A.N.: I'm just reading up and apparently Greatjon Umber survived the Red Wedding but is imprisoned by House Frey: And Mors and Hother Whoresbane play the game with Roose and Stannis, while the Greatjon is still held hostage.
Valyrian Steel
08
Last Hearth
She had mistaken the flame-red for weirwood leaves, at first, vivid against the snow-covered evergreen of the ancient foret. A giant roared, brown-haired and wrapped in a skin, broken silver chains glinting at its wrists. House Umber's sigil, flying high over the great keep of Last Hearth, whipping and snapping in the high winds. The dawn had greeted them, cold and fair; she could not remember her last sunrise. Beyond the Wall, they had lingered in a perpetual twilight, the moon glowing off snowbanks and frozen lakes, but no sunlight. It had only perpetuated the timelessness Larra had become accustomed to beneath the weirwood.
Sharp and bright, the brittle sunlight filtered through the bent evergreen boughs laden with a mantle of fresh snow. Here and there, hellebores poked their heads out of the frozen underbrush, snow-white and fresh crisp green, occasionally a rich velvety purple, their petals downturned, resilient as any direwolf in the snows. Mist rose from a stream beside the weirwood fed by a hot-spring, glowing as the shards of sunlight caught it, making the ancient godswood eerier for it. Only birdsong punctuated the breathless, reverent silence of the godswood. There was no snow falling this morning; only stillness. It was lulling, almost gentle. Flashes of red darted about amid the snow-white and umber brown and evergreen; a worship of weirbirds drew her eye, and as the sun shone, they sang. Small songbirds, they were startling in their colouring, with vivid scarlet beaks and plumage, and snow-white faces; the females were snow-white. A group of the songbirds was called a worship in the North: Sometimes the females would conceal their nests among the leaves of a weirwood, as if trying to get as close to the Old Gods as possible. Their song was beautiful: Larra hadn't heard it in years. She remembered few but the largest birds of prey living beyond the Wall.
It seemed even the wildlife had been fleeing the White Walkers. But then, hadn't the appearance of a direwolf in the woods heralded the beginning of the Starks' troubles? She remembered the beast in the snows, maggots crawling out of its eyes, its pups birthed after its death mewling and wriggling blindly for milk, the broken antler of a great stag lodged through their mother's jaw.
Freak, Theon Greyjoy had called it.
Jon had told Father his children were meant to have the pups. Three boys, two girls - the same as Ned Stark's children. An albino, pushed away by the others, for Jon: And the largest, wiliest and perhaps the kindest of them, eyes already open, a jet-black that had pounced on Larra's boot, claimed by Larra.
Their direwolves had been companions and occasional protectors ever since.
Larra didn't like to think how their lives would have unfolded had Father allowed the men to butcher the pups, all those years ago. Sansa and Arya had lost Lady and Nymeria before they even reached King's Landing: And Arya was still presumed dead. Larra knew hints of what Sansa had endured, but no more.
Brandon sat beneath the heart-tree, communing with memory: Larra padded through the virgin snows, a foot deep, and sang back to the weirbirds.
As a girl, she had learned to identify and mimic the song of every bird in the godswood. When she had nursed a harpy eagle to health, she had learned how to mimic its cries - and terrified her little brothers in the godswood, launching herself at them from the topmost boughs of trees, after Jon and Robb and Theon had wound them up that great harpy-eagles would swoop down and carry them off for dinner. She smiled to herself, watching the worship of weirbirds singing in chorus, responding to her own whistled song, remembering the black eye Bran had accidentally given her, thumping her out of pure reflex: She had to think she and her brothers had taken a few too many liberties frightening Bran and Arya.
Larra had argued to Father that they were teaching their younger siblings resilience.
Maester Luwin might have regretted teaching her what that meant, and why resilience was important in all aspects of her education, and her life.
She sighed, and thought about the little boy Bran used to be, the sweet-faced, clever, kind boy he had once been, the one who scuffed his boots and looked down every time he fibbed; and the young man he had become in the last fortnight alone, ever since his communion with the heart-tree in the weirwood grove beyond the Wall.
Bran her brother had become a different person since. She had noticed, the day they walked through the Wall; she had known, as Edd told her the truth of their family's tragedies, of which their own had been one of the first, and perhaps more certainly, the least. He had become Brandon the Broken, for the first time; there was something fundamentally fractured in Bran, and she did not mean his spine. He was not as she knew him to be anymore. She wondered how long it would take Bran to return to himself, if ever. If he would achieve that, before the end of her lifetime. And if there was anything she could do to speed up the process.
