Jeor
He couldn't help but glare at Steve as the man moved quickly through the snow. No, that wasn't the right way to put it at all. That would imply that the Friendly Other actually had the shuffle through the thick banks of it.
"How are you able to do that?" he grunted as he fought through a massive drift, wishing they could find a game trail or something. He of course knew why they couldn't, as they wanted their arrival to be a surprise and game trailers and well-worn paths were always watched. Only a fool created a path well worn and cared for and didn't have a way to watch it.
"Do what?" Steve asked. Jeor jerked his head towards Steve's boots and the man looked down, realizing that he had been walking ON the snow rather than through it; the rest of them had been sunk up from mid calf to knee. "Oh. Right. It's part of the gifts I gained when I became…" he gestured at himself with a wave of his hand. "Ice and snow are the domain of the Others and even if I am The Traitor I can still command them." He paused and then sank down into the snow before then taking a step to emerge once more out of the frozen snow bank. "See?"
"Clever trick," Mance muttered as he continued on, doing better than Jeor but not by much. Benjen was doing fine enough and for Ygritte she, for once, wasn't complaining as she was in her element; she was a spear wife, after all, even if she weren't a wife to anyone. The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch wasn't too upset with himself with how he fairing as he mentally reasoned he was fucking old and should be giving commands next to a fire, not traipsing through the dark forests North of the Wall. Still, a bit of grumbing-
"You want me to do it for the rest of you?" Steve asked.
Everyone snapped their heads up to stare at him.
"…what?" Benjen finally asked flatly.
"Make the snow solid enough for you to walk on. So long as you don't stray too far away from me I should be able to do it for all of you." His eyes suddenly blazed bluish-white and when Mance took a step his foot came to rest on top of the snow. Jeor copied him, marveling at how it felt like he was walking on a cold short-haired rug. He could tell it was still snow, for it didn't feel like walking on ice and his footfalls didn't crack and crunch like they would on ice, but it was solid and instantly the weariness left him as he felt gratitude flood his veins.
Ygritte snarled, not quite feeling gratitude. "You mean to tell us you could do that all the time, ya daft fool!?" She moved to smack his shoulder but Steve's hand lashed out, grabbing her by the wrist and catching her well before her blow could make contact. He seemed as startled as she was by his actions.
"Sorry. Force of habit." He released her arm and Ygritte looked ready to hit him again only to think better of it.
"How close are we?" Mance asked finally, once Ygritte had been released and Steve had continued to press on. "It's been far too long since I've had to seek shelter in this foul place." he looked about the Haunted Forest as if he expected at any moment the phantoms of Black Brothers from years past to descend upon them, screeching and hissing at the mere idea that a wildling would dare to come towards the Wall.
"Close," Jeor muttered darkly. "Benjen would know better."
"30 minutes before hand. 10 now." He stepped on the solid snow, his sole explanation for the decrease in time. "I'm more concerned with how long it will take for us to clean up this mess."
"All depends on how many of those traitors survived." Jeor looked past Steve and into the darkness. Though he couldn't see it, thanks to the shadows and the trees, in his mind the structures loomed large and were filled with the taunting laughter of the Black Brothers that had decided to break their vows and nearly been his end. Oh yes, he could see them... and the traitors and their new ramshackle fortress.
Craster's Keep.
Ygritte had been utterly against coming here. "Only those that are sick in the head venture there," she'd argued when Jeor had pressed for them to make towards the compound (if it could be called that) and take the heads off every one of the vile bastards that had plotted his death. "Everyone knows that. My gram told me about him... how Craster likes to fuck his own daughters so they will give him more daughters to fuck. She said some of the babe's are born already pregnant!"
"You should have stopped at the first part," Steve had told her with a slight smile. "One can only stretch a story so far until it snaps and becomes a lie."
"You calling my gran a liar?" Ygritte had demanded.
"If she thinks Craster's wives gave birth to pregnant babies then yes, yes I am," Steve had said firmly, earning slight smiles from Jeor, Benjen, and Mance. When Ygritte had seen the teasing looks on the men's faces she'd huffed and folded her arms over her bosom, giving an annoyed pout.
"He's still sick and diseased."
"No one is arguing that part," Mance had stated. "The man is vile even to the worst of the Free Folk. It is a desperate woman that lies with that man and there is a reason why none of the Free Folk visit his home... and why he isn't welcome at ours. I won't even call him a Free Folk… he is a wildling. Everything the Southerners think of us is embodied in him."
