A/N: Chap 36 review responses are in my forums.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: In the Limelight

"Aside from the fact that I am the Lord Commander's daughter and betrothed to Crown Prince Brandon? You'll do as I say because I am Her Grace's senior secretary and I know for a fact that these were gifted to her by the Sealord. I have a very good memory for names and faces, Captain, and it would be a terrible thing if you found yourself in the Sealord's ill graces."

When the burly ship's captain from Braavos arrived with a special shipment for the queen, the man refused to unload them until he received payment and almost drew a blade on the Umber man trying to direct him.

Stannis began walking toward the man, wishing he'd lost his off arm and not his sword arm, when out of nowhere his fourteen-year-old daughter stepped right into the face of man who stood a head and a half taller, and outweighed her by three times at least.

And having had her say, she stared the captain down with a surprisingly calm, determined face so absent of fear she might as well have been the most courageous knight at arms. The captain stared long and hard, and then suddenly burst out laughing. "I like this girl! Chozo, unload the queen's gift! Let's not keep the queen's secretary waiting!"

"Thank you, Captain. I'll make sure the queen sends her appreciation."

Shireen disappeared back into the milling crowds that had so overrun the pier even Stannis was having trouble telling who was doing what. When Davos appeared beside him, he almost tripped. "Gods, man! Where were you?"

"I was watching her, same as you," the former pirate said. He smiled at Stannis, and to the older man's shame he realized that Davos had been for him the only true, friendly smile he'd seen in years. "How fare you, m'lord?"

"Not much with a sword anymore," Stannis admitted. "And you, Lord Admiral? When did you get in?"

"Just now, with four tons of dragonglass arrows, spears...and bombs. Those will do a number on those ice spiders, I reckon."

A heavy weight settled at the back of Stannis mind-a yoke filled with all the words he owed this man. They stayed stuck in the back of his throat. "You've done well with Shireen."

"I done nothing but give her a bed to sleep in," the admiral declared proudly. "The queen trained her right beside Bran. She's to be queen when the time comes, and a good one she'll be. I've no doubt."

"After watching her stare down that captain?" Stannis laughed. It shocked him how good it felt. "I have no doubt either, my friend. Come, I'm willing to bet we can find some spiced wine or ale around here somewhere!"

~~Quintessence~~

~~Quintessence~~

When the Volantine dromund arrived at the Karhold pier the next morning, Stannis Baratheon almost drew his sword despite his injury when he saw the occupants.

Red Priests and Priestesses, more than two hundred in all, stood on the deck when the Lord Commander arrived with a squad of wide-eyed Black Brothers and his daughter. Every one of the newcomers wore the red robes of the order, with ruby chokers and pendants just like Melisandre.

Even Shireen seemed hesitant. Before Stannis could give the order to have them slaughtered as a threat to the kingdom, though, Shireen placed a hand on his arm. "Father, look. Look at what they wear."

Every one wore a pendant over their rubies-as the lead priestess walked down the gangplank in a gown ill-suited for the cold of the North, he saw the shape of it better. It was a crudely fashioned pair of dragon's wings spread horizontal, with a feminine figure holding a sword high bisecting the wings. It formed a cross-shape, and every one wore them.

"You know them?"

Suddenly his daughter lost all fear and smiled up at him. "I shall speak as her grace's secretary, if you allow it."

Having seen how she executed her duties, he could only nod. She'd grown so much in the two years since she'd left. It was not just the healing of her scars, but in her bearing and confidence. She was not a warrior, nor would she ever be, but as she stood beside him he could see about her shoulders a confidence and strength he'd never seen before.

Rhaenys did this, he realized. The queen who defeated him had taken his daughter in, and where he and her mother failed, had forged the young woman into a leader. "Do so," he said aloud.

Shireen stepped bravely to the first priestess. "Zhan-Li, who have you brought to us?"

The priestess looked exotic, from the far lands beyond the Summer Sea. She bowed to Shireen. "Blessed Acolyte, I have brought the most powerful priests and priestesses of the Temples who have accepted the word of our queen as the one true Prophet of the Lord of Light. We stand ready to combat the darkness with her holiness. We also bring five thousand temple guards and two months' provisions."