It would not do to have this stranger return to Winterfell with her: They needed someone invested. They needed Bran.
Regretfully, she turned away from the birdsong, padding through the snow to the heart-tree. Bran's eyes were as colourless as the weirwood tree behind him; there was a soft pink flush in his cheeks from the cold, his hands red from exposure as he pressed his palm to the trunk. It was an unsettling vision, that still, emotionless face and lifeless white eyes; not the brother she had raised.
Larra had risen before dawn, gaining perhaps three hours' rest. She never slept for long nowadays, not even beneath the weirwood, where the Children had assured her of their safety. She fell into restless dozes with fear clutching at her lungs, and she woke with terror gripping her throat. And constantly, constantly the worry about Bran.
It had been conditioned into her: Look after Bran.
"Brandon," she said gently, and reached out to rub Bran's chest just beneath his throat. Over the last few days' travel, Bran had spent a good amount of time with his eyes colourless, communing; it had unnerved the brothers of the Watch, but they were becoming accustomed to him. There was no other choice: Until they reached Winterfell, they all had to muddle along. "Come on, it's time to come back. We must move on."
They had remained the Umbers' guests only overnight, to give the horses a rest, and the men a warm, dry place to lay their heads - a luxury. It had taken closer to ten days than a week to reach Last Hearth: A storm of sleet and lightning had cost them a day's travel and several terrified horses, thankfully hunkered down in an abandoned holdfast in the New Gift. But two brothers of the Night's Watch had died of sickness during the first few days' march. They had been coughing for years, Edd told them; the order to retreat to Winterfell had not brought their deaths nearer.
They had been burned where they fell. It was not respectful, they all knew, but they could not afford to linger.
Perhaps it was the pain in her side, the bruise still angry and flourishing purplish-red beneath her furs and obsidian chainmail, the weight of Dark Sister sheathed at her waist, the absence of Hodor and Summer, that settled dread in the pit of Larra's stomach. She had been so long beyond the protection of the Wall that she forgot the army of the dead chasing at her heels could not move past it. It would take a very long time before she did not dread looking over her shoulder, did not listen for snarls and groans on the wind. So long as the Wall held true, they could indulge in a feeling of relative safety.
Relative…
He was getting better at returning. He still didn't like it, though.
"I was learning," Brandon murmured in protest, his eyes dark once more.
"We're moving on. You can commune once you're settled in the wagon," she told him, half-reminded of Rickon. She had been his primary caregiver, his mother, since Lady Catelyn had left Winterfell for King's Landing on a fool's errand, never to return. It had fallen to Larra to discipline and coddle Rickon in equal measure, to raise him, to care for him, to love him, and teach him compassion, dignity and respect. It had fallen to her to gentle some of the wildness, without breaking it. She had learned a very specific way to address Rickon: Stern, unyielding, but kind. She used that mother's voice now, with Brandon, more than twice their brother's age when Rickon had been left wild and confused, fearful and lost. "You know I will not move you from the weirwood while you're communing; but the world does not stop while you dive into visions. I hope you were watching something illuminating."
"It was," said Brandon softly. He raised his dark eyes to her. "I shall show you, in a little while." Larra stared at Bran. Show her?
Her stomach cramped, and she thought of Hodor.
Hodor, whose name was Wylis.
Hold the door…
Hodor's fate had given her more than one nightmare, and for more than one reason than simply becoming fodder in the Night King's army. They had left him… Her gentle giant, simple and sweet, kind and considerate, easily frightened…they had left him to a monstrous fate. They had abandoned him to save their lives.
And she believed Brandon, somehow, had caused their sweet giant's simple-mindedness.
The last words he had heard, Hold the door…truncated, didn't those three words sound similar to the only word Hodor ever spoke, had become known by?
Brandon sighed, his breath pluming before him, and folded his hands neatly in his lap. She gestured to the two Umber guards waiting for them beyond the grove of trees encircling the weirwood. She could carry Bran, if she had to: With grown men to share the burden, she chose to save her strength. They had a long ride ahead of them; they would push through until dusk before setting up camp. Dusk, and dinner. To eat every day was a luxury she was no longer accustomed to.
"You're not ready," said Brandon softly.