"He doesn't want to steal himself a wife, like a proper man should," Ygritte had stated with a huff. "He just wants them to meekly submit. What use is that?" She looked at Steve and smirked. "You know why you need a strong woman, right?"
"To have someone that can stand with you against your foes, weapon in hand, and battle against all threats that might come. You don't survive if your lover is weak." Ygritte had blinked at that, clearly startled that Steve was agreeing with her. Jeor still didn't get what the red-haired wildling's problem was with realizing that Steve Rogers came from a far different time than all of them. One where the most civilized Southern Lord behaved in ways that would make a wildling warlord nod in approval.
"If you agree that Craster ain't right in the head then why are we heading that way?" she had demanded. "It's a waste of time!"
"It's right on the way," Mance had pointed out, earning a glare from Ygritte at him 'betraying' her by siding with the 'Crows'.
"But we still have to take time to slaughter the Crows. Now don't get me wrong... nothin' I love better than killing Crows-" Steve had dryly coughed and Ygritte glanced around, realizing that technically she was surrounded by men who had sworn to protect the Wall at one point or another in their lives, "-but," she said, quickly moving on from that point, "no reason to do this when we're trying to get to your Castle Black. Even with Steve here I'd rather not tempt the Gods. That place is accursed!"
Jeor grimaced at the memory of that. She'd had a very good point. Dealing with Craster was a dark stain on the Night's Watch. So was how the recruits under his command had so quickly betrayed him. Honestly part of him wanted to do nothing more than heed Ygritte's advice and make for Castle Black and regroup there. Let the bastards that had sought to knife him freeze in that Keep. Let it become their tomb. But he knew they couldn't do that. They just couldn't.
"Why are we doing this?" Ygritte asked suddenly, as if she had been aware of what Jeor was thinking and decided to start that argument up all over again.
"It has to be done," he said in a low frustrated voice. "We've been over this."
"Ya keep sayin' that but you don't give a good reason!" Ygritte exclaimed, far too loudly than Jeor liked. From the way Benjen had shifted he shared her opinion. Her frustration was causing her to slur her words together, making his accent sound all the more crude to his ears. "One good reason! That's all I'm-"
"Every person that remains North of the Wall when Thanos and Court ride forth will become fodder for his army of the undead," Steve told her coolly, Mance pausing and moving away to poke at something in the snow. "It doesn't matter their age, their sex, what Gods they worship or what tribe they belong to. They will die and then they will rise as wights. We need to get as many people as we can across the Wall so that when the dead do march we can face them with powerful numbers. The men that are now at Craster's Keep will never be trusted. They've proven themselves to be oathbreakers. As such our only choice is to allow them to be part of the army that will soon march against us… or deal with them now." He rolled his shoulders. "I know the Free Folk. I imagine you haven't changed much from my time. Even then they felt that we Southerners never cleaned up our messes. This is us cleaning up Commander Mormont's mess."
"I would like to agree with you," Mance said before Ygritte could respond to that, "but it appears someone else has stepped in to settle things before us." He reached down into the snow before yanking his hand back up… and with it came the slack-jawed head of a young man with a slit throat and graying milky eyes. The cold had preserved the body, stopping the rot from setting it, but the blood had frozen along his savaged throat, becoming nearly as black as the clothing he wore.
"Karl," Jeor said, staring at the corpse's face and remembering how he had been in life. The good and the bad. Mostly the bad as he remembered his voice among the many that had called for him to die.
Benjen frowned. "One of the traitors?"
"One of them," Jeor said. "Craster and his wives must have fought back. Killed him."
"Then why leave him here?" Mance asked. "Corpses attract predators. Craster might be sick in the head but even he knows that. You don't shit where you eat and you don't leave corpses at your door."
Steve approached the body, kneeling down on the snow and placing a hand an inch from the corpse's face.
Ygritte took a step back and pulled out her bow. "You aren't gonna raise that-"
"No," Steve said and there was such finality to it that they didn't press him any further. He murmured to himself before standing up, pulling his shield from his back. "We move. Fast."
"What about the element of surprise?" Benjen asked even as he drew his blade.
"It doesn't matter anymore. We need to get to the keep… now."
With that Steve began to hurry forwards, the rest of them nearly stumbling over each other in their rush to follow after him. Jeor found himself hurrying beside Mance and he looked at the former Black Brother and current King-Beyond-The-Wall and said in low enough voice for only the other man to hear, "he's spooked."
