Chapter 4

Jon

In the cold of winter on a small hill that overlooked a growing village in the far north. A young man was currently fighting a group of men, surrounded one would assume the young man was in for a beating. If this was the Jon from four months ago one would be correct however this Jon had done this type of training so much at this point it was becoming second nature to him.

Six men approached Jon on all sides all carrying wooden training swords. Jon eyed them carefully as they approached. Centering his mind as soon as one of them entered a per determined range Jon struck out with a low sweep of his sword dropping the first man in front of him. Just before he could complete stand a strike came from above, and on instinct Jon raised his blade to block the strike. At the same time, he struck is opponent in the gut with his free hand sending the man flying a few feet back also downed.

The other four too this moment to all lash out at Jon. Trying to hit him with a fury of blows. However, Jon waved in and out of each strike. Dodging within a hair's with of each blow Jon looked for an opportunity to counterattack. It came when one of the men went to lunge at him and overextend. With a quick strike to the hands his opponent dropped his weapon, and Jon put a knee into his gut as well taking him out of the fight.

The other three back away trying to find a new angle to attack from, but Jon was not going to give them the time to do so. Now on the attack Jon opened with a quick overhead strike on a man to his right almost forcing him to his knees. With a second strike the man was on his back, a technical kill so he too was out of the fight. Setting himself between his last two opponents Jon once again reentered the fight.

Off to the side of this bout sat Aren and Njal both taking in the points of the fight so they could help Jon improve after words. Aren looked as though he could not be any prouder of the boy. He had come extremely far in these last few months and after finishing his doses of the potion it was like the seal keeping the boy's potential locked all had been broken.

When Jon had first started training with the clansmen, he could barely keep up each day. The cold and just the way they trained in general had been too much for the boy, but just a few weeks after his first dose his rate of improvement had skyrocketed. If Aren looked like a kid in a candy store at Jon's improvement Njal looked as though Name Day had come early.

Njal had wanted to train the boy personally just so one day he could fight him in a no holds fight. He had been watching the pup from the moment they took him. He had seen the fire in the pup, and it just made his blood boil. Soon he would get his chance and it would be battle for the ages. Soon the fight was over and the only one left standing had been Jon. After catching his breath, he jogged over to were Arne and Njal sat on the side. Arne spoke first, "You're still wasting movements, and you don't press the attack soon enough. In a real fight the enemy will swarm you if they have the numbers. You need to focus on cutting the numbers down as quickly as possible." Njal nodded along before adding his own advice, "It's not all bad though you are dodging well enough you remembered not to lock blades with an enemy when you're out numbered so at least something we taught you have stuck."

Jon frowned, "I just feel like a long sword doesn't work all that well for me...it feels off somewhat...I am not sure what would be better though..." Njal agreed with that a bastard sword, or a spear and shield would work better for the boy. Jon had not grown much in these last four months however he had filled out a lot more. He could tell Jon would be tall in a few years might not be as muscular as the rest of the clan, but he was going to be just as strong as they were.

As the three word deep into conversation they did not notice Bjorn watching them a bit away. Bjorn could help but be impressed with the boy, and all that he done in the last four months. Thanks to Nell and Jon the village had a working smith, and with the miners Fred and Frank training some of the clan they now had a steady source of the metal they had started calling snow steel.

It was still a work in progress as Nell was still trying to figure out the best temperatures to heat the metal to work it, but Nell had promised him, he was close to finding what worked and what did not. Bjorn had also been informed that some of the Southerns that had come with Arne knew how to build houses and what not. So slowly the villages huts were being replaced with proper houses that would keep the chill out. His tent had been turned into a something called a long house.

It was big with enough room for his family and some of his most trusted warriors as well as a big open air for meetings and feasting. On top of the new buildings that had been added they were making defenses around the village as well. Jon had suggested to Arne that they did a ditch around the village and put up a wooden a palisade. None of the free folk knew what that meant but luckily the acolyte Jim Tim or whatever could draw out what Jon had been talking about.

The construction was slow going but when it was finished the village would be that much harder for any other clan to take or even the crows to attack if they ever found them. Something else the boy had done completely by accident was make glass. At first, he had not seen what the big deal was, but the women Eva had explained to one of the spear women that in the south making glass was important, and in the 'north' as she called south of the wall, they used the glass to make glass houses to grow food in the winter. If they could work that out, then things in the village would improve dramatically overnight.

Over all things were starting to look up for Bjorn, now if only he could find something that would keep the boy here. Fighting with the Thenns and the crows look to be slowing down. He had heard some whisper about another group attacking the Thenns and cutting their numbers. If it had just been that he would not worry, but he had also heard of a few other villages becoming completely abandoned overnight in a few areas north of them.

