The Wolfswood was quiet around him. The falling snow blanketed everything around him. Even the crackling of the torch he carried seemed muted. It had started to snow days ago, and the storm showed no signs of abating anytime soon. Already the ground was covered with several feet of the stuff. He hoped that his parents had been able to get the last harvest in before the storm hit. They weren't likely to see another until the spring thaw now.

Normally, he would have been there to help them bring in the last few crops, but then the Young Wolf had called his banners and some lordling had ridden up to his family's farm and told him he was a soldier now and to come with him. That had been nearly two years ago and he hadn't seen hide nor hair of his home since. Not that he was complaining about it. "Home" had never been much to look at to begin with. And ever since he'd marched off to war, his life had been a busy one with few opportunities to reflect on his life.

Marching under the banner of the Leech Lord had left him precious little time to himself. If he wasn't fighting, they were either training to fight, sharpening their weapons, fixing their kit (what of it they had, anyway) or building or striking down one encampment or another. It hadn't been an all together bad experience for him so far. He'd gotten to see far more of the world than he had ever dreamed he would. After all, until that lordling came pounding up on his courser, Eddard had never been more than five miles from his front door.

That first fight he'd been in, well, it hadn't been much of a fight. Lord Bolton had ordered them to withdraw before he'd even had a chance to see the enemy. But later on back in the camp, he'd bragged about the men he'd killed in the fight all the same and some of the green boys they'd run into after seemed to almost be in awe of a "veteran" like him.

Of course, that was just the first fight. The ones after that were rather different. Eddard found that he had a knack for fighting down in the Riverlands. He'd started his war with no armor to speak of and nothing but the scythe he was holding when he'd been ordered to march south. After his first real fight he took the opportunity to do a little judicious looting. And while most of his fellows went after gold, silver and gems, he stripped arms and armor. Oh to be sure, he'd taken his share of silver as well when he found it. But by his reckoning, he'd actually get to live to spend his money if he had better equipment.

That was how he'd come to find himself the proud owner of a dented and scared breastplate of plain grey steel, a halfhelm that didn't have too much rust on it, an arming sword that had a wickedly sharp edge to it, a mismatched pair of bracers, a pair of excellent gauntlets and his most prized possession, a poleaxe that he'd looted from the corpse of a dead knight. Old Tom had said he looked half a fool in his mismatched armor the first, and last, time he'd seen him wear it all. But Eddard had the last laugh that day. Old Tom had got his head split open by an axe that afternoon. No one laughed about his armor after that.

By the time the Red Wedding happened, he was a sergeant and was seriously thinking about trying to find a place in some Lord's household guard after the war. After all, who would want to go back to living in pig shit when you could live in relative comfort in a castle? Even life in a castle barracks had to be vastly better than anything he'd experienced so far in his life.

The Red Wedding. Thinking of that brought back some memories. Now that was a nasty business. When he'd been told what they were supposed to do, he'd been surprised. After all, weren't they winning the war? Outside of that first battle, they hadn't suffered a single defeat in the field. Not that he knew of, anyway.

He briefly wondered why he was being ordered to kill his fellow soldiers, but then he realized that it didn't really matter why. He had his orders, and he'd carry them out. The surprise on the faces of those Manderly men when he and his men fell on them was a sight to behold. He'd done more killing that one night than he had in the entire war up to that point. Mostly, it hadn't bothered him. But there was that one lad. The way he whimpered and cried for his mother while he lay in the dirt, trying to stuff his guts back in his belly after he'd sliced him open with his poleaxe. Eddard shuddered at that memory. When he dreamed anymore, it was of that boy. He didn't do much killing after that.

Maybe that was why he'd been sent out here by Lord Bolton? He was supposed to be attacking the wildlings up in the Gift. That part he understood. Hell, he'd grown up hearing stories of how savage the wildlings were and he was happy to pay them back in kind for all the horror they sowed on the land. What he didn't understand was why he had been told to paint a crude roaring giant on his breastplate and why they were marching under a banner with the same picture on it. Someone had told him that the picture was the sign of House Umber and the Umbers hated the wildlings more than most. Maybe the savages would be scared of them? Who knows.

All he really knew now was that the plan had gone to hell once that first snowflake fell. They had found a village to camp in, what had become of the villagers no one knew. Someone suggested that they might have moved to the Wintertown down by Winterfell for the winter. Eddard didn't know, and he didn't really care. All he cared about was that they had a place to stay mostly warm and mostly dry. But then the snow didn't stop falling. Most of the houses in the village were buried up to their roofs by the snow and only constant shoveling and the running of ropes between buildings let anyone move about the village safely.

