Sansa
A day hadn't passed since Jon's going south that Sansa went without imagining what his successful return might mean, might look like, might be like. She found that to hope for it was one thing, to see it quite another. And all that without the secret Father shared with Lord and Lady Reed out in the open. Not that a name meant much to the Free Folk, and certainly not one that took so long to say. It was impossible to reconcile 'Aemon Targaryen' with the man Sansa knew. Not that I've ever known a Targaryen, I suppose. The Mother of Dragons might well have chosen to take her mother's name given the option, but it seemed she thought more of House Hasty and Ser Bonifer the Good. She is proud of who she is, what she is, as Jon is. The Free Folk had no true marriage rites but if fate permitted, that small grace might yet be granted to them. Not that bastardy will follow any children they have before then. The rambunctious little girl that took turns leading Jon in wild chases or swiping anything hot and tasty from the kitchens was the darling of the Free Folk, apparently a dead ringer for her mother but for her Stark eyes. And there's Dalla, too, who scarce peeks out from behind Val's skirts. The younger girl was a scant year old though, and with a castle full of people creating a hellish clangor at most every hour, well, a bit of skittishness was hardly outside the norm. When I learned of them in turn, I was glad for Jon, Sansa thought. It was different when they came to me with news of one to come. She had played the mild courteous sister, all polite and accommodating…but when she was left alone, her euphoria was impossible to contain. What with Rhaegal's roaring and bellowing at the cold giants beyond the earthen rings, nobody heard her own exuberant shriek save Tyrion Lannister. The great pattern, the grand design that had been started with his maneuverings and her own, had begun in earnest, taking shape even as they watched. Weaving itself with no help from us. Thanks to Jon and Daenerys, it will continue to do so as well, even when all of us are gone. Sansa had sent the queen Maester Wolkan for what good he might do, but it seemed to the crones in Daenerys' retinue that a man's thoughts on carrying a baby were about as sought after as a pig's on flight. Which I might have guessed, honestly, after seeing the wild women's tender handling of Val. The darkness that had fallen over their family had lifted, the survivors of the wars of men had begun to pick themselves up out of the mud. And the Others seek to destroy it all.
"It's rather hard not to think on." Tyrion was saying, pulling her back to earth.
"Think on?"
"What it all means. They can go on about fucking off into the wild all they like, but an heir's an heir, no?" Tyrion asked.
"Kings-Beyond-the-Wall have never inherited their titles from their sires. No more than khals do, if I understand things right. A son born to a khal might be precious, but that's no guarantee he will lead a horde of his own."
"The Dothraki value only strength, I've seen enough of them to know that for iron-hard fact." Tyrion replied, nodding. "It wasn't the wild peoples I was thinking of, Sansa, and if I may say so, I believe you knew that."
"He'll no more belong amongst civilized people than his mother and father."
"It is a 'him', then? Did the queen tell you so?"
"No, but…" Tyrion sighed.
"But." he agreed wearily, shooting Lady a glance when she chanced to fade into view. Absently Sansa's hand found the back of the direwolf's neck, scratching while Lady's yellow eyes trained on Tyrion. "I wonder, is she any fonder of me than the others? Summer, Shaggydog and Grey Wind might have torn me to little pieces- well, littler pieces but for your brothers calling them off."
"The wolves were half pups then, and my brothers mere boys, even Robb." Tyrion seemed to dance around whatever thought was on his mind.
"There's nothing from Grey Wind, then? Summer came back, after all. True, Grey Wind's been dead years longer, but-"
"Dead is dead." Sansa said bluntly. "It does not matter how long one lingers at the door, so long as someone on the other side has the power to pull them through." How she knew that she had no idea, but it sounded as true to Sansa as saying ice was cold.
"Which princess does that wisdom belong to?" he asked, sounding weary. I had my hand on the door to the hall, Sansa remembered. I needed only open it to rejoin Bran and all the rest, to find a seat beside Harrold Arryn, to walk a road as easy as it was even. Instead, I went down to First Frost in the Hungry Wolf's crypt… Was that what she was meant to be doing? Peeping on the Others from any beasts nearby, living or otherwise? Or even Howling Wind herself.
"When's the last time you ate, Sansa? Or slept? Really slept, mind you, and didn't go wandering off into the wolfswood?" Tyrion's inquiry made her start.
"I had an apple the night Jon told everyone the truth my father kept hidden for so many years."
"An apple, aye. A day and more ago." She blushed.
"Is it much business of yours, my lord?"
"The queen's business is my business. I would hazard that includes looking after the health of a certain princess. That, and I don't relish the prospect of losing the only person in Winterfell that can be trusted to provide intelligent conversation." Lady loped closer and nuzzled Sansa's side. "It used to be that pack of hounds shadowed you." Tyrion said.
"They must be scared of Lady."
"Well, we have that much in common." I will do no good here, talking in circles. The direwolf acted as though Tyrion wasn't there, waiting expectantly at the door to the bedchamber. Better I should heed the part of myself returned from the hereafter.