"No," Larra said brusquely. Sometimes she had to speak to him in her mother's voice, the same way she used to speak to little Rickon. Other times, she might have been spoken to by the oldest, wisest of maesters. She never knew which Brandon she would get. The reflective, dispassionate one unnerved her. "I don't think I am."
"We should say goodbye to our hosts," Brandon said, and the two guards approached him. Larra frowned at Brandon; his face betrayed nothing.
The ancient keep of Last Hearth was a long, low rectangle, the castle's namesake, an ancient stone hearth dominating the far wall, was engraved with scenes of battles from the Age of Heroes, when the Umbers had been petty-kings. The hearth itself, and the doors into the great keep were the most elaborate thing about the northernmost House: The Umbers' giant was carved into the huge oak doors, the heavy chains of their sigil made fanciful in the design of the locking mechanisms. Snarling giants' heads functioned as gargoyles, and ravens perching atop them glared down into the square yard at the foot of a sweeping flight of frozen steps up to the doors, which stood open but guarded, people bustling in and out.
Last Hearth was emptying, only a handful of people remaining - Edd murmured that the Watch called it a skeleton crew. The absolute least they could get away with, and yet still function. The bare bones.
Ned Umber, eleven years old, was one of the few who refused to leave, but he was doing his part, stood in the yard, ensuring his people had what they needed, and assuring others that he would be following as soon as the northern clans had gathered to Last Hearth before the final push to Winterfell. He would not leave them behind: He knew that, just as the Watch had stopped at Last Hearth before pushing ahead to Winterfell - a journey that may take them just as many days again, if not more - many others would need the protection of the castle if they were to survive.
The Umbers' sigil hung either side of the doors. Larra stared at them, whipping in the winds, briefly allowing herself to wonder whether, so many years ago, she should have fought more fiercely to bring Brandon and Rickon to Last Hearth after the Ironborn sacked Winterfell.
Crowfood and Whoresbane Umber stood in the yard with their great-great nephew, one huge and bearded, a patch of white leather worn an eye he had lost years before; the other, with a face like ice, implacable and unnerving. She remembered them vividly from her childhood, from feasts in her father's hall: The two eldest Umber uncles seemed more animated now than she could ever recall, and the look on Ned Umber's little face said he wasn't used to their enthusiasm.
A quiet word from Brandon when the Watch had been welcomed had altered their attitudes dramatically.
"Ravens have been sent to all the great Houses in the North to retreat to Winterfell," Edd said, frowning at the number of people gathered in the hall. "The mountain clans will know to head to the Starks. You must prepare for the journey south."
Ned Umber spoke for his elderly uncles. "House Umber will not flee, when our people linger beyond our protection. Grain is due from our lesser lords, we must contribute."
Larra frowned gently. "The dead don't care about your larders, boy," she said sadly, staring at the young lad in the high chair between two monstrous uncles who made him look all the smaller. "Most of us will be dead long before the last of the winter rations must be tapped. You can be certain of that. You're the future of your House, my lord, a House that goes back to the Age of Heroes, unbroken."
"If this is to be the end of our House, we shall make such an end as to be worthy of legend. We may not survive the Night, but others shall; they will know it was House Umber who looked death in the eye and fought to give the North precious time, so they might live," Ned Umber said stoutly, lifting the little chin that would never know a hint of a whisker. Larra stared at him, and at the two wizened men flanking him, her face hard.
"You put this in his head," she said coldly. Ned Umber was the same age Bran had been when he had been left the Stark in Winterfell by Robb, off to war to rescue Father. War turned boys into men before their time, either on the battlefield or climbing into their father's seat. But even a boy left to rule was still a boy; and echoed what he heard from those he respected. Had not Bran echoed Maester Luwin, and Larra herself?
"Umbers don't flee," growled Crowfood Umber, the chunk of obsidian nestled in his empty eye-socket glinting in the light of the hearth.
"House Umber will not abandon its people," Ned Umber said determinedly, and she was impressed, for a second, that he held her gaze so unflinchingly. "We wait for the last of those who rely on our protection…" He sighed, and shifted uncomfortably in his grandfather's large seat. He winced, and glanced at Larra, his face so young, overwhelmed - but stubborn. She looked at him and remembered Bran, as he was. "I owe my life to the King in the North, my lady."
Crowfood Umber had committed men to Stannis Baratheon, on condition his brother was granted forgiveness: Whoresbane had sworn fealty to House Bolton, to protect the life of their nephew the Greatjon imprisoned at the Twins.
