooden staves. These were attended in middling number by another cast of giant, Edd supposed, nine foot tall and lanky to a one. A pebble to the smallest giant, a boulder to the tallest man. The giants certainly didn't seem to give them much due, shoving them aside or simply laying into them with maul or axe if they moved a hair too slow.
A giant with something slung over his shoulder strode into view. Again, the owl hooted. More insistently, to Edd's ears. He's got a horn, he realized. His insides, long turned to ice, felt like they were going to split though his skin. The horn-bearer brushed his long blonde locks out of his eyes and set the horn down, longer and curved at the bottom than a common warhorn. The Others' icy chatter died away and the other giants watched raptly. A staff-wielder with a head as bald as an egg but a beard to his bare feet shrugged off the white fur he wore, standing in only a loincloth. He held his stick to the sky, calling in a voice that rumbled like a stormfront and carried straight to the top of the Wall without the slightest issue. The Old Tongue was unmistakable. He was answered by his kin, short martial grunts. Overhead, thunder rumbled. The owl hooted once more and flew off to rejoin its mistress. Edd was rooted to the spot, watching the goings-on with a struck-dumb fascination. At the sound of the giants' voices, runes etched into the huge horn began to twinkle.
"So that's how they'll do it…" he said, though he could not hear his own words. Another invocation from the elder giant. Another chorus from his kin. The runes grew brighter. Edd turned to the others, watching just as fascinatedly. "The lift." he said curtly, pointing behind them. They piled in, descending as speedily as they dared. The giants' voices carried past the Wall and in Edd's mind he could see the horn's runes glow still brighter. I hope we make it to the bottom before they're ready, he thought. On the lift touching down he was off. "Get away from the Wall!" he cried, the sky overhead going still blacker. Some stared in stunned awe as the sky shook and lightning began to lance down but Edd kept as many men moving clear of the Wall, of Castle Black as he possibly could. Desertion, hell, he thought. You can't desert a post that's about to come down.
The Haunted Forest
He watched the horn glow brighter until it looked fit to sit as stars in the sky. The storm-singer's tempest continued to build, lightning searing the empty earth between them and their obstacle as well as the ground behind it. The past few days, months, years had been the hardest of a life that made the Enemy's seem meager. He had done what none among his race had ever done before, making common cause with allies worthy of the name, bringing beasts to bear against which his Enemy would have no recourse. They feared one who was once of their own, yet he was as insignificant as the race that had borne him, as impotent as the one that had made him. They feared their own dead, when they were the least of what was coming for them. Finally the invocation stopped, though the storm overhead rumbled and crackled in ill-bound fury. The storm-speaker was of a long line though, and his get's get had the horn well in hand. The bald head nodded and his grandling filled his lungs with holy air. He put his mouth to the great horn and the sound that surged forth made the ice before them shake. The invocation resumed, this time sending its ordinance barreling into the icy face and sending great cracks running down its length like the web of a treasured mount. Steps were taken to make sure it did not simply collapse, of course, for he sought to turn the Enemy's great shield against it surely as he did their dead. He braced himself to hold the coming tide, as did his treasured partner and worthy get. The next lance blew a great piece off of the obstacle, one he shaped from a falling whole to a flurry of flakes. In this manner, all across its breadth, his kind would reshape the pieces as they fell into an obstacle of their own, a blizzard that spanned the breadth of the land. The Enemy had built their great bulwark out of ice. Who's notion had that been? Ice held up his flesh, ran through his veins, beat in his chest. He was ice, he and his kind. Piece by piece, the obstacle began to shrink, until at long last it was gone from sight and his view of the lands beyond it was unmarred since the last given such precedence as he enjoyed had reigned. His armies were assembled, his fleets already sent to every coast his get could observe. There was nothing now to stop him.
He was King in the North.
He was King-Beyond-the-Wall.
He was King of Always Winter, and winter had come at last.
