[A/N: Major announcement at bottom of chapter regarding potential title change]
Far in the north, the new Lord Commander watched the last knights of Stannis' army ride over the horizon.
Stannis and his men left Castle Black the day after Jon was elected as the new Lord Commander. "I need to march upon the Dreadfort while the roads are still clear. Before the Northmen all declare for that half-sister of yours," the King declared. "Haven't you heard? King's Landing has fallen into the hands of the Northmen, and a band of mercenaries who took over the Isle of Faces and set up camp there. Rumors say Sansa Stark has been rescued. They've found Arya Stark as well."
To this Jon made no reply. He had learned about events in the South the day Stannis' knights tore through the wildlings like a warm knife through butter, when a letter arrived at Castle Black's rookery, written in his sister's sloppy handwriting. Death and destruction befell the Lannisters only three weeks after the Red Wedding, in a wedding of their own no less, and King's Landing had fallen to a people called the Alexandrians who were allied to the victorious Northmen. Now the Kingdom of the North and their new allies were sending men north in a grand expedition. Arya was even going to visit the Wall herself.
Not just Arya anymore, Jon chided himself. Not even Princess Arya, but Queen Arya Stark of the North and Trident, First of Her Name. It seemed like only yesterday when Jon had hugged her tight in his arms, and gifted her very first sword.
"I've written to King's Landing asking Sansa to bend the knee. I heard the Northmen mean to crown her. For your sake I hope she rejects their false crown, lest she live out her days as a Silent Sister. As for the men at the God's Eye…" Stannis sighed. "Invaders are not as vile as traitors. They can keep their little island so long as they do not seek to expand beyond the Lake, and send me their leader's son to serve as one of my squires. His betrothal to Arya will be annulled, I'm afraid. If he's as clever and brave as the rumors say, I mean to wed him to Shireen."
Jon held his tongue once again. The Northmen were his kin and had crowned Arya their queen, just as they crowned Robb king before her. But it was Stannis and his men who had emerged from the snow to save the Watch in its hour of need, it was Stannis who came to the Wall to defend the realms of men. If the two ever came to blows… Jon shivered. The King-beyond-the-Wall had melted back into the Haunted Forest with much of his host before Stannis could run down the stragglers, but he would be back one day with his men, to besiege Castle Black once again. Maybe they would all have blue eyes then.
Luckily the Night's Watch did not have long to wait for reinforcements. The new recruits arrived the next day, all the way from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. Just as well, Jon thought as he stared at one of the shivering recruits. Joffrey might not have a drop of royal blood in his veins, but Stannis would have burned him nevertheless.
Passing Joffrey and all the other westermen, Jon stopped in front of one of the new recruits, a balding man in a short black leather coat that was fastened in the middle by a line of metal chains. "You're not a Westerosi," Jon remarked.
"Well shit kid who'd have fucking guessed that? Fucking Captain Obvious. Does this zipper look Westerosi to you?"
"It's the Lord Commander," Grenn corrected. "Not Captain. And his name is Jon Snow."
"Fine, Lord Fucking Commander Obvious. Next you're going to ask whether I'm one of those mysterious guys who popped up in the South, so let's get that shit out of the way." The bald man stepped forwards until he towered over Jon. "Yes, I fucking am!"
"Then you will know the seal at the bottom of this letter." Jon gave the letter to the man. "I still do not know your name."
"I'm Negan." The man took the parchment and read. "That's the Alexandrian seal, fucking eagle and all. Obviously the wedding was a clusterfuck, or all these fuckers next to me wouldn't be here freezing their balls off at the Wall!" He suddenly let out a hearty laugh. "CARL? Carl's gotten a girlfriend? Guess that little shit's growing up. Even compared to the grown ups he's the craziest lil'motherfucker I'd ever seen, that one. Not literally of course, unlike those Lannister brotherfuckers, sisterfuckers, cousinfuckers-"
"Watch your tongue, or I'll-" Joffrey's voice broke as he shouted.
"Or what you little bastard? You'll tear them out with pincers, like in those medieval movies? Why don't you go relieve some stress by fucking your sister instead. It's your family tradition after all!"
"The Night's Watch is sworn to celibacy. And I do not know if it is the same for your people, but here in Westeros brother laying with sister is a vile sin in the eyes of the old gods and the new. But I think we had talked far too long about fucking," Jon stated drily. He pointed at the spear-like object slung behind Negan's back. "Is that an Alexandrian 'gun'? Show us how to use it."
"Right, I'll show you how to shoot this motherfucker." Negan unslung the gun on his back, lit the piece of string on the side, poured a black powder and an iron ball down the long tube, and pointed the gun at an archery target on the other side of the yard. As if on cue, the other recruits threw themselves onto the ground and covered their heads.
"The one-eyed kid scared the hell outta all you little shits?" Negan sneered as he pulled the trigger.
When the smoke finally cleared, Jon raced across the yard. A thumb-sized hole was neatly drilled into the target.
"Grenn, pick the best marksmen at Castle Black and learn gunnery from this Negan. Pyp, settle in the new recruits. Edd, go fetch Sam. I'll need to talk to him."