On the battlefield outside Winterfell, Umber men had turned on the Bolton forces before they knew what was happening: The Bolton forces had penned in the Starks, and the Umbers had ruthlessly cut through the Boltons, just as the Knights of the Vale appeared on the horizon, to ride down the rest.
Jon had forgiven House Umber their disloyalty, and more importantly, had absolved the young Lord Eddard Umber of any guilt or blame for his uncles' choices, as he had Lady Alys Karstark, niece of Cregan Karstark who had died on the battlefield outside Winterfell. Jon refused to snatch homes from young children, the same way his own brothers and sister had had their home taken from them because of the actions of a few ambitious, misguided men - from situations beyond their control.
"From what I understand, Lord Umber, it is your uncles I must thank for my brother's life, as much as I must thank the Knights of the Vale and the Free Folk," Larra said softly, with a hint of a smile. She noted the two miserly old men's reactions at her mention of the Free Folk. She had purposely not called them wildlings, waiting for their reactions. Few families but the Starks had as much history with the wildings as House Umber, so close to the Wall. It was often they who had been called upon to raise banners and sent men North to fight incursions of Kings-Beyond-the-Wall. Their losses were many. Old Nan had told Larra, long ago, that Mors Umber's only daughter had been carried off by wildlings many years ago. Larra could not imagine Jon's support from the Umbers had been easily won, after he had allowed the last surviving Free Folk past the Wall, through Umber lands.
"Free Folk," Mors Umber growled. He swept his one good eye over Larra's furs. "I'd heard the King in the North had bedded wildling whores and clothed himself in their furs to make war on them, but I didn't believe he'd allied with them 'til I saw them on the battlefield."
"And how did they look?" Larra asked coolly. "Flesh and blood, just as you are."
"No better than monsters, wrapped in their furs, using sharp sticks and their bare teeth to kill."
"We have both used our bare teeth to kill, my lord," Larra said fairly, a smile radiating from her eyes, and Mors Umber chuckled in spite of himself, "and as for the furs, how else do you survive the snows? You are hard men, my lords…I imagine the Free Folk made Umber men look like summer lads."
"They say your brother was murdered for his love for the wildling scum," said Whoresbane snidely, his eyes hard as flint. "Do you lie in the mud with wildlings, as he does?"
Larra's grin was not a smile; it bared her teeth in a threat every man recognised. She looked like a direwolf, and Mors Umber shifted uncomfortably in his seat, beard shimmering in the candlelight as he swallowed: He exchanged a brief look with his nephew, before turning to his brother they called Whoresbane for the pretty boy he had killed in Oldtown decades ago.
"I thank you to mind your manners, Whoresbane," she said icily, drawing her shoulders back, glaring at the old man, remembering her lessons with Septa Mordane. "I am still my father's daughter, regardless of how I dress. Would you ask me such a thing before him?"
"My uncle craves your pardon, Lady Alarra," Ned Umber said plaintively, his voice so young, his eyes so wide. Whoresbane Umber said nothing, only glared at Larra, who gave him a very haughty look, and turned to give Ned Umber a half-smile she hoped was conciliatory.
In truth, she had rutted in the mud with wildlings, and of the last few years, could remember nothing else that set her body afire and made her toes curl. That made her feel alive. They weren't to know that: And she was no longer in the land of the Free Folk. Down here, beyond the Wall, things were expected of her; and of how others treated her. She was Ned Stark's daughter, after all, if not lawfully born…as far as anyone knew…
"Never thought the Stark Kings would ally with murderers and rapers," Mors Umber growled, almost reflectively. There was a hint of accusation; but they all heard it.
"The King in the North is brother to murderers and rapers, all in black," Larra said lightly, a challenge in her intense violet eyes.
"Moyra was well-suited to life beyond the Wall," said a gentle voice, and all eyes went to the crippled boy nestled before the hearth in his furs, his long slender white fingers curled around a cup of steaming mulled wine, utterly disinterested in it. He gazed thoughtfully into the hearth, the flames dancing in his dark eyes, impenetrable and unfeeling as the obsidian filling Mors Umber's empty eye-socket. "She could have returned a dozen times over; she was free."
Mors Umber gaped for a moment. Was this the first time Mors Umber had heard his daughter's name on anyone's lips in decades? "You shame my daughter's name. Wildling filth raped and dishonoured my Moyra. She was not free."