This last she said toward Stannis. "In Her name," the woman added.

"In Her name," Shireen echoed. "Lord Commander, the Queen will have need of these warriors of light. Their fires can help us hold back the ice cloud the White Walkers use to shroud their numbers. Can we dedicate the next train to them?"

When it came to magic, Stannis knew better than to try and put his foot down. "As you say, Lady Baratheon."

She glanced back at him, searchingly. Her smile was slow, but something about it momentarily made it hard for Stannis to breathe.

~~Quintessence~~

~~Quintessence~~

Within a day of the Red Priest's arrival, the men of the North had taken to calling them Dragon Priests. Even if they had not been an order dedicated to the teachings of the Dragon Queen-the pendants alone were enough to make the name stick.

"I'm really not sure how to feel about them," Taylor admitted to Bran as they walked through the third bulwark of Ser Hightower's defenses.

Bran shrugged. "Shireen tells me that Melisandre burned people in sacrifice to the gods. Quaithe told me it was common. But the dragon priests took your word as guidance from R'hllor himself that human sacrifice was a sin. They're stomping it out."

"Is this your way of telling me to shut up and deal with it?"

When they were alone, Bran found Taylor the Bendu Master a far, far different person than Rhaenys the Queen. And as his own training came along, he discovered to both his shock and joy that she spoke to him not as a boy, or even as a student, but as a friend and confidant.

"I'd never presume to say such a thing to my master," he told her with a straight face.

She snorted laughter before stopping and making a note about a break in the fortification to be repaired.

"Still," Bran continued. "From what I've learned the Red Temples were steeped in dark magic, blood and sacrifice. Zhan-Li has been changing that. Varys told me that High Priestess Kinvara of Volantis has personally accepted your word as the Prophet of the Lord of Light, and Volantis no longer performs sacrifices. She publicly wears your pendant."

Bran knew she'd received the same report-Varys knew to always make his reports to the queen first.

Though she scowled, Bran knew his queen would understand. "I can't stop faith," she finally admitted to herself. "But I might be able to shape it for the better. Religion has been used on my world to shape empires."

"And will be again, I have no doubt."

She glanced north. The near black wall of cloud that rose so high into the sky that it was hard to breathe atop their dragons hung on the horizon, not even a day away.

"They're going to strike at night," the queen said with dread certainty. "It's when the Night King's power is unfettered by the light."

"It is a good thing, then, that we have light to pierce the darkness," Bran said.

"I'll need you at the Godswood," she said.

"I'll be there," Bran promised.

~~Quintessence~~

~~Quintessence~~

When the attack came, the dead had no need for subtlety. The icy clouds surged forward with unnatural speed, cloaking the waves of the dead within their darkened depths.

Taylor stood on the highest, final set of defenses with the canons. The canons themselves looked nothing like modern canons—the Westerosi still didn't have the metallurgy necessary. Instead, the cannons looked almost like fat, short mortars. The balls they fired were, themselves, fused bombs packed with wildfire and dragon glass. They had the weapons ranged just past the first defensive bulwark through long practice.

In the back of her mind, she felt her young apprentice. A godswood lay a quarter mile southeast. She had a squad of unsullied near him, with Saphira ready to stand guard if he was threatened. Through the power of the weir wood trees, Brandon could see the breadth of the kingdom with a clarity and power Taylor could never hope to achieve.

Ice spiders come. Fire on my mark.

The horse-sized arachnids were truly the stuff of nightmare, and would easily rip through multiple lines of their defense to open the paths for the dead. She raised a torch in her hand and listened with satisfaction as orders to prime and load were given. They only had ten of the massive weapons, and the exorbitant cost could have fed the entire city of King's Landing for a year.

It was worth it.

Now! Taylor moved the torch down.

Robb Stark, Baelor Hightower and a dozen other voices roared, "FIRE!"