He had the worst of it though if you asked him. He was a sergeant, so it was his job to make sure the rest of the men were doing their jobs. The little bastard lordling that was their commander couldn't be bothered to get off his arse and do it himself. Oh no, this task was far to lowly for the likes of him. Instead Eddard had to trudge through the snow, freezing his balls off just to make sure the sentries were awake and not off fucking each other or one of the goats that they'd found wandering the woods nearby.

Fortunately for his men, they were all doing what they were supposed to. And a good thing too. With how foul his mood was tonight he'd have beaten anyone bloody if he'd found them asleep at their post. He had just left the last guard post he had to check when he a very soft sound coming from his left. It almost sounded like snow falling off a branch. What in the name of the Old Gods would be stirring on a night like this?

When Eddard turned around to ask the guard he'd just left if he'd heard anything, he was surprised to see a man with long grey hair wearing a black cloak slashed with red silk standing behind him. "Did you southorns really think you'd be able to slip up on us that easily, lad?" The man asked him.

For a moment, Edd stood there frozen in surprise. But then the instincts that he'd honed on the battlefield came rushing back to him and his right hand shot down to where his sword hung at his side. Before he could even draw the blade from his scabbard, he felt something cold and hard slam into the back of his head. As the world turned black and he fell, he heard a voice that sounded as if it was coming from miles away say, "Fucking traitor scum."

Eddard awoke slowly to the world around him. As he woke, he couldn't quite stop a groan from escaping his lips. Seven hells, he hurt so bad that he would rather be dead! What the fuck had hit him? As he gradually recovered, it began to come back to him. The sound he had heard out in the woods, the man standing behind him, the halfway glimpsed form of the sentry slumped over with his blood staining the snow red. He tried to move then and found that he had been tightly bound hand and foot. He felt his fear pick up another notch at that.

Ed debated whether he should try and turn himself to see more of the camp or stay still in the hopes that whoever was out here with them would ignore him. The decision was taken out of his hands though when one of the men guarding him called out, "M'lord! One of these gutter rats is awake. You want to question him? Or should I just slit his throat now?"

"Bring him here, Arin. A dead man can't give me the answers I need. If I don't like what I hear, then you can kill him."

"Alright, up with you sonny."

With barely a grunt, the guard that had spoken up lifted Eddard up and carried him over to where a giant of a man with a patch over one eye sat before a blazing fire. Beside him was the man in the black and red cloak. The guard dumped Ed on the floor before stamping back over to his post just in case anyone else woke up.

The one eyed man said, "I may only have one eye, but even I can see that you're not one of my men. Gods, who painted that giant on your breastplate? My great-grandson could do better and he hasn't even been born yet. What, did you pay some blind whore to do it while she was sucking your cock?"

"M...M'lord?" Eddard stammered. "I was ordered to come here, to join with the rest of your men to throw the wildlings back beyond the Wall."

Eddard could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. He, and the rest of the men with him, had all been given a story to tell incase they actually came upon any of the men that actually served the Umbers. Hopefully his tale would hold up long enough for him to be cut loose and get the hell out of here.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," said the man in the cloak. "Oh, son. You may not realize it just yet, but you are truly and utterly fucked. I don't know who you are, I don't rightly care who you are. But there's a few things you should know. And once you know them, maybe you'd like to change your story and tell us true.

"My name is Mance Rayder. I'm the King-Beyond-the-Wall. In case you don't know the term, I lead the free folk that you want to kill. This ugly bastard beside me is Mors Umber, castellan of Last Hearth and the grandfather of my wife. So when he tells me that the men we've been tracking aren't any of his, despite the banners you were flying, I'm inclined to believe him. Now, something you may not realize, is that me and my people were invited to pass through the Wall by your King in the North, Jon Stark. And seeing as I'm kin to Lord Umber here, well, he and his people aren't looking to throw us out anytime soon. So your whole tale has fallen apart on you.

"Now, you and yours may think you move through the woods quietly. Hells, for southorn kneelers, you actually might. But you're like a child compared to my people. We've known you were here since before the storm started. It was child's play slipping up on you. This little dusting is nothing for me and my people to travel. North of the Wall this wouldn't even be noticed. And just as it was child's play for us to slip up on you unnoticed, it'll be child's play getting the truth out of you.

"No doubt you've heard the stories about what my people do to southoners. Son, you haven't heard the half of it. By the time death comes for you, you'll be begging for it."

Mance's eyes shined at that last bit. And as he said it, he pulled a wicked looking dagger out of it's sheath and began toying with the blade. It looked razor sharp. Eddard sobbed and began to tell them everything he knew.