"Go back to the hall, Tyrion. Eat if you hunger and drink if you thirst."
"What of you, Sansa?" he asked, seeming leery of leaving her alone to get embroiled in Other-mischief.
"That remains to be seen, but there will be no seeing it sitting here." His uncertainty gave way to despondency. "I am not made for court, for empty courtesy and intrigues whispered in the dead of night. I am not made to play the game. Not anymore, at least, if ever I was. Littlefinger sought to make me a player…or rather, a piece that would play on his behalf but the first hoot of Howling Wind's snow owl put an end to that." And set me on a path none other has walked, I daresay. One that should I care to tread, I must walk alone.
Sansa left Tyrion at the door to the Great Hall. He gave her a last hapless smile. "Don't stay out there too long. Winterfell's got precious little warmth as is, it doesn't need to go losing yours." She could hear the sincerity in them, the fondness, such as it was. It struck her that it was not the first time such a tone had been used to address her. Just the first time in the Common Tongue. She found herself wandering toward where she'd heard it as well, down the narrow passage toward the waterfall, where First Frost had taken his leave of her. And took his time doing it, as well. The sound of the water let Sansa know it had not frozen, even with the Others so close and in force. It stands to reason, she thought, putting a hand on the stone wall beside her. Winterfell is alive, not some pile of bricks like the Red Keep or the Eyrie. It has a living heart. Only when she got close enough to the falls to feel droplets on her face did she stop, imagining the outline of Howling Wind standing (if that was what she did) just beyond it. But for the war, what would become of this? How would it end? She raised a hand, extended it toward the falling water. Even given the war. What's taking them so long anyway? Her fingers bent, the tips soon wet. Lady was not so cagey, simply trotting through the cascading water. Sansa took a breath and followed her, the waterfall giving way to the frosty plain and the razor rock that hemmed it. I have left Winterfell, she knew, sure as a soldier might if he walked beyond the castle's walls into the Winter Town.The winds were not so strong in the sanctuary, perhaps because of the rocks, and the frosted grass barely swayed even long as it was. My lot, she thought, far from the Great Hall's warmth and laughter. Even if they managed to defeat the Others, there was no guarantee this sort of thing would stop. I won't allow them to be put in danger. Jon and Daenerys, they are the foundation of all this. I wanted it to come to pass, I'll not endanger it in turn. But what, then? At least there's nothing for me to muck up out here, she mused wryly. It's hard to make nothing go wrong. She wandered out away from the last of the waterfall's cascading droplets, soaked through yet unbothered. I don't even hear any hooting. I might be the lone creature in the world. The night in the wolfswood, when she'd gone to the long-forgotten fastness of the First Men, came to mind. When I stood beside Howling Wind on those ruined ramparts, I wasn't warging, she thought. That was something else. An idea came to her. When she turned to face Lady, the direwolf's yellow eyes fixed on her expectantly. Sansa's hand wove through the fur between her ears, as real as her own red hair. "We have to part here, Lady. Harry them behind their lines of wights, where they think they're safe." Meanwhile, I'll see what havoc I can stir up in their midst. She closed her eyes, remembered the holdfast. Or at least the wolfswood. It was something like warging…at least, until it came to finding something at the end of her reach. Like leaping across a crevasse, one without a bottom, Sansa thought, her stomach's bottom falling out as she jumped…
…and came to land not atop the walls of the fastness, but amidst the frost-covered trunks of the wolfswood's trees. Better to miss the holdfast than the forest entire, I suppose, Sansa thought, still trying to keep from belching butterflies. Knowing me, I might have ended up a mile out to sea. The forest was not quiet despite the Others' presence, the occasional hoot of an ice spider hinting at life even in this world of winter. Further off, Sansa could hear the cold giants bellowing at each other or perhaps the hungry creatures that regrew limbs quicker than northmen could grow beards. Then the forest shook, snow sloughing off near every branch. A familiar bellow followed, though much louder than the mammoths that had taken refuge within the earthen rings around Winterfell. Nothing leapt out of the darkness at her, nothing raised an alarm. Then I have time still to figure out what to do. With a blink she was looking through Lady's eyes, the direwolf flitting through whole mobs of wights without a second thought. More importantly, the odd Other here and there shepherding the dead on toward Winterfell seemed none the wiser. There is no flesh to see, no more than there is life, Sansa thought with grim satisfaction. Lady may go unseen among the Others if she so wishes. She got close enough for Sansa to see the expressions on their faces. All were male, all were swordsmen, and it seemed to Sansa that most were young. No one worth cutting down only to risk alarming the rest. By and large, the Others that mattered needed no sword or spear to pose a threat. The wizards or mages or whatever they might be. The Howling Winds, not the First Frosts. She remembered the shrouded she-Other in the icy tower. Compared to her, the she-Other with the climbing hook seemed almost mundane. Sansa swallowed. At the end of the day, a sharpened stick is just a stick, no matter what it's made of. Lady continued past the wights, their numbers not so much thinning as their source further north no longer her destination. Her breath caught in her chest even miles away as the trees began to thin, several towering shapes lumbering about listlessly in the distance. Lady's fur stood on end, remembering the hum of the invisible barrier that had stood between her and the Lords of the Long Night the night Summer had returned. There's nothing stopping us now, no Other-queen to bar our way. That did little to soothe Lady, who even spectral seemed intimidated by the cold mammoths' sheer size. Can I blame her? Sansa thought as Lady padded closer. Each stood twice as tall as the breed she was familiar with, and it was evident they could send even a giant flying with a single swing of their massive tusks. There were giants among them as well, calling to them in the Old Tongue or else leading them toward new patches of ground. Even the heavy snowfall was nothing for them to clear away, pulling up the short hard grasses in bunches with their trunks. All females, she thought, with a growing sense of unease. Without calves. Lady's nose twitched at a heavy, musky scent coming down from the north. Where the wolfswood grows thick again. It was clear that the titanic creatures were no province of Howling Wind's, yet Sansa was sure there was a reason for the absence of so much as a single bull. As with all else the Others do.