The shouted command rang up and down the defensive wall, and the air was suddenly filled with burning pitch as fuses were lit. The cannons boomed, one after the other in quick succession, and sent their large balls of death flying over the heads of her men. They disappeared briefly into the thick shield of cloud. Seconds later the clouds illuminated in first yellow, and then green light. The sounds of the explosions were muted by the clouds, but the high, inhuman shrieks carried.

She raised the torch again as Bran shared his vision with her directly. All up and down the wall, newly trained men primed and loaded the primitive cannons. The Night King had only twenty of the massive, primordial spiders left from his taking of the Wall. With the death of five, he must have decided to be more cautious. Had he ever seen explosives? Did he understand what he faced?

Was his vision as clear as Bran's?

Regardless, the will of the Night King instantly moved through his horde of bodies. The spiders moved forward again, but this time were accompanied by shadow cats, dead mammoths and four giants.

Taylor raised a second torch beside the first. Below, a similar torch was raised in each of the defensive lines as the signal was passed. When Bran's vision warned her when to fire, she dropped both torches.

The cannons fired. Below, the trebuchets launched their first salvo of wild fire. The next line up fired as well, throwing out small shrapnel bombs. Each line fired in succession. And through Bran's magical vision, Taylor had the pleasure of watching ice spiders shrivel, dead shadow cats and mammoths burn, and the walking corpses of giants collapse under their own weight as their tendons burned away.

The horde stopped as the largest and most powerful members of their army burned just within the protective shield of cloud. "Dragon glass arrows," Taylor commanded.

Robb Stark bellowed the command, which was echoed down each line of fortification. There were no flaming arrows; the dead were not intimidated by show. The hatred Taylor felt from the demonic beings at the back of the army of the dead did not care how many of their forces they lost. They presumed to turn those their army killed to replenish their numbers.

Twenty thousand arrows, tipped with dragon glass, flew in an arc into the cloud. There was no sound—no screams to indicate success or not. But with the breadth of Bran's vision, Taylor knew that almost half the arrows found their mark.

The Night King must have realized that his slow, ponderous march of intimidation was merely costing him his forces. When they came, they came all at once. "Prepare for combat!" She screamed the order, and it was echoed down the line.

Behind the wall, two hundred of the most potent wielders of magic on Essos began chanting Shadow tongue spells. The cloud recoiled as if struck. "Lights!"

A magic of a different sort ignited as quicklime began to burn under bellows, directed by mirrors to form primitive spotlights. The brilliant, piercing white lights shone down in beams, each from a casing newly arrived from Braavos, and for the first time they saw their enemy.

All of their preparation in building that first bulwark bought them only five minutes. Taylor's stomach sank in horror as five thousand men died in five minutes under the concerted onslaught of silent corpses.

The tattered survivors fell back as best they could over planks across the wild fire-laced moats. The dead quickly began pushing against the second bulwark when one brave soldier threw himself and his torch into the moat to save his brethren from being overrun.

The wild fire of the first trench erupted in a burst of green flame and immolated not just the dead of the enemy, but the dead of the newly fallen as well. The fire was never just about killing the enemy, but limiting their ability to revive the fallen.

It bought the defenders at the second bulwark precious seconds. Taylor bought them more with more artillery. Full salvos flew from every cannon and trebuchet they had. Every archer let fly en masse. Thousands of the dead simply collapsed like puppets with cut strings; thousands more came rushing over the fallen bodies.

The red priests continued to chant; the tone of their voices took on a shrill quality as they fought to overcome a terrible magic that Taylor could feel like slime in the air.

The next wave of dead used their fallen brethren as filler to douse the green flame in rotting flesh. Some didn't even wait and caught fire as they began rushing the second bulwark. The second line held longer and put up a valiant fight as they saw that the enemy could fall. They wielded dragon-glass tipped spears or cudgels. But despite the defenders' courage, sheer numbers again overwhelmed them.

Taylor was glad to see more men survive to cross the planks to the third bulwark. The dead charged over, dragging too many down as they fled, until a torch once more lit wild fire to steal more of fresh bodies from the Night King's power.

We're being flanked, Bran whispered to her through their Force bond. He shared the vision of several thousand dead moving through the forest heading right toward Bran himself. Two white walkers moved among them.