"The Free Folk fought each other for the honour of claiming her as their spearwife," Brandon said, turning his pale face to Mors Umber, who stared at Bran as if held under some spell. The worst thing, Larra knew from personal experience, was the uncertainty. A tiny smile played at the corners of Brandon's lips. "And when they were finished hacking at each other, they had to fight her. She chose who had the honour to father her children, which is more than was ever offered her south of the Wall." Bran's smile grew softly, the thinly-veiled accusation levelled at Mors Umber, whose beard quivered as he ground his jaw. "Her sons are encamped at Winterfell under the King in the North's banner and protection. Bors, and Umber. Bors wields Moyra's great axe. Hoar and his spearwife Johnna fell at Hard Home, but their children survived to board Stannis Baratheon's ships - Moyra's grandsons Ivar and Hvitserk, and her granddaughters Freydis and Gudrun. They train with bow and spear at Winterfell even now."
Mors Umber's face had turned white as new snow. Beside him, the icy-faced Whoresbane betrayed no emotion.
Sat in his grandfather's seat, young Ned Umber frowned, confused. He was so young, he might never have heard the stories. Brandon turned his dark eyes on little Ned. "Your cousins await you at Winterfell…and your grandfather rides the Kingsroad past White Harbour to return home."
"Jon?" Mors blurted.
"After the Twins' Feast, those Northerners imprisoned within the bowels of the castles found themselves inexplicably released, armed and armoured and provisioned and have turned their feet homeward," Bran said softly. "The Twins now smoulder as ruins; my uncle has been reinstated as Lord of the Riverlands, in open rebellion of the Iron Throne. The Greatjon seeks forgiveness at Winterfell, for his failure in protecting the King in the North he named and swore his life to…"
A wagon-train already wound out of the yard out of sight through the ancient forest, carrying grain and supplies and the vulnerable, with livestock driven on foot, flocks of grey Northern geese and pure white ducks using the channels in the snow made by wagons, by hardy, shaggy orangey-red cattle and Northern Blacknose sheep with their fluffy white coats, whose wool was particularly prized for its softness and excellent dye retention. The Umbers also boasted a breeding herd of aurochs; the bull was complacent, enormous, and slow: Larra saw Edd looking at him sadly, and Edd had told the story of one of his brothers, Grenn, nicknamed the Aurochs, who had been tasked by Jon with five of their brothers to hold the gate at Castle Black against the last giants. He had sworn his life to the Watch: That night, he given it, stopping a giant.
There was a song in there, Larra was sure: She just hadn't the heart to set to writing it.
The Umber men carried Brandon to a covered wagon. Small children and young mothers were already nestled in the straw, with blankets and clothes bundled up: Brandon reached out and opened the fastenings of a raven cage, there by his request. The bird cawed, once, and hopped out onto Bran's legs, perching on his knee. Brandon smiled contentedly, and stroked the glossy black feathers.
Larra stared at a baby.
In its mother's arms, it had wriggled an arm free of its swaddling. Enormous blue eyes shone with innate joy as it gave her a gummy, wet smile, its fingers opening and closing like petals in the sunlight, tiny and dimpled, waving toward her. The baby could not have been more than a few months old.
Larra reached her finger out, offering it to the baby; it grinned toothlessly, focusing with effort on hand, which it grabbed, cooing and gurgling as it wrapped its tiny little strong fingers around her long, bruised, scarred one. The contrast of her hands, covered in webs of pink and white scars, her middle-fingernail blackened by bruising, the skin rough and calloused, with the baby's soft, unblemished hand on hers… Once, her hands had been like ivory, clean and meticulous; she used to keep her nails. She used to do a great many things.
She also never thought she would ever see another baby.
Here she was, at Last Hearth with Brandon and Meera, a blue-eyed baby grinning at her, and Northmen fleeing south to Winterfell to fight the White Walkers she had outpaced. There was much to be thankful for.
In that moment, staring at the baby's open, joyful face, Larra's eyes burned, and she allowed her lips to twitch toward a smile.
She leaned forward, hiding the tears that dripped hotly to her cheeks, as she kissed the baby's tiny hand, freeing herself from its strong grip. She smiled and stroked its cheeks, making it gurgle and smile gummily, kicking its legs, dimpling at her.
Larra shrank away, heart-broken.
She asked one of the women to keep an eye on Brandon, and left the wagon. Meera caught her eye briefly, and mounted a hardy pony to follow Brandon.
Larra would ride beside Edd. She needed some distance.