"Or at the very least concerned," Mance stated back. "And that worries me. What could cause a man such as him to become worried?"
Jeor didn't have an answer for that. But he did have a bad feeling they were about to find out.
"If we encounter anything… like Steve…" It felt wrong to equate their companion with the Others but Steve himself had brushed such concerns aside, telling them that it was useless to try and hide from the truth. He was an Other; altered to be far different from them yes but still an Other. "You stay near me. Longclaw hurts them far more than any other weapon we have." He shook his head in annoyance. "Damn it all if wish we had that dragonglass."
"Dragonglass?" Mance said, managing the rapid pace far better than Jeor. He was getting better at it, being far more active than he'd been in years, but still Jeor could feel his sides screaming in pain from the rush towards Craster's Keep and yet again he promised to himself that he would get back into the yard and return to fighting form, age be damned! "You found dragonglass?"
"Near the Fist of the First Man, wrapped in a cloak of a brother of the Night's Watch. Or, I suppose, a Knight of the Dawn, now that we know who we once were."
"What happened to it?"
"Two lads that were with me, Grenn and Edd, they had it. They were with me at Craster's… but I didn't hear them among the traitors. Good lads, loyal. I wish I could have taken them with me but there was no time. With any luck they escaped and made it back to the Wall and Castle Black."
"Luck for them, not us," Mance reminded him. "I wouldn't mind more men and more weapons."
"We'll have them both, I swear to you," he said firmly. Jeor wanted to say more suddenly the trees thinned out completely and they found themselves standing in a barren spot within the forest, a wall of sharpened logs pointing outward greeting them. The barrier wasn't that high, maybe only 4 to 5 feet tall, and hadn't been maintained in some time so there were plenty of places where one could easily slip through. Jeor had never really considered that, not really. His men had never mentioned it when they visited the Keep to barter for supplies or find a warm place to rest for a night, and when he'd arrived there with the last remains the Great Ranging he'd been so desperate for shelter that he hadn't actually stopped and looked at the place.
Ygritte made a noise of dismissive disgust and Jeor found himself agreeing with the brash Wildling. Craster's Keep wasn't impressive in the slightest. The main building was little more than a large barn turned into a cabin that leaned to one side and looked more like a piece of kindling thrown together in a vaguely building-like shape by a child amusing themselves before supper. He half expected a great hand to appear from the sky and brush it all aside, scattering it before hurrying away to eat. The actual barn was little better and the grounds, while flat and without clutter, were plain and rather ugly the more Jeor stared at them. He knew that under that land were hidden cellars filled with food and furs and casks of water… after all, the Night's Watch had given much to Craster in order to get his help. And the wildlings knew it too. Yet they'd never attacked the old man or his many wives… and Jeor didn't know why. Looking at Craster's Keep he saw a hundred different ways to take it, even with the primitive weapons of the wildlings. One wouldn't even need that many men to do it. Someone with a good aim with a bow, a few quick slashes with a knife…
Yet how had a place so poorly defended managed to remain utterly safe?
'No,' Jeor thought to himself as Steve marched past the sharpened logs and into the interior of the Craster's land, 'not safe. That is not a word for this place. No one is safe here.' Perhaps that's why the wildlings had never attacked, for they sensed just how wrong Craster's was and avoided it. They were superstitious like that. 'You're going into a fight with a fucking Other, Jeor… stop calling it superstition!'
The Keep was empty, which already put all of them on edge. Craster had many wives and daughters (and wife-daughters and daughter-wives) and thus no matter what time it was there was always activity going on his lands. Jeor remembered that well from his time there and from the way Benjen was tensing he knew the First Ranger was thinking the same thing: where were Craster's wives? Had the mutineers killed them all? No… no he couldn't see that happening. They were lusty, angry lads who had become drunk on rage and power. They would not throw away so quickly the chance to feel a woman tremble under them. Even if the wives fought them… Jeor had a feeling that the lads would have enjoyed that even more.
'Perhaps they have them tied up somewhere,' he thought to himself. 'Held in the barn, waiting for when those boys want to get their cocks wet?' He quickly dismissed that though. 'Craster had his wives so beaten down they would never go against him. They respond to strength. If they didn't rise up against one old man they wouldn't rise up against a band of young men with real steel.'
No… something was very wrong.
"It's too quiet," Ygritte whispered.