Taylor closed her eyes and shared the vision with Temeraire, who nested a few hundred feet behind the barracks. He did not roar or screech; but he quickly rose into the air, as did Saphira further in the distance.

Bran assured her that the Night King could kill a dragon; he'd had visions of the Night King sweeping across Westeros on the back of an undead Saphira. But the individual white walkers did not have the power of their master. And the dead they commanded?

The forests to her left exploded into flame as the two massive dragons, both directed by Bran's powerful vision, burned the flanking attempt to ash. Both of the White Walkers themselves perished as well.

The assault on the Third Bulwark intensified as the two dragons flew behind the fortifications and attacked another flanking attempt on the other side of the fortifications.

"Are we even making a dent?" Robb shouted over the din of the cannon fire.

"We're making more than a dent," Taylor assured him.

The third bulwark lasted thirty minutes. The fighting never ceased; every defender who fell had another step forward to hold back the tide, while trebuchets, cannons and hand-lobbed bombs continued to shatter the walking corpses. Finally, the line broke and they retreated to the fourth and final bulwark before the main wall. So close, Taylor could make out the unnatural glowing blue eyes of the dead.

One of the limelight's went out, the quicklime exhausted. The chanting behind the wall began to falter and the wall of ice and snow inched forward. Taylor knew the Night King himself stood just on the other side of the cloud with most of his White Walkers. He was waiting, she knew. Waiting for her to do something stupid.

"Lord Royce," Taylor shouted. "It's time to do some flanking of our own."

The Vale lord nodded somberly, knowing full well that what he was about to do would get many men killed. He gave the order regardless.

As the dead fell upon the fourth bulwark, which was set further back from the third than the other defensive structures, the ground began to shake as a distant thunder that had nothing to do with the clouds roared across the battleground.

Ten thousand knights of the Vale and heavy Northern horse swept onto the battlefield around the far ends of the bulwarks like two pincers. They rode in pairs—a lancer with a lance tipped in obsidian on the first horse, and a Stark bannerman assigned to keep the dead off the first man's back.

They fell upon the flanks of the dead ten men abreast in horses draped in steel. The walking corpses barely slowed their passage as the formations of soldiers cut their way through the rear Night King's army. Many fell—Taylor could see under the glare of the limelights how many of the knights were swarmed under. But most survived the run and made their way back to their mustering spots.

The fourth bulwark held. The limelight shone out across the seemingly endless field, and suddenly spotted its end. Beside her, Robb and Baelor and others saw it too—a spot of clear land between the dead, and their mounted, silent masters.

A roar rose up among the defenders as they realized that it was hope the limelight showed them. And it was against that hope that the Night King surged toward. He rose up in the saddle of his undead mount and threw forward a spear of ice.

Taylor's stomach dropped when the spear flew further than a trebuchet could shoot and shattered another of their limelights. Then he and the hundred or so of his White Walkers charged forward. The dead parted for them without spoken commands, and then filled in again around them.

Taylor looked down at the fourth bulwark. Jon Snow, exhausted and worn from the fighting retreat he commanded that saved thousands of men from the wall, saw the approaching Night King and White Walkers and braced himself without a moment's hesitation.

This is it. Taylor pulled her blaster, flipped out the stock, took aim, and fired a double-charged shot. The green blaster bolt of super-accelerated particles slammed into the chest of a white walker and punched right through. The demon dropped from his saddle and did not stir after.

Magic, meet physics.

She switched back to single charge shots to conserve ammo and fired at another. Her shot missed; a second took the white walker's sword arm off at the shoulder. The onslaught of new fire that was neither magic nor obsidian caused even the Night King a moment's hesitation. Taylor, however, did not hesitate as she targeted the most dangerous combatants on the field.

One of the demons made the bulwark line and Jon engaged with his Valyrian steel blade. Taylor targeted Others around the man, not wanting to risk hitting her own. She'd managed to kill thirty of the monsters when her blaster exhausted its charge. She holstered it and looked around at the astonished men around her. "That's it for my blaster. Gentleman...for Westeros!"