Lady had no muscles to strain and no bones to tire, so she came upon the giants' camps proper without difficulty. A few were asleep, their snores loud enough to wake the dead as if the Others needed such help, but more were bustling about, barking at each other or readying for the next sortie. Greataxes it seemed were fast falling into disuse in favor of massive clubs and even hammers. Most were no more than mauls, huge hunks of ice lashed to tree trunks, but Sansa spotted the occasional hammer proper consisting of great blocks of ice affixed to gleaming silver handles. Not of their making, I would guess. Sansa thought shakily. These cold giants are the naked fury of a thunderstorm, whirling dervishes heedless as a blizzard. The most prominent of them had scarce more than white furs around their hips and shoulders, if that, paying rather more heed to size than garb. Sansa supposed they stood between thirteen and fourteen feet tall, though she spotted one dizzying she-giant who stood a head still taller, twin braids the color of straw hanging past her knees. She held a hammer of her own, and did not refrain from using it when breaking up the odd dispute. A hoarse groan made her turn her head, striding off at once and bodily shoving away any giant that chanced to impede her. Follow, Sansa thought, before returning to her own body. I will not find Howling Wind nor any other Lord of the Long Night out where the giants walk and mind their mammoths. They're in here somewhere, and I must find them. She looked around, half expecting to find the Other-princess' owl gazing down at her from a tree branch. It so happened there was an owl, and a white one besides, but its plumage was peppered with grey and black and its eyes were the yellow of a typical owl. I wonder…Sansa thought. She reached for the bird and knew it to be male at once. The wild direwolves took no issue with their wintertouched kin once the lot of them reached Winterfell. I wonder if you would likewise have no reason to dislike a certain owl, if we can find her. He was unpaired, that much was obvious or else he'd already have his mouth full of mouse or vole and be on his way back to his mate and their chicks. Likewise, there had been no male shadowing Howling Wind's owl, perhaps it was his night as much as it was Sansa's. He left his perch, sweeping low over Sansa's head before he sailed north, calling now and then. Not hunting, which he's keen to advertise. Else he would be silent. To Sansa's relief he was not a greyfeather but one in only his second adult year, not yet in his prime but very much able to court a female. A blue-eyed one in particular. Trickier was taking him north, even with the trees mostly warding off the winds. That's no surprise, she reasoned, in his world, there is nothing so cold as Other-cold. When a familiar hoot came in answer from the trees still further on, whatever instinctive doubts the male owl had vanished. A second more and a pair of blue eyes burned out from the branches of a white fir, observing him closely.
Sansa had only enough time to feel pleased with herself before her charge shot right up to the eyes, pulling up at the last moment to splay his wings and make himself appear as large as possible. Or so I assume, she thought, feeling a bit shaken as his slow wingbeats carried him gracefully backward, Howling Wind's owl emerging from the fir to come up after him. His reservations returned when he discovered the object of his affections was a third larger than he, and visibly more comfortable with whatever courtship dance he was attempting. The True Tongue echoed up from the ground, Sansa looking down to see the cloaked form of Howling Wind herself gliding out from between the trunks. Found you! She did not look overly pleased her owl was being courted. She is your eyes as Lady is mine. Aught you'll see with her brooding over a nest full of chicks. Another few notes of the True Tongue made her owl look down, but Sansa rather thought the male would get the better of her, at least tonight. He sings a song old as the earth, princess. Allow me to shadow you in her stead. She left the owl, reaching for the unbroken snow beside the she-Other. If I can warg, Sansa thought, and I can jump from Winterfell into the wolfswood in body entire, surely I can manage something in the middle. She had no form, or at least, none that she could see, and the snow beneath her did not crimp to leave footprints on her passing. Sansa smiled, if only in her mind's eye. No flesh, no heat, no living body. Howling Wind turned and milled back behind the fir, Sansa keeping close behind, making no sound and leaving no trace. As if I were tasked with carrying her train, Sansa thought. Unlike the Haunted Forest, where only the two soldiers had stood guard over the princess, slivers of razor crystal glinted it seemed from everywhere. Well, they are right atop someplace with two dragons in attendance. It makes sense they want to keep Howling Wind well away from them. Another spire jutted out from the wolfswood's floor identical to the one nestled in the heights of the Frostfangs, cloaked in its own right both in moonlight that seemed to radiate out from the ice as well as an endless flurry of punishing winds. Measures taken in case the dragons come calling, perhaps? The base simply parted at Howling Wind's approach with no need for a door. When Sansa crossed the threshold and the ice reunited behind her, she had to steady herself. I am not here, she told herself firmly. I am in the embrace of the wolfswood, long miles from here and none within could begin to guess that. First Frost appearing without a sound had Sansa nearly jumping out of the skin she didn't have. Someone's out of sorts. His flurry of the True Tongue got no answer but Howling Wind's mouth falling open, obviously stunned. He led her up a gracefully ascending spiral pane of ice (an Other-stair, Sansa mused) and into a room twin to the one in which Sansa had first beheld the Lords of the Long Night. Her moment of feeling accomplished vanished when she realized the space that then was empty at the other end of the table was now filled.
