PART III

WARDEN OF THE NORTH

- PROLOGUE -

The morning was cruel. Thin grey clouds streaked the skies and the snow was worse – two feet of deep white made camping a torture. It had only been days afoot the callous weather and the men had started to grow weary. If the meals weren't tough, they were lacking. But it was altogether cold right out of the fire. Beneath thick gloves, their fingers were almost bluish black and lips were as cracked as shattered steel.

They made camp beneath the hills overlooking the Wolfswood, grateful for provisions it may offer – rabbits for the belly and fodder for the restless horses.

Along the line of tents perched above hardened soil, a ball of straw went rolling and a little girl's laughter tumbled along. She ran with enthusiasm and joy which untethered the drab. The hems of her dress and cloak scraped against snow, creating a tail of path and scatter. As soldiers went about their work no one had noticed the ball enough to make way for it, and instead had it bounce against a boot which sent it scurrying inside a tent erected at the edge of the line.

The girl saw her prize disappear within and she stood about its entrance. No lantern burned inside, not one to locate the toy. She looked to her sides in hopes of asking someone for help but all were backs and indistinct voices around her. She captured a breath, I am a little warrior… I don't fear the dark… and she stepped in what seemed like abyss.

Inside the tent her breath went shrill and yet she walked on. Her eyes alighted at the shape of the ball resting in what she made out as a wooden cot's frame. As she approached, horror drifted on her skin at the soft rattle of chain and a white, but almost purpling, hand appearing from the dark. Its fingers spread, took the ball in tight grip, and offered it to her.

The creature looked at her as a hound inspecting a prey – at her guileless blue eyes, square jaw, and the legacy of disfigurement on half of her face.

She was not at all a pretty thing, the creature blinked as he withdrew deeper into the corner of the cot and the tent itself. The girl heard his coughs, his grunts of pain, and shivering breaths. It did not at all stir her.

"Princess!"

The tall, lean frame of Davos Seaworth entered, darkening the space further and clutching the girl in the shoulder. "What is your business here? You're alone and out of sight. Your father would give you a beating had you been a boy. Come now, come along."

The princess Shireen obliged half heartedly, still looking over her shoulder as she was led out in the open. "But I haven't said my thank you yet,"

"Go on along out and be sure to stay where I can see you. I'd tell your thanks." Davos urged, unable to stand such kind soul sharing air with a captive. It was his turn to look at the prisoner, at the shrunken man nursing wounds he was unsure to survive, at the chain locked on his frail wrist. They need not chain him, Davos thought, the man is unable to run, much more to survive another night. He heard the raspy breaths, smelled the stench of drying blood.

"Forgive the girl; she has come a long way without a companion," …a cold hearted mother and a red witch… he meant to say. "I will have to tell again her not to –"

"Surely she isn't just a little girl…" came a voice, between a mutter and a whisper but too weak just the same… and sad. If winter was a voice, it would be his. "She's less than ten. Half her face is a disease. Girls who accompany men to battle could only be a whore or a lady. She's too young for the former and too ugly for the latter, and yet –"

"That's enough." Davos held back his fumes, "You insult the girl and you insult her father. It will be the blade on your neck if he hears this."

"Insult her father? Quite the contrary," the young man scoffed, "You're quick to judge. I meant to say an admiration… that half of her face has more value to her father than the whole of my body to my sire."

Davos squinted his eyes at the drop of hurt in the prisoner's tone. Surely this man has wounds deeper than what he is suffering from at present. His shortened fingers crouched into a ball on his sides. Whatever the King has found interesting in a dying man has made its way to Davos' own curiosity as well.

"Very well." The Onion Knight turned to leave, "I shall leave you to rest."

"How many days… to Winterfell?"

The voice has risen a stone, dark and firm. Davos' brows furrowed, "Four – five days, if the gods favor."

"Then the gods are too slow."

"We're travelling at large. Against snow and frost, to be exact," defended the Onion Knight. "And the faster we arrive, the faster is your execution have you not thought?"

Silence brooded before a relieved sigh. "Better."

The old Knight furthered. "Is it? Who are you, to welcome death than to postpone it?"

The chains rattled, signaling the prisoner has stretched from the shadows of the corner and has come forward. Forward enough for Davos Seaworth to see the outlines of his hardened face which fit the ice in his voice.

"A soldier betrayed. A man discarded. A son wanted dead by his father. If I am to die, let it be now. But if you would delay then tell your King to grant a dying man's wish."

"And that would be...?"

"To see my father's head on a spike... I am the bastard Ramsay Snow and I wish to be the last face Roose Bolton sees before I drag him down the seventh hell."

A/N : Hi there in Quarantine as I am. I hope you forgive me yet for a rather short one as I am in the midst of writer's dilemma regarding the next chapter and chapters. There's a lot of reviewing events plus a bouncing baby girl to handle and squeezing time to finish all five seasons of VIKINGS. Lol. So much for a "I got nothin' to do on a one-month quarantine".
Anyway don't worry about a hiatus. I could probably post within the week should circumstances (and internet connection) favor me.
Much love to all of you. Keep safe and keep in touch!