She needed to train herself to step away, now that she could.
Now that it was not her, and her alone.
Jon had not been at Castle Black, but because of him they had gained hundreds of brothers. Because of him, they had a guard of thousands to journey to Winterfell with.
It would make for slow going, but it was worth the annoyance.
Larra hadn't been near so many people in a very long time; proximity to the brothers of the Night's Watch were the first crowds, the first people besides Bran and Hodor and Meera she had mingled with in years.
She had not forgotten her courtesies, but it would have been the easiest thing in the world. To forget who she was, where she had come from, to forget that she had a family, and was clever and highly educated…because up there…beyond the Wall, none of that had mattered. Her mind had been stagnating for years, as her body had become more and more emaciated, learning to live purely on instinct alone: Find shelter, find food, survive.
It was good to be among people again.
Even as she knew a good many of them would die, if not all, before the Dawn came again.
A groom led a fine mare across the yard, black as night, her coat glossy, shimmering like fine velvet, tall, strong but elegant - and one of the Umbers' prized mares, she was certain of it. To breed on her would create stunning foals. With the right sire, she would breed fierce coursers, perhaps even a destrier; she had the height, strong hindquarters and a muscular back. Her face was beautiful, too, with the inky eyes Larra had always loved in horses, dark hair falling into them. She snorted as she was across the yard, stamping her feet irritably and tossing her head; she had fire, Larra could tell, gazing at the horse.
"She's one of our finest mares, my lady," said Ned, and Larra turned from the mare to find Ned Umber at her elbow. She hadn't realised that she had forgotten how little Rickon was: He would always appear under her feet when she was least expecting him to be there. It made her stomach hurt to look down and gaze into Ned Umber's young face.
"Lord Umber," Larra murmured, dipping a polite curtsy that lost some of its elegance due to her furs. "She's beautiful," Larra added, reaching out to stroke her knuckles gently down the mare's elegant nose. She stamped her foot, snorted, but nuzzled her nose closer, letting Larra stroke her face, scenting Larra's furs for food.
"Her name is Black Alys," said Ned quietly, and Larra noticed he stood a little behind her, watching the mare carefully. "She does bite, but I think she likes you."
"We all nip when we're afraid or annoyed, hey?" Larra murmured, shushing Black Alys gently as she snorted, tossing her head, and stroked the horse's face tenderly. The Watch had given her a horse, though Larra craved riding a truly superb mount again: She had always loved to ride, had been as natural on horseback as a centaur on their four legs. And Black Alys was a gorgeous mount.
"My uncles say the stable-master will have her put down if they can't break her," Ned said sadly, gazing watchfully at the mare. "She's too wilful."
"Wild things should never be broken," Larra murmured, almost to herself, turning to glance down at Ned. He seemed very young, staring wistfully at the admittedly rather haughty, terrifying-looking mare, whose hoof was the size of his head. "Wild things should be free…but sometimes…sometimes they can be gentled, befriended."
"Like your direwolf," Ned Umber said, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. "I've seen King Jon's direwolf, Ghost, in the godswood at Winterfell. He looks like a weirwood. Do you think you could befriend Black Alys?" Larra murmured under her breath to the horse, praising her, letting her know her voice.
"We are friends," Larra said softly, smiling gently to herself as she stroked the horse's face and neck. Something uncoiled in the pit of her stomach, a tension loosening, and Larra sighed, stroking Black Alys's neck. This was familiar. Admiring fine horses in the yard of a holdfast, the sounds of work echoing around her… "Sometimes we just need to take the time to introduce ourselves…learn some of each other's secrets…"
"Do horses have secrets?" Ned asked, and Larra turned a mysterious smile on him.
"Of course…every creature in the world has secrets… There is a legend in the North, that sometimes mighty warriors who fall in battle are reborn as great horses," Larra said gently. It had always been one of her favourite legends of Old Nan's. She used to think her gelding was Ser Arthur Dayne, reborn to be her companion and protector as she hunted on horseback through the wolfswood. She had always been half in love with the Sword of the Morning, for all her disdain of Sansa's wholehearted belief in songs and legends.
"Do you think my father might be reborn as a great horse?" Ned asked curiously.
"The Smalljon? A destrier, absolutely! Nineteen hands, at the very least," Larra smiled tiredly, and the little boy beamed, standing up just a little straighter.
Little Lord Umber glanced around, and leaned in closer uncertainly, after checking his uncles were across the yard. He said conspiratorially, "They say you killed Ironborn with your bare teeth to protect your brothers."