The stranger was no fresh-faced young foot soldier. Diamond beads seated on his brow were strung in two long braids that hung down his cheeks and past the table's edge, and he wore plate-of-ice. From his shoulders hung a cloak of night, stars twinkling the body of the garment. A silver ring dotted with a huge full-moon pearl hugged the knuckle of the next-to-last finger of his right hand. Sansa felt her stomach knot itself at the sight of the crown of snowflakes in his left, diamonds glinting off it. The king, Sansa knew. Their king. First Frost went still at the sight of him and even Howling Wind seemed surprised that he'd attended. An utterance from the son had the father glancing up, but his gaze lingered infinitely longer on Howling Wind's face. The Other with the black sword stood on the king's left, giving the princess a brief nod before continuing to speak, pointing at various places on the table before them. I understood last time, if not in words, Sansa thought, trying to feel certain indeed that the king could not see her. The Other-queen's twinkling form filled the threshold behind the king, moving slowly to fill the void on his right. Queen, king and Hand. I need more than feelings now, impressions and the like. I need to know what they are saying, if it at all can be done. She looked down and saw nothing, as she knew she would. I might be able to understand them better now, freed from flesh entirely. If it hadn't worked last time though, and that time in Howling Wind's own mantle… I was not born among the dawn races. With no little amount of trepidation, she reached for the princess. The flesh is not enough, she thought. Howling Wind was not there the last time I stood in the presence of the Lords of the Long Night, only me. Now that she's present…
"…told me beyond a doubt, my love. Thousand Eyes was caught in a mountain-slide, she took grievous wounds." For a moment Howling Wind's dismay was Sansa's own, until she pulled away from the princess' consciousness before she realized there was another mind present, another soul. It worked, she thought wonderingly. I heard the True Tongue…word for word. By then the queen had come around the table to take her daughter's hands, whom to Sansa felt about to weep.
"…to tell Freezing Fog. Perhaps…pull him off the line so he can grieve…" I know that name, Mother mentioned him. The tall one.
"And put whom in his place, princess?" the Other-Hand asked. "None among us can shepherd the fallen as well as he."
"Oh, then leave them to stumble and fall where they will." Howling Wind replied, her voice a lovely song even wracked with pain. "What use are they anyway, with the circle gone to ground?" Sansa glanced around the room. Hardly gone to ground, I'd say. "Recall Grey Gale from the mountains he's found. There's no call left to perch on them any longer, no one left to fight." Howling Wind pointed to what might have been the Vale on the map etched into the surface of the icy table.
"Grey Gale is watching the eastern sea, princess. Making sure nothing is coming from the lands beyond. A hand around the neck. Had White Mist not had to shore up Thousand Eyes' efforts in the Empty Land, she might have torn the heart out as well. As it stands, she's confident she has anyway. Nothing will grow there until it's long past any help." The Other-Hand was certainly not coddling in his tone, but neither did he question Howling Wind's presence at the table.
"Had White Mist gone south with a full complement of officers, she might have successfully put your plan into action. Instead she got a few loose teeth, with no jaws to hold them and no head to move the jaws."
"Are they not sorely needed here?"
"White Mist herself would count for more here than a few more swords, a few more spears. Had the heart-" she pointed to the Reach "-and the Empty Land fallen in a timely manner, she would be here now instead of thousands of miles away and of no help whatsoever." Howling Wind's parents never said a word, four blue eyes locked on her face. "Now with Thousand Eyes gravely wounded, if not already dead, the Empty Land is lost. It will be a trackless sea of sand with only istrollen and spiders dwelling in the dunes." There was no sound of a rapid ascent yet the newcomer who burst into the room looked every bit like a messenger at the end of a hard-run race.