That news had been strange enough to warrant him to travel to meet with some of the children of the forest. He had been meaning to seek them out to find one of them to train Jon in green seeing as it stood. He would not seek out the three eyed shite in that tree of his. The free folk had long ago learned to not trust the old crow. He might be a powerful green seer, but in the far north there were a few that had more power than the crow, and he who seek their help with the boy before he ever looked to that shite stuck in a tree.

Six Months had passed since Jon had been here, but to him it had been a lifetime. Jon was taking a moment to reflect as he waited for the forge to heat up so he could begin to work the snow steel before him. One of the triplets Ase had suggested that he take up a trade that way when he did return even if he wasn't welcomed back, he could make his own way out in the world. At the time Jon thought the idea had merit so he had gone and ask Nell if he could teach him.

In hindsight when he saw the look the old smith gave him, he should have made an escape, but how was he to know that the man was just as bad a slave driver as Arne was. The old made it seemed made it his mission to beat every skill he had into Jon. Every forging secret, every technique, any tricks of the trade the man could think of. For the last month he had Jon make everything from nails for buildings, frames to hold glass for the glass houses, too small daggers, and knives.

Today however Jon was going to make his first sword, a bastard blade who it was for Nell would not say all he told him was to pay special attention when he was making the blade. While the forge was heating Jon thought back to everything, he had done in these six months, and everything that he had learned.

Thanks to the potion Jon was now bigger than when he left. When he had arrived here, he the size of any normal six name-day-old. Now he was the size of a boy who had seen ten name days. His muscles had begun to fill the rest of his body, but he still had his baby face, so he still looked about the same as when he left. Well not exactly his face had gone through a few changes. For one he now had two different colored eyes, his right eye was the same dark steel gray as most Starks, but left eye was now a dark almost royal purple. Also, his hair starts to have slivers highlights at some ends of his deep brown hair. Revna told him that the potion brings out the best qualities in a person's blood and now he would look more of a mix between his mother and father.

In the last six months he had come to trust in Revna wisdom as she had firmly entered in his mind as the mother he had always wanted, and for her he was the son that she had always dreamed of carrying. Jon and Arne had just found out that Revna was with child which put both men over the moon. Jon had taken to asking Eva to teach him to stich and Arne spent the day hunting a snow bear for its pelt. All the while Revna had just chuckled to herself about how frantic her boys where being.

That had been a good day in Jon's mind. The fact was he felt freer here than he ever did in Winterfell. Though he still missed his brother and little Sansa. They still had father and their mother with them, and though the two of them never treated Jon any different he could help but wonder of things would have changed in the future. If Lady Stark had her way, then his brother and sister would throw him way as true born children should not associate with bastards as she had put it.

Still, he would like to at least let them know that he was ok and not to worry about him. Hopefully the gray rat Jeron would work out how to train some ravens soon and he would just send them a message to let them know, but at the rate Jeron was going the long night would come again before he figured that out. As the forge got up to heat Jon focused himself on the task at hand. Forging snow steel was a tricky prospect as Jon learn in the last month. The metal ore could only be metal from the rocks at a high temperature, however due to the village not really having a proper forge for the moment they could only keep the heat need for this task for a few minutes at a time. Jon had to be quick once the metal was up to temperature.

Something else they had discovered was the metal on its own was not very usefully if just forged out right. Anything forged with just snow steel ore was extremely brittle after it had been tempered. The solution to this problem had been to add dragon glass to ore as you were forging it. Jon did not know why this was but lucky for the village they had found a cave full of the stuff soon after they started mining the snow steel.

Back to the task at hand, quickly Jon added crushed dragon glass to the fiery hot ore and began hammering into shape. The process flew into a patten quickly, heat the ore hammer into shape, check the angles, hammer some more, re heat the metal. Over and over Jon did this, when he had begun it had been early morning by the time, he was finished for the day the evening sun was beginning to set.

After placing his tools back in place Jon made his way back to the newly created home that he shared with Arne and Revna. Home...now that he thought about it he had found a real home here...maybe it wouldn't be so bad to stay.

Thought so far life had slowed somewhat for Jon little did he know that soon he would be up against force that he thought only legends before.

A/N: So, I just want to get most of Jons back story out of the way so that when he does head south of the wall people don't ask where the hell some of the things he brings comes from and I am not really a fan of flash backs in Storys. They always make me want to skip them and get back to the action, so I figure if I just start at the beginning no must no fuss right... We are about to hit some major time jump after the next two or three chapters and then the main story will begin so stay with me folks