6-I
It is not much past dawn when The Chainbreaker enters the mouth of the Antler. According to Robb's map, Mance Rayder's village would be three leagues up the river, on the north side, just beyond the beginning of the tree line. A late summer snow begins, it's sudden and thick, but The Smalljon can still see the wide column of smoke upriver. It's coming from the north side, about five leagues away. "Pull!" he roars to the men. They pull, and the ship cuts through the current, then again, and again. The lads were all good, hardy Northmen, Umber folks, the best oarsmen in the Northern fleet. "Pull," he bellows again, tapping Fergus on the shoulder. "Let me take an oar," he says to the young man who is beginning to flag. The boy is sixteen and a good fighter with a strong back, but they'd been rowing hard all night. No shame.
"Pull!" the Smalljon says, dipping forward, feeling the oar bite, and then leaning back in a smooth motion. The ship propels forward. "Pull," he says and repeats the motion. "Callum! Keep this pace!" The big northman near the prow nods and starts banging his spear on the deck to the rhythm of the rowers, each thud carrying them further up the river.
They were in Hardhome when Ser Waymar saw the fire. They weren't supposed to be there, but an Ibbenese whaler was spotted on the horizon, so they followed it all the way to the wildlings port town.
"It used to be the wildling's most populated village," Ser Waymar said. "That's what Maester Aemon told me. He said that something happened there centuries ago, something terrible, and it has been abandoned ever since."
The Smalljon looked around at the hastily erected buildings, a tavern, a Hall, warehouses, merchant stores, even a whorehouse with some real beauties - probably the pleasure slaves that Robb mentioned they freed. "Well, they're here now."
"Here to stay," Ser Waymar said, pointing to the man-made caves they are digging out from the cliffs. "Permanent buildings, permanent homes inside the cliff."
"There are plenty of ships docked here, but I see only whalers and fishing vessels." Aside from the three masted Braavosi monster that dominates the docks. Trade with the most powerful free city is bound to cause ripples, he thinks. Probably explains why the Ibbenese are here, being the most prominent whalers in the world. They are checking in on the competition, probably testing the whaling waters on the east side of the Shivering Sea. "More fishing boats than Robb's description, but that's to be expected, I think."
Ser Waymar scanned the docks. "It matches to this point. I will make an exact count of all the ships in the harbor at the moment. What's here does not indicate the entirety of their fleet. Some could be on the waters now, some could still be at the village on the Antler."
"And I will go see the locals, maybe see if we can work a deal for some of this oil," the Smalljon said, heading in the general direction of the Hall...or maybe the brothel.
"Stay out of the whorehouse, Umber," the Night's Watchman called after him.
"Say that again, Royce. Louder," he called back, "the wind." He cupped his hand to his ear.
"I said stay out of the whorehouse, Umber!" Royce bellows. "Getting your cock serviced is not our business here."
Perfect, he thinks, raising a hand up in acknowledgment.
With his name in the wind, it didn't take long for a wildling captain to find him. Toregg the Tall, Captain of the She-Bear's Teat, was the only man in the port village who could look Jon in the eye. It was nearly a fight that turned into something else involving beer and ale. The wildling was a jovial fellow once they were past the cock measuring (The Smalljon was distraught to say that he fell an inch short in that contest, but he made up for it when he bested him in arm wrestling). He was close to getting a deal closed with the big man - half a hold of grain and seed for a score of barrels of oil and two dozen reindeer, enough to start a herd - when Ser Waymar found him.
"There is a massive fire several leagues inland. Nearly directly west of us."
Toregg stood up. "That's Mance's village," the giant man said as he raced out of the tavern. The Smalljon followed him up the rickety stairs they had constructed, all the way to the top of the cliff. At the edge, he looked west, and saw the fire, clear in the fading light of dusk.
"I'll carve your heart out if you did this, kneeler!" Toregg says, turning to him.
"It was not us," The Smalljon answers.
"Do you think we'd be here if we were part of this attack?" Ser Waymar asks.
He says nothing to them, only runs off, back down the stairs bellowing, "To the ship! Standfast is burning!"
"Come on," The Smalljon says to Waymar. "My ship is faster. There may be survivors."
Waymar nods. "We need to know what did this. A threat to the wildlings may also be a threat to the Watch."
They've been rowing hard ever since. They outpaced the wildling ships in the night by a league at least. As they near the village, the Smalljon is acutely aware that if whoever fired the village is still there, the wildling ships are probably too far away to be of any help. It doesn't matter, he thinks. If they find bastards who need killing, then he and the lads would kill some bastards. "Row, you Northmen," he bellows, giving a mighty pull on the oar.
"Umber!" Ser Waymar calls out. "We're coming up on the last bend."