"There have been landings," he said, between gasps, "all along the southern shorelines above the bogs." He etched small X's in the table, scattered all about the Flint lands, Flint's Finger itself, Cape Kraken, the Rills, Moat Cailin… Even as close as Torrhen's Square! The Other-Hand's face grew harder with every successive mark in the ice.
"Has Walk-on-Water forgotten her primary objective?" he asked coldly.
"Just the opposite, I would guess, Rain-of-Ice. You purposed her with destroying the sanctuaries that sat on the western coast as far south as she could reach." The Arbor, Sansa supposed. "Even with Northern Light's gift to her, that's too much open ocean to patrol. She might still be down there, chasing those escaping the destruction. Or she might be on the bottom of the sea hiding from a serpent, if not sunk outright. We've not gotten word from her, I'll remind you." Howling Wind said.
"Pull Northern Light back at once." The king cut off his Hand, this Rain-of-Ice. "He is needed for our endeavors to come and should he be caught out there will be no accomplishing what awaits doing." His eyes were on Torrhen's Square. "We made certain there would be no surprises there. A monster from a bygone age, locked in ice until the time came."
"The worm proved little able to stop a monster of their own. Black, with eyes of blood and breath of death." First Frost, until then silent, took a sharp breath.
"Winged and scaled?" the king asked.
"The same." the messenger replied, still panting.
"A third. They are not so feeble as we supposed." They were the first words of the queen's Sansa heard. That I understand, anyhow.
"Three," her husband said, waving a hand, "is no greater than two to what will soon rise to meet them."
"Until it does, though, we should keep our wits about us and our storms close and cutting." the queen said firmly.
"Meanwhile, Freezing Fog and Hail-of-Arrows will continue to keep them behind their mounds of earth." Rain-of-Ice said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Though Thousand Eyes it seems has fallen, she must have succeeded in closing the Empty Land as an escape route east. Filled with our chattel, it is nothing now but death for all who go there."
"What of the survivors encamped in the mountains?" Howling Wind asked. Her mother gave her a soothing look.
"White Mist has taken up at the base, with slivers of her command likewise dotting the perimeter." She needed no knife to etch the table, X's appearing around the Red Mountains of Dorne seemingly of their own accord. "It would seem Rain-of-Ice's plan proceeds for the most part without disruption.
"As much damage as can be done, as many as can be killed, as many chattel as can be raised." Rain-of-Ice supplied. "Even given the fortress that continues to resist us, there is no winning for them. Their strongholds are nothing for us to take at will, the ground beneath them will not yield green growth for longer than a lifetime among their kind. The world they knew is completely, totally, and utterly destroyed. It belongs to us now, little though they yet realize it."
It was never about battle, Sansa realized, despairing. Never about the Others coming after us. It was about the ones who knew what needed doing, and did it, while we were all so busy preparing for a great battle they will never bring. Despite what Rain-of-Ice considered to be an inevitable victory, Howling Wind was not mollified.
"The daysingers can wake the earth, given time and number." she said.
"Neither of which they have, no more than they have the day." Rain-of-Ice replied bluntly.
"Not now. What about tomorrow or the next day? They are most dangerous when they are desperate, and they will take action when their allies begin to fail."
"Let them. They are not our equals with the stars above us, nor with the winds of winter at our backs."
"Winter comes, winter goes. The circle has no end, Rain-of-Ice, and has no pity for those who forget- or those who seek to stop its spinning." This darkness is not of their doing, Sansa realized. They are only taking advantage of it. All this talk of circles and seasons…was the Long Night, in the end, just a Long Night? One of many, only the last of which was beheld by men? No work of some dark god or some elder race. A working of the world too large for men to truly behold.
"Before it spins any further, we'll put in place our retaking of the sky." The king said, shooting his daughter a wry look.
"Shouldn't we wait for Northern Light?"
"He works in ice, not bone. This is no province of his, my love." The queen came around the table, slipping a hand beneath Howling Wind's hood to caress her face. Rather noticeably to Sansa, neither crown paid First Frost much mind. The favored child, then. Another foot soldier came up the icy plane that rung the inside of the tower, looking rather less aghast.
"We found a stronghold to the west that was not scoured." What?! Who could fail to burn a few bodies?! Then she remembered the Dreadfort had been garrisoned by a token force following the Battle of the Bastards, Ramsay himself having ordered much of its strength to come to Winterfell to await the horde coming down from the Wall. A few soldiers left, cold bored and hungry. They might well have burned such Bolton corpses as they came upon, but the Dreadfort's history was long as it was bloody. The Others must have dug up Boltons from further back. Red Kings instead of Lords of the Dreadfort. The Conquest had not been so long ago, in grand terms, and surely there were crypts aplenty hidden beneath the bloody castle. The crypts of kings.
"More chattel, just the thing. Come, let us take their measure." The king said, following his wife and leading his daughter out of the room, Rain-of-Ice keeping close behind and First Frost bringing up the rear. Sansa stayed with Howling Wind, wondering bleakly just what other tricks the Others proper had in store.