Benjen tightened his grip on his sword. "I know. This place should be filled with people."
The wildling girl shook her head though. "Not just people… no birds. No vermin runnin' around. Nothing. There is NOTHING here."
Steve slowly turned his head one way and then the other. "Of course… only man is brave enough to walk into this trap… or foolish."
"Trap?" Mance asked but before any of them could press on any farther the door to Craster's home opened… and the old man himself walked out, smirking the same condescending grin that he'd been wearing the last time Jeor had arrived on his lands, begging for aid. The man growled and grumbled about the Night's Watch coming around with their hands held out for aid… but he also so did love taunting them about how with all their might and power they still came to him when they were in need. Craster loved the feeling that their lives were in his hands.
"Well well well… Lord Commander! I wondered where you had run off to. Just like you Southerners, rushing off without giving proper thanks for a warm bed and a full belly. They don't teach you manners in those fancy castles of yours?" He let out a huff. "I think not. The boys you brought with you, they didn't know how to respect those that aid them either. Rude, vile creatures, the lot of them. Did you know that they wanted to kill me and take my food and my wives? I gave them plenty to eat, you can attest to that, and you Crows take vows never to use your peckers so what use would my wives be to them? Still, they tried it… but they learned how bad of an idea that was." He let out a dry chuckle that came out more like the cackles of a demented witch. "They learned alright. You taught them rather poorly though, Lord Commander… inspired so little loyalty in them."
He looked towards Mance and frowned. "You… I remember your face. But it's been a long time since you darkened my doorstep. And you had on more black than you do now. Except for… a scrape of cloth. Bright in color. I remember that well. So unlike a Crow to have something like that… but you were never a Crow, were you? Just like you aren't truly a wildling either. You don't think like them. Act like them. You have no where you belong but you keep hoping if you save the entire world maybe you'll finally chase down that love you've longed for-"
Ygritte pulled an arrow from her quiver and notched it. "I've always wanted to put a shaft right through your throat. Keep talking and I'll be glad to do it."
"Hmmm. Hmm hmm hmm. Spirited little thing, aren't you? But we'll fix that. Oh yes we will. Been a long time since I had a wife that didn't come from my loins but you look like you can birth me plenty of lovers. My daughters will teach you how to properly behave. Break you in. Don't worry… all my wives learn to love me. You'll be no different." He smirked at Ygritte's disgust. "Oh, don't act like it isn't possible. You mock the kneelers and the Crow followers but here you are with a King and Crows!"
"Where is everyone?" Jeor demanded, drawing the man's attention onto him.
"My wives? Or your brothers? You can't be asking about the former… you actually honor your vows, you fucking fool. As for the latter… are they really your brothers still? After all they tried to do to you? If so I suppose I can understand wanting to come here and kill them. You do want to kill them, don't you? I can tell from your eyes you want to, don't deny it." He took several steps away from the safety of his home. "I killed my own brother. We didn't agree on how to do things and I snuffed him out when he got a bit too loud for my liking. They say the kinslayer is the most accursed in the eyes of the gods… I only killed one brother, Lord Commander. You want to kill so many more. That is rather dangerous, tempting the wrath of the gods. But, perhaps… you've been worshiping the wrong one."
"And you've been worshiping the right one?" Steve asked and to Jeor's surprise Craster actually flinched a touch at the sound of the man's voice. "Don't deny it… you've stayed safe because you made a pact with them. I saw it many times during the Great War; foolish, stupid humans that believed if they got on their knees and gave all they could to them they would be spared. And they were… for a time. But they do not care about you, no matter what you think. All they want is to see you dead."
"You have no idea what you are talking about," Craster snapped, his mocking tone twisting into fury at Steve's lecturing of him.
But the Lord Captain of the Knights of the Dawn merely continued to stare him down, face hard and cold like the frost that flowed through his veins. "I know all too well. You worship them. That's why you've taken so many wives, why you stain your soul by breeding with your own daughters. They need new servants and your provide them. New bodies for them to take over, to place their brethren within. You'd give them all your children but the girls work better to help produce more young for them. You do it for protection and to extend your own existence, damn what it means for the rest of the world!" Steve took a step forward and glared at the savage while the rest of their group tensed and formed into a 4-person circle, looking for the ambush they sensed was close to being sprung. "Now… who is it that you serve?"
"I serve the Others," Craster admitted. "I serve the true masters of this world."
"Thanos is a traitor to his own kind. He is a master of nothing."