Half an hour later, Jon was reading Maester Aemon's letter when he heard a knock on the door. "Come in," Jon ordered. "I'm sure you've read a lot about the Others. Now tell me about our enemy."
"The Others. They are often mentioned in the annals, though not as often as I would have thought…" Sam licked his lips. Then he spoke of the creatures that came in times of cold, creatures that were the terrors of the night, riding ice spiders as they came south to crush the living. They feared fire, but it was obsidian that would destroy them, along with this 'dragonsteel' that was mentioned in but one account of the Long Night. "Valyrian steel?" Jon asked, yet there was no way to be sure. Not that there was much Valyrian steel around in the first place.
We will need more men, and more weapons that could fight the Others, Jon decided. He had seen that faint flash of blue to the South when he was manning the Wall more than two months ago, flickering like those queer lights that men said could be seen in the Shivering Sea. Did the Alexandrians come to help them fight the Others? Jon wondered. Aemon had proposed the theory when that letter from the South first arrived. True or not, it didn't hurt to ask for help.
"There are hundreds more books…"
"There is no more time," Jon interrupted. "You need to pack your things, Sam, and Gilly too. You're going to Alexandria."
"What for, my lord?"
"I need you to learn everything there is to know about the Alexandrians. They are better than us in the ways of war, and Arya wrote they've had their fill of the undead in their own world." Jon dipped pen in ink and began to write on Aemon's letter. It would be better for Sam to have an introduction from the Lord Commander himself, he decided, in case the Maester's word wasn't enough. "It could be that they have some way to fight the Others. Maybe they have obsidian darts that could be loosed from their guns, or steel that does not shatter in the cold. Or something else that we do not know of. If they do not, you will work with their blacksmiths and maesters to devise weapons that could. Go to Oldtown if need be. There are more old books there than Castle Black. Some might even contain things that neither us nor the Alexandrians know."
"O-oldtown?" Sam's face began to pale.
"Only if you have to. I would have sent you to train as a maester, we'll have need of every one of them at the Wall when the time comes, but Alexandria now comes first." So few people, so little time. "The Myraham will bring you to Braavos. From there you will find your own way to King's Landing, and make for the Red Keep." Jon set down his pen and waited for the ink to dry. Then he handed the letter to Sam. "When you arrive at the Red Keep, present this letter to the Alexandrian king, or his son if the king is not there. If they're so good as to give us all these guns of theirs without asking anything in return, they might be kind enough to give you and Gilly lodgings and bread, and work to earn a living. Aemon will go with you too."
"Aemon? Maester Aemon? But… but he's a hundred and two years old, my lord, he can't-"
"His life will be at risk, I'm aware of that, but the risk is greater here. Stannis knows who Aemon is. If the red woman required kingsblood for her spells…" Stannis may be gone, but part of his court remained at Castle Black, Melisandre was among those who stayed behind. Besides, it would be nice for the old maester to spend at least some of his twilight years in the city where he was born and raised. He deserved at least as much after decades of faithful service to the Watch. "Dareon will join you at Eastwatch. I hope that his songs will be able to win us some men in the south, some guns, even some Alexandrians themselves if the gods are good. You will speak of your own deeds too, Sam the Slayer."
"Sam the Slayer? More like Sam the Scared, my lord."
"Scared? Scared of what? The chidings of old men? The mockery of southrons who lost their capital to a child?" Jon slammed his hand against the table so hard that his hand hurt. "Sam, you saw the wights come swarming up the Fist, a tide of living dead men with black hands and bright blue eyes. You slew an Other with a dragonglass dagger and lived to tell the tale. Surely the Alexandrians would have to respect that."
"Does Maester Aemon know?" Sam asked.
"It was his idea as much as mine." Jon stood up and opened the door for Sam. "No farewells. The fewer folks know of this, the better. An hour by first light, at the lichyard."
Far to the south, another dark-haired youth watched the crowd of Flea Bottomers massed in front of the East Barracks.
They were far fewer than the horde that swarmed over the Sept of Baelor the day Tywin and Joffrey were put on trial, but still numerous enough to surround the East Barracks several times over. And they were more patient too. Tent after tent had sprung up on the nearby streets ever since Carl fled to the barracks with his entourage two days ago. There were even campfires and a few laundry lines, not unlike those of the survivor camp he lived in during those early days of his world's walker apocalypse.
Carl turned and looked down at the boxes of bread that would soon be brought to the cellars below. They could hold out for a few more days, perhaps even longer. The East Barracks had its own well, and while the Flea Bottomers blocked any Crownlanders or Alexandrians from entering or leaving the barracks, the Northmen were able to travel freely. Thrice they had visited the barracks with food. They deemed it too dangerous for Arya to stay, but Wylis and a dozen musketeers remained behind after the last visit, standing guard behind the barricaded gate. Not that the Flea Bottomers had tried to storm the barracks anyway. If there was one thing both sides agreed on right now, it was to not have a bloodbath.
Humphrey Waters joined Carl upon the Barracks' walls. "We can get you across to the Dragon Gate, my lord. We'll lower you down onto the houses on the west under the cover of night, where my handpicked team of men will join you. From there they will smuggle you across two streets, and take you into the Gate through a side door the smallfolk don't seem to be aware of."