"Fergus!" he yells. The young man is there in an instant to take the oar. The Smalljon moves to the prow with Ser Waymar. The snow lessened as the sun climbed, but it had thinned out the smoke. The Chainbreaker rounds the bend. The first thing they see are the X's.
"Gods," Ser Waymar exclaims.
"Aye," the Smalljon says softly. A dozen men, wildlings by the look of them, are nailed to posts driven into the ground and criss crossed in an X pattern. A spike for their hands and feet and another driven through their belly. Direwolves and shadowcats arrived before them and have already feasted on most of them, their legs and torsos ravaged, innards spilled on the ground and devoured, flesh hollowed out around the spike. More of the creatures are in the village, at least a score that Jon can see, pulling more meat from the blackened piles.
"Alright boys," he calls out. "Take her to the edge of the bank." A burnt and sunken ship blocks their way to the ruins of a burnt and smoking dock. He hears the hull grind into the mud of the riverbed. They drop the anchor, and he jumps over the railing with Ser Waymar. A quick clang of sword on shield and a round of the same from the other lads who are getting off the ship chase the direwolves and shadowcats away as Jon and Waymar make their way into the destruction.
The village was more a proper town than a village by the Smalljon's reckoning. Dozens of buildings, many made of stone and rafter, docks for the ships, and the ships themselves, at least three with one more being built. They even had what looked to be a smaller version of Winterfell's glass garden. The glass is shattered now, however, and the rest, like everything else, is all smoking timber and ash.
"Spread out, groups of five to keep the direwolves and shadowcats at bay," he bellows to his men. "Check the forest for survivors." He looks up at the snow, lighter than before, but enough to make tracks unlikely.
"Are groups of five enough?" Royce asks as they walk past the treeline. "These beasts are monstrous, bigger than the Starks' animals."
"They've already eaten their fill. Else they'd have been fighting each other when we arrived. We aren't in any danger from them. Or anyone. Those who did this are long away."
"Long away up the river or back down?"
"Back down is my guess. They took their time here. This was a message."
"Slavers? Some of the bodies I saw were of children, but not many. They may have taken most of them."
"Aye, unless they managed to esca…"
"Umber!" Ser Waymar says before darting northwest. The Smalljon follows, his long strides barely enough to keep pace with the quick Valeman. They both crash into a clearing and find a woman holding a babe before a gnarled and ancient heart tree. Nailed high onto the weirwood is a man, naked and flayed from the neck down. There is a dagger in his chest, in his heart, the blood running into the crevices of the carved eyes and nose and face of the tree.
"I fought when the ships came," the woman says, rocking her babe. Her voice is even, her eyes on the dead man. "Large ships, larger than any we'd seen before. Three of them with black hulls and black sails. They came in the night, surprised us, but we...had fought evil before. He rallied us, and we pushed back. But more came. Armored men. Not like the crows, not like you," she says to Waymar. "Covered in steel. Red steel."
"Red Steel?" Jon asks. "Red armor? On all of them."
She rocks her babe, silent for several moments. "Just one. Their leader. Black for the rest. Our spears broke against them, our swords turned aside. We were falling, and they began to torch the village. He had us retreat into the forest, told me to gather our son and run. Told the other mothers the same. He stayed and fought with the rest. They brought him here after. They nailed him to the heart tree because they knew the wolves would not devour him here," the woman says. "He was alive when we came back. Screaming. Until I ended it."
"My lady," Jon says softly, "Let us help you."
She turns to him and The Smalljon can feel his jaw drop slightly. "Can you help me take him down?" she asks.
"Certainly, my lady," he says, turning to Royce to see if he sees it, as well. The Watchman's wide eyes tells him that he does. This girl is older, her blonde hair is more strawberry instead of honey, and her eyes are hazel instead of grey, but her face is a near match to Robb Stark's wife. "Come, Waymar," he says, and digs his knife into the heart tree and leverages out the spikes holding Rayder's feet and then his hands. Waymar catches him in his sable cloak and lowers him to the ground.
"Let us burn him," his wife says. They follow her back to the village where the men had returned with some few survivors, mostly children. They had already brought the men on the X's down and had begun work on the pyres. The Smalljon built Rayder's pyre with Royce while the lady watched with her babe. It was the last to be put to torch.
By then, Toregg the Tall and the other wildling ships arrive, and another large contingent by land. Toregg's father, Tormund, and a pretty, fierce looking redhead named Ygritte, apparently the chieftains of other villages, lead them. The Smalljon shares a look with Waymar, both realizing that they could be dead men if this goes the wrong way. It does not, thankfully, as the lady vouches for them. Then they all gather around the pyre and begin speaking of Mance. His deeds in the war, the growth of the village, the belief he had in their way of life, the love of the Free Folk. At the end, the lady speaks.