Even the Others in their company wearing plate-of-ice did not break the surface of the night's fresh-fallen snow. In addition to the royal family and this Rain-of-Ice, three she-Others flurried into sight to orbit the queen. Unlike Howling Wind's mantle, which shimmered with every color and shade of winter, these three wore cloaks of purest white. Their notion of a Queensguard, perhaps. An outrider on an ice spider cantered up to the lot of them, dismounting with thoughtless grace.
"More chattel?" Rain-of-Ice asked, sounding as uninspired as he looked. "Freezing Fog's orders were to find something more enduring."
"So they were, so I have." Whoever had replied seemed to linger beyond vision until a tall, thin form congealed out of the lingering fog. The Other's starry blue eyes were alive with excitement, even glee. He even gave Howling Wind a hearty bow.
"Princess. I have followed your notion to the letter."
"And?" Howling Wind seemed to take his deference with ill grace.
"See for yourself." He gestured to the trees behind him, long fingers wiggling in an obscene suggestion of showmanship. A fresh tide of dead began to shuffle through the trees, stumbling and shambling forward into view. Sansa knew the pink dregs that clung to their unfeeling, unknowing forms for Bolton colors at once. Boltons of ages past.
"You have done well, Freezing Fog. Which of these will be snuffing out the fires in the sky?" First Frost asked, sparing the Bolton dead not a glance.
"The sky is Grey Gale's province. Bid him do such a thing." Several direwolves bolted into the tower's clearing, each more dead and rotten than the last. Some had aught but skulls left of their heads and most had patches of skin missing, yellowed ribs shining through. The Other that followed them was one Sansa recognized as well. The archer. The huntsman. He looked similarly pleased, tapping the bow he used as a walking stick thoughtfully.
"Hail-of-Arrows. Did you get bored on the front line?" Rain-of-Ice asked, the younger Other's face faltering.
"He did as I bid him. Freezing Fog as well." Howling Wind replied. Rain-of-Ice rain a hand down his face.
"Princess, the plan-"
"-did not account for fire in the sky, for death from above, for half a dozen other things that have come to pass. Our chattel, when caught out, are nothing to overcome. As they do not tire, it means little that I borrowed these two awhile." Quite in contrast to the wights, the dead direwolves were anything but ponderous while in movement. Willed by an Other, they had run into the clearing snapping and snarling just as a living pack might. Undirected, they simply stood motionless as no living wolf ever could, which was to Sansa more unsettling than their dead state in the first place!
Following the wolves into the midst of their cold masters came a pair of clanking, clattering figures armored in aged, rune-inscribed bronze. The runes themselves were little more than bloodstains with the centuries having been at them so, but Sansa doubted that would hinder their efficacy. The Red Kings' heads were no more than grinning skulls beneath the cracked jawbone crowns they wore, each point capped by a human tooth. One held a bronze greatsword in a single hand paired with a shield of the same, the other a warped greataxe.
"More chattel." Rain-of-Ice said dismissively.
"No." Howling Wind replied curtly, pointing to the runes upon the dead kings' armor.
"They are warded, if feebly. More importantly, these are no heedless fodder. They can tear a foe asunder with their bare hands and pull an istrollen's limb from its body, to say nothing of shrugging off blows that would see mundane chattel collapse into dust."
"They were kings." The Other-king remarked.
"Kings of what?" Rain-of-Ice replied. "They feared the night and felt the cold no less than others of their kind." Despite his dismissiveness, even the Other-Hand was hard pressed not to look impressed by the pair.
"Were these the only ones you found?"
"The only ones who stood as such when bid to move. The rest were no more than chattel." A third figure slowly trotted into the clearing, the bronze armor it wore gleaming even in the piddling moonlight. This Red King sat astride a skeletal horse barded in leather and bronze, and even carried a crude lance. The sight was enough to take Sansa's breath away. Unlike his fellows, the mounted king wore a cloak of dry, flea-bitten wolf furs patched here and there with what were clearly human faces. Skulls served to decorate the bronze pauldrons on his shoulders, sat firmly over his knees and a sash of skeletal hands ringed him from shoulder to hip, still more bronze and leather keeping the ghoulish thing together. He wore a crown of bone as well, but the teeth that capped his own could not have come from anything but a giant. An older king, Sansa thought, still half-stunned. From far further back. "Treasures buried in the ground, left for us to find." Freezing Fog said, unable to contain his elation. The three Red Kings bent their crowned heads as one in the direction of the Other-king, which he took almost as a jest. Well, thank all the gods together we left them no more treasure to find.
"But if what I've heard is true, these are no more than trinkets and baubles. The forest over has filled with spiders, fecund females of strength, size and speed. Yet breeding has been something of an afterthought, even with males bouncing off the trees and riling themselves to frenzy at the scent. Why is that, North Star?" The king smiled.