"You have no right to say his name!" Craster screamed before rushing at Steve, drawing a dagger from a hidden pocket in his furs and raising it high. Jeor felt no worry that Steve would be hurt, for he had seen the man fight two Others at the same time and he knew that Steve was more than capable of taking on the likes of Craster. But he was startled when, rather than raise his shield, Steve merely held out his hand. And he was all the more shocked when Craster stopped dead in his tracks, body twitching like a thousand threads had suddenly latched onto his limbs and were tugging him in different directions. He momentum stopped and he shook and trembled, limbs jerking wilding under the assault that Steve had caused merely by raising his hand.
"Who do you serve?" Steve asked, his voice altered so that it had a strange vibration to it, an almost echo-like quality that made it feel like bugs were burrowing into Jeor's brain. He found himself whispering the names of people he had sworn fealty to in the past. His father. Rickard and then Ned Stark. The Watch. Behind him Benjen, Mance, and Ygritte were doing the same, unable to stop themselves from admitting who they would fight for… kill for… die for.
"No… no," Craster growled through grit teeth.
"I am of the Court, Craster. If they are your gods then so am I! You. Will. Answer. Your. God." Craster fell to his knees and Steve took a step towards him, glaring down at the man with a terrible vengeance, eyes blazing with cold blue light, skin growing all the more pale as he unleashed his power. "The party that came here and helped you slaughter the mutineers wasn't large… one Other and a few wights, right? Don't deny it… I can feel one of them and only one. They are the ones you've pledged yourself to, aren't they? Who do you serve?" Craster opened his mouth only to snap his teeth down, biting off the tip of his tongue. The pink flesh fell to the snowy ground and warm blood gushed from his lips and still Craster refused to say a word. "Answer me!" Steve commanded.
"There is no need for such theatrics, Herr Rogers," an accented voice called out from the deep darkness of Craster's home. Steve tensed at the sound of it, head snapping up away from Craster and towards the doorway as the new arrival spoke from the shadows. "If you wanted to speak face to face all you had to do was ask. We are not barbarians… not like the fleshy humans that you give so much to try and defend. We can meet as kin…" the figure stepped out of the house, Craster falling to his knees and bowing his head while Jeor and the rest of the humans that had traveled with Steve took a step back in horror, "…old friend."
When Jeor had first laid eyes on an Other he had thought them to be at once creatures that could never been seen as belonging to the natural world. Everything about them, from the way they moved to how they looked to the sounds they made were utterly foreign. There were aspects that might have once made them like men but they had been twisted and mutilated in the name of creating something so very unlike mankind. Steve had only proven this to be true, for while he had the aspects of an Other like his pale white skin and burning blue eyes and crystalline hair he was still a man underneath all of that strangeness.
But the figure that had stepped out to greet them? He made those Others Jeor had first seen appear to be like close kin thanks to his utter wrongness.
He was dressed in black but the material wasn't like anything Jeor had ever seen before. It was far too slick and smooth, flowing like watered-down ink and never seemed to crinkle or crease. All he wore had been made from it, be it the shining knee-high boots to the tight pants; the long ebony gloves that went to his elbows to the long side-buttoned up jacket that came down to his ankles. Ornaments were littered all along it, a mockery of the medals and sigils and marks of valor that knights and lords would earn after tourneys and wars. From the neck down every inch of him was covered in that flowing black material.
Staring at the Other's face Jeor wished he had also worn a mask.
Where should have been a face there was instead a smooth cadaver's visage. Crimson skin without an inch of fat pulled tight over a leering skull. No hair… not on his scalp or upon his cheeks or even above his black cruel eyes, which were sunk into deep sockets that made his brow more prominent. His cheekbones came to a sudden sharp end, the skin yanked backwards towards his unnatural jaw. He lacked ears completely and where his nose should have been was instead a triangle-like hole with only a small bit of that red skin to divide it into nostrils. He could see the teeth and the tongue of the creature and they looked so out of place for they were so very normal; they had no right being in such a hideous visage of death. The whites of his eyes were the only light pigments on his entire person but they only served to make the darkness of his irises all the more off-putting.
"Fucking hell," Ygritte whispered.
"We aren't friends," Steve answered sharply.
"Are we not? Have you forgotten all you and I went through? Our battles? Our talks? We spent much time together at the Nightfort after all."