"He was a good man. A good husband. A good father. He thought we could be better than we were. I believe he was right. Even among all this death, I believe he was right." She lights the pyre.
"Now his Watch has ended," Jon hears Waymar say. It was spoken softly, but the lady hears the words and walks to them.
"Thank you," she says to both of them. "Your presence here means that Mance and Robb were right."
"Robb Stark?" Royce asks.
"He and Mance made plans to...establish connections between the Free Folk and the Northern Kingdom. They believed our two lands could benefit from cooperation and friendship instead of…" She trails off, looking at her village.
"I believe they are right," Jon says, uncertain if he actually does, but not knowing what else to say. "I just made a preliminary trade with Toregg and his people."
"That is good," she says, rocking her stirring baby.
"My lady," Waymar says, "You are kin to Val Stark of Wintefell, are you not?"
"Val Stark of Winterfell?" she says, a ghost of a smile on her face. "My sister has already made an impression?"
"Indeed she has, my lady," Jon answers.
"My lady? No, I am Dalla."
"Ser Waymar Royce of the Night's Watch, my lady," he says, bowing.
"Jon Umber, heir of Last Hearth."
"Well met," she replies before Toregg steps into their conversation.
"Dalla, what happened here?"
The other wildlings gather around as she tells her story once more, tells it in the same even voice, rocking her baby all the while.
"They left no dead," the red haired girl says.
"They must have taken them with them," Dalla replies. "We killed not a few. I saw them fall."
"Why take them?" another man says.
"Why not?" Toregg answers. "They had hours it seems like."
"To make you fear them," Jon says. "Make you believe they cannot die."
"Or to hide their identity," Waymar counters. "Dalla, were they taking prisoners? Slaves? I noticed some darker skinned bodies earlier, possibly the slaves that had taken up with you after the last Tyroshi ships had been repelled?" The wildlings all glare at him, as if they are only now remembering that they hate the Watch. And Umbers.
"That is them. Atlas, the smith, and his wife, Nera, who was a pleasure slave. Most of the others have already moved to Hardhome."
"Thank the gods for that," Toregg says.
"Yes," Waymar responds, "but what slave ship doesn't take slaves? Especially valuable ones like a smith or a pleasure girl? Slavers aren't sentimental. They don't seek revenge. They seek profit."
"Are you saying these weren't slavers, crow?" the squat tree-stump of a man named Tormund asks.
"No," Waymar says. "They could have been kin to the ones you killed." He frowns. "I am only saying that slavers take slaves, and these did not appear to take any."
"They were slavers," Dalla says. "Perhaps not from Essos, but they were slavers. They took the boys and girls. I found many many mothers lying dead in the loam when I made my way to Mance. I saw nothing of their children."
"Aye," the red haired girl says. "Same for us. We gathered the ones we found and set them to the flame."
"Did any make it to you?"
"A few. Probably a dozen in all."
Tormund nods. "We brought in close to the same number. Sent them back to our village with some of the lads and lasses."
"How many does that leave to be taken...or slain?" Smalljon asks.
"Nigh on one hundred," Dalla says. We were a growing village. On our way to being a proper town."
Tormund coughs, and wipes a bit at his eyes. "You can be again, lass. We can rebuild."
"Aye," Ygritte says, and Toregg agrees.
She only shakes her head. "Mance's dream is not dead. It lives in your villages, in Hardhome. Perhaps even here if you decide to try again. But it is finished for me." She turns to Jon. "Lord Umber, would you bring me and my son to my sister?"
Jon gives her a sad smile. "Aye, my lady. I can do that."
It is another hour before they depart. Dalla says her farewells to the other wildlings, eats a bit to give her strength enough to feed her babe, all while Jon readies a cabin for her. He finds it passing strange that he is giving up his own cabin to a wildling, but it feels like the right thing to do at the moment. He wonders what his father will say, but then shrugs it off. What his father blusters about in the morning is oft forgotten by the afternoon. Still, the wife and son of a wildling chief in Winterfell won't help Robb's cause, at all. He won't see it, though. Or even if he does, he won't heed any counsel against it. Jon likes Robb, thinks him a Stark and a Northerner through and through, and perhaps his ideas will work, and ultimately make the north safer from the savages, but he is going to make enemies doing it. The Umbers, however, will not be among them.
Waymar escorts the Lady to the cabin, and she and the babe fall to sleep straightaway after they shove off. He knows that the knight has been asking her about the details of the raid. He has a bit of a stick up his ass, but Jon thinks he is a good sort, honorable, and he is nothing if not serious about his new duties. That is probably an essential trait for man of the Night's Watch to possess.
Jon is standing at the prow when the crow comes to stand next to him. The Antler's current spills them out into the Bay and Jon commands the oars in and the sails out. The man says nothing, so Jon, ever uncomfortable with silence among those he does not know, clears his throat. "So what do you think happened?"