"The vetrarjond were right, the horn they wanted was buried high in the mountains out of their reach. It was not the only thing we found amidst those peaks, though." He put a hand on Freezing Fog's arm, unable to reach his shoulder gracefully. "Come with me, my friend."
While the dead began their macabre parade south to deepen the sea already rising at Winterfell's great earthen ring, the Others proper headed north with Sansa in tow.
"Females of the highest caliber were the only ones who would suffice, Freezing Fog." the king, North Star, said as they began to pass web-encrusted trunks, though the spaces between them were clean and clear. The webs themselves had been woven into great bolts of silk, shimmering as Howling Wind's mantle did. A dozen Others, more, male and female both, were stationed around a small frozen lake, on which lay… Sansa felt her eyes widen back at the fallen holdfast. The bones were black, each being painstakingly etched by one Other or another with what must in time be runes themselves. Still more were taking the harvested ice spidersilk and stretching it across the great spans that ran between the empty wing bones, pulling it taut and affixing it fast. "Without the silk it could not fly, you see." North Star said, Freezing Fog, Hail-of-Arrows and even Rain-of-Ice gaping unashamedly.
"They cannot all have been one in life." Freezing Fog asked, eyes glued to the black bones. Dragon bones, Sansa knew. From when dragons flew free over Westeros, before the Andals. Perhaps even before the First Men.
"What was missed was found elsewhere in the mountains. If something was too small, two sufficed instead of one." North Star replied.
"Where's the skull?" Rain-of-Ice asked.
"It was too heavy for the chattel to move."
"The vetrarjond."
"So it is, Rain-of-Ice. They got their horn and in return, they've lent us their power. Not just in war, either." A mammoth trundled out of the trees, sending more than a few saplings to the forest floor in its wake. Several cold giants followed, murmuring to the beast or else pushing what it towed. Though Sansa felt as though it could be nothing else, she still had to see it for herself. In life, the dragon to which the skull belonged would have been big enough to tear a chunk and more out of the mammoth pulling it forward. The giants hefted it, cursing and breathing hard, quickly setting it in the empty space at the top of the backbone. While they huffed and puffed and caught their breath, the storm-speaker that had rained lightning down on Winterfell shuffling up to the bones. The sky above them began to rumble. Unlike his previous bellowing, where one could not help but hear every syllable of the giant's speech, his murmuring was unintelligible. Sansa saw sparks splutter from his fingertips, winced as a blinding flash turned the world white, heard a crack of lightning knife down from the heavens to impale the dragon bones. A sort of buzzing crackle began. The lightning is trapped within.
"Now, my love." North Star said to his queen. At her approach the Others that had before stretched the spidersilk over the empty wings began tossing handfuls of shimmering silver dust over every inch of black bone. Nothing stopped Sansa coming closer, the bones now twinkling like a night sky full of stars. That is, anywhere not covered in runes. The queen's form began to glow bright as a full moon, the dust that failed to find purchase whirling up of its own accord to fill what runes yet remained empty. The crackling gentled into a low hum, the runes of Other-script shining silver on the bones. A sound I know. A ward, Sansa thought. Then the Others still in the skeleton's midst hurried away from it, North Star approaching the skull with patient purpose.
The bones began to creak, dragging themselves over the ice. Several of the Others gave shouts of excitement or surprise, but the king was concerned only with the skull before him. One of the wings snapped closed, the silk bridging it holding fast to allow for such movement. The tail, now no more than beads of bone, began to sweep erratically through the air, an errant giant backing away hastily. The neck pulled back, coiled, reared, hoisting the huge skull into the air. Surely bone alone could not support it, their Othery must be doing more than its part. Sansa watched as the jaws parted and lightning forked from between its black teeth. Even this was not what the king seemed to be waiting for. He stared into the empty sockets, big enough for one of the cold giants to stick his head in for a look around. Though the eyes proper were ages gone and more, blue stars flickered into life to replace them. At last the king gave a winded gasp, his part done. The skeletal dragon righted itself, pushing off the ground to stand as a living dragon might. The sound it made, however, was like nothing Sansa had ever heard before. Screaming loud enough to make even the Others cover their ears or give startled cries, it did not object to North Star's further approach. He gripped a rib and with a single pull had himself high enough to swing a leg over the backbone.
"Care to join me?" he asked his queen, who blushed as if she were a country girl being offered aid onto the back of a horse. Once behind her husband, she gracefully slipped an arm around his waist.
"So far, so good." First Frost muttered to Howling Wind. The dragon flapped its wings. The princess' face was inscrutable, perhaps a blend of concern for her parents and amusement at the children they once were shining through for a moment. Then the dragon was airborne, a hundred feet up in only three wingbeats.
"Look to your assignments. When they land, I don't want them to find us a shambles." Howling Wind said, the rest of her kind disappearing into the trees to work further mischief. "Come, we'll wait for them where they'd want us to." To Sansa's surprise, they did not return to the spire of ice. They continued south, meandering through the wolfswood. Toward the fastness and toward me, she realized, at once alarmed beyond words.