"Johann was a good warrior," Steve stated. "We didn't agree on many things but I knew he'd have my back when things got rought and I would always have his. I won't disgrace his memory by pretending you are him." Steve pointing a figure at the Other. "You ate his soul and took his body, mutilating it for your own dark needs. Just like what Thanos and the rest of his followers have done."
"And whose fault is it truly that Johann's soul is now trapped within my chest?" The Other tapped his breast and began to pace, one hand held behind his back like he was a general addressing the troops. "Have you told your Thralls how you came to be? Hmmm… I think not. Your body was prepared for us, your soul put to sleep so it might become the fuel I needed to lead the compaign. If it hadn't been for that traitorous Thrall you would have never been stolen from us."
"Erskine was never your Thrall. He knew what kind of monsters you were and worked every day to destroy you. His great successes in helping you were actually failures that you never realized were his doing. And he gave his life to turn your twisted ritual back on itself, so that it was I that was in control and the Titan that was forever chained."
The Other nodded at that. "Yes… which is why mighty Thanos needed a new Commander to lead his forces… why I was selected and poor Johann chosen as the vessel for my glory." He turned his head slowly towards Steve, smooth yet so careful that it came off like a great beast spotting some shivering prey and considering just when they might pounce. "He's still awake in me, you know? All the souls we consume are. He's stopped cried ages ago… stopped whimpering for the mother that is long dead and the home that he will only see when I march to tear it down. He never says a word… but know, Herr Rogers… he hates you for damning him."
Ygritte let fly an arrow, the Commander catching it easily.
"Oh fuck off!" Ygritte exclaimed as she notched another one. "Steve, are ya really gonna listen to the fucking Red Skull over there?"
"No," Steve said sternly, voice filled with resolve. "I'm not."
The Commander though tapped his chin. "Red Skull…" he murmured, voice appreciative of the moniker before he finally looked back at Steve. "You know, for as much as you claim to be different from us… all I see are the similarities."
"Have you looked in the mirror recently?" Mance asked with a raised eyebrow.
The newly christened Red Skull let out an amused huff at that. "You certainly do attract a certain kind of human to be your thralls, Herr Rogers. Are they naturally so loose with their tongues or is it your lax command that makes them believe that they can talk such as this to their betters?"
"They are NOT thralls," Steve said, gritting his teeth and taking a step forward.
"Oh, have I hit a nerve, Herr Rogers?" The Red Skull began to pace once more, hands clasped behind his back as he began to circle the group. The only one who didn't follow his every movement was Craster, who kept his head down as he knelt on the cold ground. It didn't matter that the snow was soaking into his clothing, bringing about a new chill that made the Lord Commander shudder. Jeor saw it at once for what it was: a show of power. Thorne had done much the same with new recruits brought before him, to show them they were nothing and he was everything. "Is it because you know that I am right but you fear to admit it? It is your human soul… it weakens you as it does all of them. Makes you hold onto your false humility like it is an old woman's shawl. Yet look at them… they follow your commands, do they not? What you order them to do… they do. And in return you gift them with protection, with power." The Skull leered at Jeor and the rest of the humans and he glowered at him in return. "And when they are no longer needed you toss them away."
"I don't toss them away," Steve charged. "If any of them wanted to leave now I would let them go. And any that stay I will help from now until my last breath."
"That is what makes you weak, Herr Rogers. You always remain one step away from true power but hold yourself back. It is why you fail. And when you fail… they are the ones to suffer." The Red Skull paused, glancing out of the corner of his eye towards Steve.
"You don't care at all for those that you force to help… I never demand a single person stand with me. They choose to follow me."
"So do my thralls!" the Commander declared with mocking innocent. "I do not seek out the likes of Craster!" He walked over to the man and placed his hand onto his head, Craster's face twitching as icy vapor began to rise from his skull. Jeor could tell that the wildling was in great pain but his vow to follow the Other forced him to remain still. "They all come to me. To us. They understand their place in this world is to serve. That is why Craster has given up so many of his sons to the cause." Before Steve could say another word The Red Skull continued. "Do your new thralls know of your old ones? What did they call themselves?" He rolled his hand about. "You know who I am talking about, don't you? Unless you've forgotten them already." Steve didn't respond, choosing to merely to stare down the Commander of the Court. "Perhaps not… they were quite memorable, if I recall correctly. Always rushing into battle, pestering us in their feeble attempts to halt our progress. They would make such cries when in the heat of battle, like beasts rather than thinking creatures. Come now Herr Rogers… The Screeching Soldiers? The Bellowing Knights?"