Larra blinked. It seemed so long ago now. She had still worn her wool dress and hose then, not the furs she shrouded herself in now. Rickon was a boy, Brandon, barely older. They had not yet met Meera and Jojen, not yet ventured so far north that going beyond the Wall had ever entered Bran's mind… She had murdered Ironborn who attacked her. Three of them. Sometimes she still tasted their blood in her mouth; marvelled how easily eyeballs burst beneath her fingernails; how the sound of metal grinding against jawbone had reverberated up her arm on impact.
"Yes, my lord," she murmured, watching the boy warily. Ned's eyes widened; she wondered how he would react to his father's, grandfather's and uncles' battlefield feats. They said the Smalljon lost his life to two swings of an axe - only after overturning a table to shield the wounded King in the North.
"My uncles said King Jon's direwolf fought beside him on the battlefield," Ned Umber said, his eyes sparking with excitement. "White and blood-red as if the gods' wills were made flesh and blood in the Starks' sigil."
"Their will was made known that morning," Larra mused. And it was certainly fateful that the Stark and Snow children had found those seven pups in the wolfswood that horrible misty day when Bran had witnessed his first execution unblinkingly, and in spite of his mother's protests. The execution of a Night's Watchman who swore to his last breath that he saw the White Walkers…
"My uncles used to tell me the King in the North's sister was fiercer than any direwolf."
"That is high praise indeed. To have the respect of warriors like your uncles means much," Larra said honestly: She had always known that her family would not get far without the respect bordering reverence of their bannermen. Only Bran's dreams and insistence had muted her arguments to take Bran and Rickon to the Umbers, and beg their protection.
Ned Umber flashed her a quick, shy smile, and he gave her a furtive glance before turning and gesturing at someone. He had to repeat the gesture a few times: A small boy joined him reluctantly. Where Ned Umber's eyes were pale, with soft brown hair, the other boy was dark-haired with fierce black eyes - Larra stared at him, reminded so vividly of young Bran, of young Jon, that her heart stuttered. He bore no resemblance to wild little Rickon at all, but…it was the youth in his face, the mercurial stubbornness in his chin, suspicion in his eyes, and a deep sense of brotherly love and loyalty when he gazed at young Ned Umber that made Larra's stomach hurt with homesickness for the family she had lost, the brothers she missed. There was some resemblance between the two boys, in the shape of their eyes and noses, the curve of their ears, though the younger boy's face was slimmer, and Larra couldn't help think of the Stark women who had married into House Umber over the centuries, with their slender oval faces and solemn beauty. She realised the other boy must be quite a bit younger than Ned; though he was nearly the same height.
"Who is this young warrior?" she asked gently, and the younger boy stood up straighter, puffing out his chest proudly, showing the Umber sigil stitched lovingly onto the breast of his fur-trimmed cloak, wrapped over a leather-studded brigandine Northmen favoured in war and especially in winter, and a quilted tunic beneath that for warmth and protection from the armour. He was a boy dressed for the battlefield; he lacked only weapons.
"This is Little Jon." Another stutter. Of course, Jon was a common name among the Umbers: his father and grandfather both bore the name. It was not unique to her Jon. Though looking at him, he could have been her twin's miniature. "He's my brother. And he's seven."
"Seven? I almost took you for a man," Larra said, reaching out to muss his hair, the way Jon used to muss their younger siblings' hair, and Little Jon grinned impishly for a brief moment. "I'd wager you'll be taller than the Greatjon by the time you're grown."
"My brother and I wish to make the mare a gift to you, my lady," said Ned Umber, his eyes earnest as he gazed up at her. Larra blinked. To give a guest a gift as they left the safety of your holdfast signalled one of two things: Either a token of friendship, or a declaration that the safety of guest-right had ended with their departure.
She had been a guest of the Umbers only overnight, refusing a feather-bed to sit by the hearth all night, dozing by the fire. And the Umbers had sworn their fealty to Jon at Winterfell - Mors, Hother and Ned alike, the joint-castellans and assumed Lord of Last Hearth with the Greatjon's imprisonment.
A token, then.
"The King in the North placed me under his protection, my lady, and my brother as well. We owe our lives to him. I hope I do not insult him or you in asking this favour, to ask your protection for my brother until you reach Winterfell."