"I think it was a sellsail company. Or a sellsword company in tandem with sellsails. Either way, I believe it was mercenary."
"You think they were paid to do this? By slavers?"
He squints his eyes a bit. "Or they heard of what happened and saw an opportunity."
"Was it the armor that convinced you?" Jon had been dwelling on that. Slavers in full plate were not common.
Waymar looks at him. "That and their ships. And their accents."
"Their accents?"
"I asked Dalla if they sounded Essosi. I assume that it is hard to tell in battle. No one is listening to an enemy commander's inflection while people are being slaughtered, but most Essosi accents are so foreign, I guessed that she may have it stuck in her mind."
Smalljon disagrees. "I don't know. You'd be surprised what details stick with you after a battle."
Waymar looks back at the sea. "I was surprised. She said the man in the red armor sounded like a kneeler.
"A Westerosi."
"A Northman."
6-II
"Calm your mind, Rickon. If Shadow senses fear or anxiety, he will want to take over, so ease his mind. Make it a friendship, an asking, but show dominance, and he will let you meld with him, let you take over."
"My turn, yet?" Bran asks.
"Not yet," Robb says, still inside Grey Wind, loping along in the Wolfswood with his two brothers. "Let me get Rickon settled, and we'll get back to you. Then we'll all take a deer together."
"Robb, I'm already past this," he whines.
"Hush, Brandon," he says in his commander's voice, and he hears no more from Bran.
He had come to them in their dreams. Talking to them through Grey Wind. Or not really talking, but looking at them with his eyes. His eyes in Grey Wind's body. He knew they would see, would understand. And they did, and had asked him about it the next day. They began in earnest immediately, and it had quickly become the boys' favorite activity. Bran, most of all.
Robb understands. His brother cannot run or climb or fight anymore, so he finds freedom and a life beyond his broken body inside his wolf. It is a danger, though, he knows. When he was beaten and bloody after a fight with Mance or Toregg or when Styr had come and nearly killed him, he had found it easy to retreat into Winter. The wolf was an adult, however, and was able to push him out. If she had not been, if she was a pup like these? Who knows where he would be now. He must protect Bran from that.
"I'm doing it, Robb!" Rickon shouts.
"Yes, you are, Rick. Left!" The black wolf veers left with Grey Wind just as Robb commands. "Very good!"
"I just let Shadow know that he's my best friend. It's easy after that," he says, still excited.
"Alright, Bran," Robb says, "Jump in."
Summer is immediately in sync with them. Brandon is strong. Stronger than me, even. Maybe much more so. "Alright, the wind is shifting, what do you smell?"
"Blood," Bran says immediately.
"I do, too, Robb!" Rickon shouts. "It's making me hungry."
"That's just your wolf, Rickon. He is hungry. So let's go get them fed."
They dash into the wolfswood following the scent, Grey Wind at the head, his two brothers following closely behind. They cut through brush, leap fallen boughs, splash through streams until their prey is close.
"It's a boar," Robb hears Bran say, and sure enough, a massive hog crashes through the trees, spooked by the wolves. No more words now as the wolves close in, snapping and biting at the squealing animal. Shadow catches a leg and hamstrings the beast just as Grey Wind crashes into its side. Summer is on it in an instant and rips its throat out.
"Alright, boys, out!" Robb commands.
Rickon jumps out immediately, a huge smile on his face. Bran's eyes, however, are still white. "I said out, Bran!" No response. Robb jumps back into Grey Wind, and the iron rich taste of blood is on his tongue, and the meat is tender, and he wants nothing more than to finish this meal down to the marrow, but he focuses instead and snaps at Summer. Summer snaps back and then they are lunging at one another. Grey Wind is bigger, stronger, and he gains the upper hand, and has his brother pinned by the scruff. "Out!" he bellows.
They are both out. Brandon is breathing deeply, his eyes dark, lost. Robb shakes him. "What is your name?" He slaps him in the face. "What is your name?" Another slap. "Say it!"
"Brandon Stark...of Winterfell."
"That's right," Robb says, and grips him tightly. "Brandon Stark of Winterfell. My stupid little brother." He pulls back, eyes him hard. "I could smack you again for that idiocy! Control, Bran. You must control yourself. It's easy to get lost, easy to go so deep you can't climb back out!"
"What if I don't want to climb out?"
He sees the tears in his brother's eyes, and doesn't know what to say.
"I don't want to lose you again, Bran," Rickon says, grabbing his brother's hand.
Robb kisses little Rickon on the head. "Nor I, little wolf. I don't want to lose Bran again, either. Once was hard enough."
Bran wipes the unfallen tears from his eyes. "I'll do better, Robb."
"I know you will," he says, giving him a kiss on the head, as well.