It was a tempting proposal. Carl shook his head nonetheless. "Won't help. They'll go straight to the Red Keep once they realise I'm gone. Besides, I came here to talk to the holdouts in the first place, and I'll need to do so sooner or later anyway."
"The Red Keep is far more defensible than these humble barracks, and easier to supply," Humphrey insisted. "You can still receive the Flea Bottomers' petitions from the safety of the Red Keep. And if they are too much of a nuisance, you could leave the Red Keep from any of the city's seven gates. There aren't nearly enough petitioners to block them all. Or-"
It isn't much of a nuisance anyway, Carl thought. Years of hiding in houses from roaming walkers had turned the Alexandrians into a patient folk. It had taught the Alexandrians something else too. "When this shit is over, I want you guys to dig a tunnel from here to the Dragon Gate. Then dig the other way into the Dragonpit's caves. It has to be wide enough for three soldiers to walk side by side. If you can make it even bigger, it'll be nice to have a tunnel that can fit a whole cart through." Tunnels couldn't deal with the problem at hand, however. "You were saying?"
"Pardon me, but I say you Alexandrians should have ordered the remaining smallfolk out and paid them enough coin for their troubles. Most of Flea Bottom had already taken your father's offer. There are only a few hundred on the streets left, a few thousand at most. Give the word, my lord, and the streets will be clear by nightfall, all of Flea Bottom by tomorrow. There need not even be spilled blood."
"That's stuuupid. Do you even know what it's like to be driven out of your home? Do you know what it's like to have some shithead come with a fuckton of soldiers to take over everything you love?" Carl couldn't help but raise his voice. "It starts with shitty excuses. Offers of friendship, we can work together. Then it's nobody has to get hurt, nobody has to die if you listen to us. And when the soldiers storm in, people get hurt, people die when those savages are being pacified. That's how, that's how I lost…" No, no, those Kingslanders couldn't, they couldn't ever know. A lone tear ran down Carl's cheek and dripped onto the ground below.
"I think Lord Carl is right." An all too familiar voice came from behind the two.
"Varys!" Carl quickly drew himself together. "How did you get here?"
"I have my ways, my lord. Disguises can help a man go very far indeed." The eunuch took off his roughspun cloak. "I must admit, that was quite a clever trick of yours. The Fisherman and His Wife, isn't it? I overheard you reading that story to your sister when you were putting her to bed. Though I think you have a different ending in mind. You do plan to make Lord Grimes' offer again, don't you? Now will be a good time."
Close, Carl thought, but not quite. "Not yet. I'll need them to protest a day or two more first." The one thing that made Man's blood boil was being treated unjustly. The Alexandrians had felt unjustly treated, when Negan was taking half their stuff without doing jack shit, so much so they overthrew him. The Kingslanders had felt unjustly treated by the Lannisters, who feasted while the city starved and met mud pats with cold steel. How else could Carl himself have taken the whole city with only twenty Alexandrians? The holdouts from Flea Bottom felt unjustly treated by the Alexandrians were taking away their homes. But soon that would be forgotten, for they now felt unjustly treated by Carl withdrawing Dad's offer, that their neighbours who sold earlier were making thrice as much coin, that the Crown was denying their due rights to compensation. They were working hard to correct this injustice too, so much that their lord was now all but imprisoned in his own city barracks.
Two days, Carl finally decided. Two more days, and he would relent, his mouth full of apologies and promising to make things right, that he would make Dad's offer again for three more days. He was only twelve, surely they would forgive his mistakes...
The newly installed fire alarm rang with a piercing shriek.
Carl lifted his eyes. Like the Flea Bottomers below he stared, open mouthed, at the columns of smoke rising from Flea Bottom's side of Visenya's Hill.
"Oh, shit," he whispered, as several hundred Flea Bottomers turned and stared at him.
[A/N:
I am thinking of changing the title of the story to 'Under the Ice Dragon's Eye', which is currently the title of the first chapter (and would probably remain as such).
Given that a story's title is linked to its very identity, this decision would not be taken lightly. While the current title isn't too bad IMHO, it is frankly a bit generic. Normally this isn't a problem, but on some sites there are several fics with very similar names, and it's gotten to the point where it has caused issues on those sites in terms of recc'ing the story. 'Under the Ice Dragon's Eye' is a more unique title that would solve this problem, and give a more 'distinct' character to the story. Having looked at the story plan again, I also believe that this proposed new title would achieve better narrative integration with the story in the long run.
For consistency purposes, if the title change takes place it will be done on all sites on which this story is posted. My decision should be announced by next chapter (Ch. 26), and if I decide to change the title, it will be done starting from the chapter after that (Ch. 27). Promotional materials will be changed accordingly.
With that said, I understand that the readership is obviously a stakeholder in this matter, and therefore I would like to know what you guys think. So far I'm inclined towards the change but haven't completely made up my mind yet, and if there are strong arguments/opinions to the contrary I would not rule out keeping the current title.
-FieryMatter]