"The Howling Commandos," Steve said coolly before a smirk slowly formed on his lips. "And those humans caused you and your deluded thralls quite a bit of trouble, didn't they? How many of your stolen keeps did we destroy? Six? Seven? It's hard to remember, they all fell the same way: with you fleeing. Like a coward. Back to Thanos to explain why you kept failing."
The Skull's jaw twitched but it was only a moment before he began to speak again, returning to the false cheer. "But they are gone now and you've replaced them with the ones before me. Tell me… which one has become your new Bucky-"
Steve swung his arm out, sending his shield right at the Red Skull's head. The crimson-skinned other leapt easily out of the way, the shield ricocheting back to Steve's hand while the Skull leapt onto the roof of Craster's keep, raising his hands in the air. The snow around Jeor, Benjen, Mance, and Ygritte shifted before the corpses of the Night Watch Mutineers rose up, staring with sightless burning blue eyes at the living. They weren't as rotted at the ones Jeor had faced when he first met Steve but somehow that was even worse. With those dead shambling wights he could think of them as merely another creature that needed to be slain.
'But I know these men… these boys. I remember their names. What lands they came from. That they have family and friends and those that love them that wonder if they'll ever hear from them again, having no idea that they are long dead, twisted into these… shambling things.' He shifted into a ready stance, Longclaw gripped in his hands as he stared at the risen Black Brothers stood unnaturally still, waiting… waiting… waiting…
"What a dilemma, Herr Rogers!" the Red Skull called out. "Do you give chase after me and continue our ancient feud? Or do you save these pathetic beasts before they are made members of our army?" With that the Commander turned.
"Master!" Craster called out. "What should I do?"
The Red Skull didn't even bother to turn his head. "What you and your kind do best… die." And with that the Other was gone. The second he stepped away the wights leapt forward, swarming Jeor and his group with snapping jaws and outstretched hands.
For Steve it wasn't even a choice.
He instantly pivoted, smashing Craster in the face with his shield to ensure that he wouldn't interfere, and then he was tossing the weapon out, cutting down five wights even as he leapt into battle.
"A little help here!" Mance called out and when Jeor turned he saw the King-Beyond-The-Wall was struggling against Grubbs, who was managing to shove Mance backwards despite the fact that one of his arms was hanging only by a few stringy bits of muscle. Mance had his sword, the one he'd taken with him when he'd left the Watch, and was using it to try and keep the wight off of him but the corpse just kept snapping its jaws at him, getting closer each time. Jeor raced forward only to curse himself when he plunged his sword into the wight's side.
'Idiot!' he mentally screamed, knowing that such a wound would do little for the dead. He went to yank his blade back only to stare in surprise when Grubbs collapsed in a heap, his body now truly a corpse. "Hell… what did I do?"
"I have no-
"DUCK!" Jeor dove down and Mance swung his sword over Jeor's head, slicing through the neck of Oss as he had tried to take him from behind. The wight's skull bounced along the ground and the body stumbled back only to begin trying to come at them again. "Hells, I hate these things! What did you do to put down this one!"
Jeor frowned, swinging his blade and cleaving Oss' body in half, the corpse crumbling little brittle clay as it struck the ground and went still. He looked around and began to observe the entire fight. Craster was done and was being ignored at the moment by the wights but Jeor knew that wouldn't last long, as it was clear that the Red Skull no longer saw use for his servant and had decided it was time for him to join the army in the form of a shambling carcass. Ygritte had quickly given up firing arrows at them, having realized that it was rather useless when the bodies could just keep running at her, and instead had grabbed a shovel with a broken blade and was using it as a strange half-spear/half-mace to lash out at every corpse that got too close. Benjen was backing her up, hacking off pieces of the dead as they came at them, but he wasn't having any better luck than Mance. In fact the only person that seemed to be able to put down the wights, other than Steve who was cutting through them with his shield like a hot knife through soft butter, was Jeor himself…
"I wonder," he muttered before thrusting Longclaw to Mance. "Try."
"What?"
"Kill one of the bastards with this. I have a theory."
Mance, almost gingerly, took the ancestral sword of House Mormont, tossing Jeor his own castle-forged steel. Jeor went after Popper while Mance turned his attention towards a body who might have been once Alan; it was hard to tell with the face as utterly mutilated as it was. Jeor stabbed quickly into Popper and the second he saw that the body was still coming at him he cleaved his blade into the top of the man's skull before kicking him away, causing his body to fall into the path of Steve's shield. He glanced over at Mance who nodded; one stab had taken out the wight.