Larra stared at Little Jon Umber, her heart breaking. She looked at him and saw Rickon; she saw Bran. You must protect them. You're the only one who can… She flinched, thinking of Rickon's brutal death; and her heart throbbed, regretting the changes in Brandon that had made him unrecognisable to her.
Still…Brandon was alive, wasn't he? What she had committed herself to, keeping him alive, she had succeeded in. It was a simple goal, really: One that had consumed her every waking moment for years.
What she attempted, she conquered.
She had once overheard Maester Luwin telling her father that. She remembered it now, and it still filled her with pride: She looked at the guileless little face of Ned Umber, looked at the dark eyes of Little Jon, and was filled with grief at brothers she had lost, and the fates of these two boys before her.
They would never see each other again.
She sank to a knee, putting herself at a level with Ned Umber, her brother's bannerman. A boy. A boy who wanted to know his brother would be safe, and looked after. Who was willingly yielding his brother to Larra's care because of the respect Ned himself had for Larra's own brother, his king, who had cloaked him in his protection…
"One thing I excel at beyond all others, my lord," she said, her voice low to stop it breaking, "is protecting little brothers."
She gazed into Ned Umber's eyes, and conflict flickered across his face: Fear of the unknown, grief at parting, stubbornness at refusing to give in to his dread or his own desires to keep his brother close, where he would not be safe, relief, gratitude, and sadness. Perhaps Ned knew what she did; that he would never see his little brother again.
"I'm not going!" Little Jon cried vehemently, his face furious and beseeching at once as only a child's could be. He implored his brother, "I have to protect you!"
"You're my little brother, Jon, I protect you," Ned said with feeling, his hands on Little Jon's shoulders. Though younger, Little Jon was already nearing his brother's height, spindly-legged and broad-shouldered like a direwolf pup growing too fast. Larra's heart broke to see them, the rhyme of memory ringing in her mind. "Father told me so before he went off to war with King Robb. You have to go to Winterfell: You'll learn how to rule Last Hearth after me, and they'll train you as a warrior."
Little Jon's breath hitched, his dark eyes widening. "A warrior like Father?"
"Even fiercer than Father, I'll bet," Ned Umber grinned, and for a second, mirth and cunning flashed across the brothers' faces. Ned reached for something, and presented his little brother with a small, shining, fresh-forged hatchet, and a bone-handled hunting knife. "I've had a hatchet made for you. I know you like throwing Uncle's. And a hunting-knife for your very own. The handle's made from bear-bone."
Larra, still sunk on one knee, turned to Little Jon. "Do you know how to use that? No?" she asked, and Little Jon gave her a reluctant look, a thoughtful frown. He looked sternly at the weapons strapped to her, the jewelled hilt of the sword belted at her waist, and seemed to decide she was worthy. He shook his head. "We shall have to remedy that. Lady Meera over there could teach you to shoot an arrow right into a snow-hare's eye at forty paces if you ask her sweetly." She nodded over at Meera, who had mounted her pony, looking tired but less gaunt after ten days of Hobb's cooking - it was astonishing what the cook of Castle Black could dream up out of the kitchen-tent.
Every day, she and Meera and Bran ate a little more than their last meal; slowly, ever so slowly, they were starting to remind their bodies what proper food tasted like, and every day, Larra could eat a little more. To begin with, the food had been so rich it hurt her stomach to eat it: Bread was utterly foreign now.
Before they had left Castle Black, Meera had eaten her egg, fried in butter, with a rasher of bacon and some blood-sausage: It was the last time Larra could remember Meera truly enjoying anything. She hadn't been able to finish it; they'd shared it. And the rich food had seemed to turn to ash in their mouths as they thought of those who could not share their meal. Hodor, Jojen. Uncle Benjen. Father. Robb. Rickon. The list would get longer before the end.
She turned to Ned Umber, and saw Bran in the tower, embracing Rickon for the last time.
Bran, who could still see Rickon, if he chose.
Larra gazed into Ned Umber's face. "You're a young boy, and already a good man, Ned Umber," she told him solemnly. "Until the Dawn comes, I will not let Jon out of my sight."
"I wish you good fortune, in the wars to come, my lady."
A.N.: I felt Ned Umber deserved more. I wanted to show Larra taking a step away from being Bran's primary caregiver - I felt that she needs to make that conscious separation for her own health. And shows she won't tolerate him being what he becomes in Season 8.
I also wanted to show Bran actually using his powers to start playing the game, even if it's subtle, and unnerves people more than anything.