She lit her lightsabers, and with the Force as her ally, jumped down into the midst of the defenders. With another ringing cry of "For Westeros!" she jumped up to the palisade line and beheaded another White Walker.

"They will not pass!" The Force carried her voice all across the line. "The Night Ends here!"

Her men answered with cries and shouts, and for the very first time the tide of the dead stopped advancing. Taylor danced up and down the line, head-hunting the remaining White Walkers, until finally the Night King had no choice but to strike at her directly.

It was not the Force, but Bran screaming in her mind, that gave her sufficient warning to spin away from the spear of ice the Night King sent at her. The projectile ripped through three men behind her and then pierced the wall to a depth of two feet. She turned and saw cold, hate-filled blue eyes staring at her.

The Night King looked like a frozen, reanimated Zabrak from her old master's memories of that galaxy so far away. The blade he pulled was no lightsaber, but rather a construct of steel and super-dense ice draped in the darkest magic. As his flailing army charged the line with one last frenzy of hate, he walked steadily right toward her.

She jumped down to meet him as ten thousand Westerosi charged over with her. Any man who got too close to the Night King was struck down like an insect. The demon's touch meant instant death. The soldiers learned quickly and instead concentrated on those their dragon-glass could more easily claim.

No words, no banter. This was no human trying to intimidate her. The demon rushed forward with his sword raised to strike, and Taylor met him with her sabers at the ready.

He swung down; even with the Force she could not have parried the blow. Instead, she rolled forward under and past it, and slashed both her sabers behind her.

The blades did not cut him so much as just push him back. He recovered with inhuman speed, and battle was joined. His attack was relentless and powerful; he was far stronger than any baseline human. Far faster as well.

Taylor, though, had sparred with Alexandria herself. She'd fought beings who could lift tens of thousands of tons and fly around the world in minutes. Though she had no doubt this creature could kill her, and she felt a thrill of fear every time that icy sword of his drew close, she felt sure she could give him a good fight.

The Force guided all; she fell into a deep meditation that guided her men just like when she was with the PRT or the expeditionary forces in New Zealand. She unconsciously felt and directed every blade, including her own. As the dead fell around them, she could feel the air grow colder and colder as the rage of the demon grew more pronounced.

At some point, the fighting around them tapered off until it was only her and the demon king. A ring of men stood around at a safe distance, watching in horrified fascination as she fought the monster that threatened their whole world.

He struck again and again, inexhaustible. The Force was her ally and helped speed her steps and instincts, until she scored her first true hit. Her left lightsaber slid past his inner defense, and with far more strength than should have been necessary for a blade that could burn through tungsten, she stabbed deep into the ball joint of his left arm.

The limb fell useless against his side-there was no physical mechanism left to animate the limb.

The blow raised a cheer as the demon stumbled back. Ignoring all those around them, he sneered at her. For the first and only time, he opened his mouth and spoke. "Jed'aii."

The word startled her. Her concentration broke, and in that one split second he struck so fast his body blurred. Burning cold slid past her Kevlar and steel armor, biting into her stomach. Cold blue eyes glared at her in rage.

"I am Bendu," she hissed through gritted teeth.

Ignoring the mortal blow, she brought both her blades up and with a scream scissored the creature's head from his body. Almost immediately, his body shattered like broken glass. All around, those few dead who continued to fight collapsed as the dark magic that animated them fell.

Around them, the dark wall of ice and snow broke apart with one last, triumphantly shouted spell from the shadow binders behind the last fortification. As Taylor fell back, she was astonished to see the sun rising in the east. They hadn't been fighting that long, had they?

A gentle arm cradled her shoulder. She looked up into the red-rimmed eyes of a bleeding, blood-covered Jon Snow. "Your grace."

"We won," she told him.

He shook his head, as if on the verge of tears. "Oh, no. Oh, your grace…."

"It'll be okay, Jon," Taylor assured him. She no longer felt so cold, just very heavy and tired. "It'll be okay now. I just need to rest a little. It's been a long night; I'm tired."

She heard him screaming for help; she heard lots of voices talking; shouting. Crying. She closed her eyes, though, and let the peace come. It'd been a long night; surely, she deserved a chance to rest.