"Valyrian Steel," Mance muttered even as Steve took out the last of the wights. "Of fucking course it had to be the rarest thing in the world that can kill these bastards."
"Fire works too," Benjen reminded them.
"And," Steve said as he joined them, "we found that obsidian works well."
"Ya didn't think to mention that?" Ygritte complained, pulling her shovel out of a corpse before, with a tilt of her head, she decided to give it one final stab for good measure.
"Do you even know what obsidian is?" Benjen asked.
"…that's not the point!" Ygritte exclaimed.
Mance groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Dragonglass, Ygritte. None of which is found this far North."
"But it is down south," Jeor muttered.
Steve nodded. "Another thing we'll need to discuss when we reach Castle Black. Is everyone okay?"
"I think we're all good," Jeor stated, rolling his shoulders as Mance handed back Longclaw.
The Captain of the Knights of the Dawn smiled at that before his visage changed to one of great pain. "What he said about all of you… that isn't-"
Ygritte scoffed. "Don't bother. That bastard is just a bastard spouting bastard things. Didn't change a thing between us." Though her language was coarse Jeor could hear the sincerity in it and that was proven all the more true when she reached up and pressed a hand against Steve's shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
"…thank you," Steve said gratefully.
"What? For tellin' you you're being a fucking idiot? Huh… first time someone had enough sense to thank me for that-"
"We have company," Benjen cut in and they turned to see from one of the barns come a group of hard-looking women dressed in patchwork furs. Craster's wives, Jeor realized. Wives and daughters and wives again.
"Is he dead?" one of the older women asked. She nodded towards Craster, who was lying face deep in the snow, the white fluff stained red from blood.
"No," Steve stated. "He's alive. I just knocked him out to keep him from running."
"Damn," Dyah muttered. "Should have killed him."
Benjen was surprised by that. "He's your husband…"
"He ain't our husband!" another one of the women snapped out. "We're his wives but he ain't our husband, if-in ya understand me."
"If you hate him so much why stay with him?" Jeor asked.
Mance though was the one to answer. "You didn't have a choice, did you?" he looked about at them, frowning as he ran through what their lives must have been like. "How long have the Others been keeping you captive here?"
"Longer than they've been walking around," the first woman declared. "That only happened recently. But I've seen people who've tried to leave… they return, in a manner. A warning of what happens if you don't obey their commands. More than one of us stumbled onto these lands by accident and where never able to return. And don't think we could ask you Crows for help… my sister tried once and both of them ended up torn to pieces."
Jeor shuddered at that. The idea that the ancient enemy had been watching, even as they slumbered, knowing who came and went, at any time able to wield their power against any Black Brother… he wondered how many more brothers had happened upon Craster at the wrong time and never left his lands. Was he standing on an unmarked grave right now?
"You're… you're different though, aren't you?" a younger woman said softly to Steve, cradling a newborn to her breast.
"I am," Steve said. "I am Steve Rogers, Lord Captain of the Knight's of the Dawn. I am from the Westerlands of Westeros, son of Lann Rogers. I am also the Traitor to the Court."
"Aye then," the second woman who had spoken said finally with a nod. "That's a lot of words to say… but we are wondering…" her eyes drifted towards the newborn.
Steve's face grew tender. "I will NOT take him from you…"
"Gilly, Captain Westeros," the young woman said.
"Not Cap… it doesn't matter." Steve slowly walked forward, making sure to have every movement be clear so they knew what he was doing. He loomed over Gilly as he finally came to a stop, smiling at her and her babe. "I swear on my honor and the memory of my mother that I will see your son live a long full life."
Gilly shuddered before she dropped her head, clutching her child and weeping in clear relief.
"What now?" the first woman asked.
"We make for Castle Black. If there are any of you that wish to leave, to find your tribes and homes, you can!" Steve declared, stepping away from the group. "If any of you are willing to ride to where Mance Ryder, the King-Beyond-The-Wall, asks you to go so we might bring representatives from the clans he commands, we would be in your debt. But I swear this… as long as I stand your torment is over!"
There was no cheer at that. No outburst of clapping or whoops of joy. The women merely sagged with relief.
Jeor silently prayed that Steve wouldn't be proven a liar.