Do something, she thought. Do something before you make a mistake. More was at stake now than her lord father and his household guard, incalculably more. I have to make it back to Jon. I have to warn him. So beside herself was she that she almost missed what Howling Wind was saying.
"-fleetness of foot will not long enchant her."
"Then I will cherish what time we are vouchsafed." First Frost replied measuredly.
"Blood Moon is not the sort to look for companionship among striplings." "Once the circle is crushed and broken…there will be a reordering."
"And in your dreams, is Blood Moon part of that reordering?" Howling Wind asked. "Dreams and hopes have their time. Now is not it. The circle that opposes us is not so feeble as we supposed. Why do you suppose we had to bring a dozen snuffed fires' worth of bones down from the mountains in the first place? We would not have needed to had the circle been built as flimsily as they conduct most every other aspect of their time in this world." The talk of circles put Sansa's head to spinning. They're only earthen rings, and not even proper circles. She let go of Howling Wind then, prompting the Other-princess to slowly turn her head to look behind her. Their speech had become flurries, windy whispers and cracking ice. Thanking all the gods together that she managed to return to her body after so long away, she made to rise- and promptly fell forward, knees stiff and screaming. Graceful. They could not have failed to hear that. A part of her was more concerned with righting herself before they found her than being found in the first place, rising unsteadily while the tingles and numbness sluggishly flushed from her legs and back. Hells, she winced, feeling as though needles were being pulled out of her joints one at a time. Worse still, she felt hungry enough to eat a mammoth. I may have been out here for some time… Just as the pair slipped soundlessly out of the trees, Sansa brought herself to her full height. No doubt looking intimidating soaked through, with snow in my hair and all but tangled in my own frozen cloak. She saw four blue eyes widen just as she jumped, finding herself sitting in front of the waterfall and the hidden entrance to Winterfell. Another dousing was not near enough to stop Sansa from hurrying to Jon, though, and once through the threshold she was running down the passageway. Every second counts, she thought, slowing to a stop before she could even build up speed. If I leave through the crypts' entrance, I'll be besieged with questions and the concerned and never reach him in time. Lady's head against her side had her closing her eyes resignedly. I know this castle as well as I know mine own face. As well as mine own body. Whenshe opened them, she was standing in Jon's bedchamber, the cold deep and biting despite the tightly-shut window and the crackling hearth.
A cooing from the bed saw a head of flyaway silver hair turn in protest, Daenerys murmuring into Jon's side.
"Your Graces." Sansa said, trying not to scream at them- or to let a sob come through.
"Hmph…" Daenerys muttered, pulling the blanket over her head. Sansa's nerves felt ready to explode into a storm worse than the one brewing in the wolfswood. Her eyes snapped to the window and it slammed open of its own accord, a snowy flurry eagerly rushing into the room to cut the heat in half and coat the ledge in melting flakes. The sound was enough to snap Jon from sleep, sitting up on instinct with grey eyes wide and a pillow in hand.
"Were I an Other, a pillow wouldn't do much, Jon." Sansa said.
"Better a pillow than nothing." Jon blinked sleep out of his eyes to take her in. "Did you fall asleep on the ramparts?"
"Something like, but never mind me." Daenerys followed Jon up, wrapped in a blanket and yawning. "The Others found more than just the Horn of Winter in the mountains. The Frostfangs it seems are a dragon graveyard after a fashion, and they found enough bones to approximate one."
"They raised one?" Jon asked, already out of bed and looking for his boots.
"They built one. Thanks to the cold giants, the vetrarjond, it even has breath-of-lightning." While Jon swore, the queen furiously rubbed sleep from her eyes.
"How could it fly, though? Bones alone won't hold it aloft." Daenerys said in a small voice.
"With yards and yards of spidersilk stretched between them, it's more than capable of flight." Sansa replied grimly. She took a breath.
"They found more dead in the Dreadfort as well, a few direwolves, a few Red Kings…but they're having a lot of trouble with Dorne. I think the one they sent, the one in charge, has been killed. People have been landing on the Flint lands, as well as the Rills. As close as Torrhen's square. They…" Sansa looked at Daenerys. "They made mention of fire in the sky, with blood-colored eyes and night-black scaly hide." The queen gave a gasp and at once her eyes were streaming. "It knocked the sense out of some monster, some worm the Others set in place to deny Torrhen's Square as a landing site. Where he is now, I've no idea, but somehow we'll have to establish a clear column for whoever our guests are to reach Winterfell safely."
"I've got an inkling." Jon said, pulling on a shirt.
"The thing they built is larger and more than any of our living dragons, Jon. Being dead, it won't tire, and should one of ours meet it tooth and claw, all they'll find is bone."
"Then I'll bring Meera with me. Big it might be, but we can't let the Others fall on anyone who fought so hard to get this far." To get to us.
"You two needn't go alone. There's a castleful of hard men eager for a fight, I daresay."
"So they are. We'll force their hand and yank their tail, nothing mucks up a surprise attack like a surprise attack." Jon said, daring to smirk.