WINTERFELL RUINS – THE NORTH

Jon lured Ramsay through the skirmish, edging him away from the safety of his guard. It was a process – Ramsay was not rash with his own life. He had to be coaxed like a ground spider to the edge of its lair. A thread here – a promise there. One leg into the cold air... The Wildlings picked apart the largest Bolton men escorting him, tearing their banners down, turning the opening chords of order into a pit of chaos where bears hunted and the black sun froze.

Arrows fell between the bastards, piercing snow, shield and flesh alike. Men fought and died amidst their heated gaze. Their faces were hung behind a wall of glass, two edges of a coin. Madness. Greatness. Feared. Fearsome. Bastard. King.

Pain...

Stark discarded his banner to the filthy mud. It was trampled at once, vanished in the bedlam. An ironwood shaft protruded from the folds of his armour with crimson Bolton feathers fluttering next to his shoulder.

Ramsay turned on his archer and murdered him where he stood, snatching his bow and shoving its recurve through his back. The archer cried out, pawing futilely at his lord's horse. "I said he was mine," Ramsay spat, pushing the bow deeper. He locked eyes with the suffering, staring death down until the last. His grip released and the archer dropped.

The wood burned inside Jon's arm. He felt the arrow head tear his muscle, forcing its way through. He'd known it before, in the blades of his Night's Watchmen, driven into his stomach. He'd felt them as he collapsed onto the snow, staring at the black pit where the stars should have been. There was nothing at all. A faceless god. The embrace of cold earth where the dead make their beds.

An experienced commander from the Vale stormed up beside the Stark King. Without a word he took the young Stark's arm, holding it straight while the boy was frozen in shock. He hit the nock hard, pushing the arrow deeper and out the other side with a sickening tear of flesh. The horses beneath shifted at Jon's scream. The commander held steady, snapping off the bloodied arrow tip. He tossed it aside, wrapped his hand around the shaft and dragged it back out. A nod and he was gone, charging into the carnage.

Woken, Jon watched blood dribble from the wound, over the stomach of his pale mare and into the mud. The men were wrong. He was not a god. He was mortal, like the rest.

Wun Wun waded through the flanks. Cries of shock accompanied each swing of his log. A wild dog dragged half a corpse in front of Jon's horse. A Bolton man who saw threw up at the sight and lost his arm a moment later. He fell into his own muck, dying face down as hooves crushed his skull to bits.

Jon was not born to this. He had to find something to drive him through and he found it in Ramsay's eyes, egging him on, calling him to violence.

He kicked his horse. Her hooves marked out the march of death. Descending into ice. Escaping the wave of swords and spray of blood. Forging a path through the screams. Jon lifted his sword.


Littlefinger lay in wait, positioned under the shadow of the frozen pines. Their needles shivered with the pounding hooves below, shedding snow over his army. Sansa Stark remained a statue in the ice. The battle raged but Petyr's attention narrowed to her, waiting for the command. So deep was his need to atone a murdered love that he'd thrown himself to the will of a wolf queen. He was not a man to believe in the noble rights of lords or the valour that brought men under the wing of conquerors but waiting in the tree line, Littlefinger felt something stir in his flesh. Was that loyalty? Love? Guilt... Whatever it was, he was sure it signed his death.

Sansa lowered the Stark Banner, pointing the wolf head at the heart of battle.

"Forward!" Littlefinger cried out.

It was the loudest noise he'd ever made – echoed by a soldier in the opposite bank of forest. Together, the forces of the Vale emerged from the trees and closed in on the Bolton forces. The Mormonts outran them, pummelling through the snow like possessed monsters given swords by the Old Gods themselves. What would Glover do? That was the question. Littlefinger, who had no talent for battle, remained upon the ridge. As his men entered the fight, he watched the line of Glover bannermen and the lord at their front, pacing nervously on his horse.

"Come on, old fool..." Littlefinger implored. "Be smart. Live."

Glover's forces drew their swords, formed a line and began slaying the men beside them. Attacking Bolton's lines from behind.

"The North!" Robett Glover cried, feeling the rage of war burn in his blood. His sons watched, waiting him on the other side of life. He'd fed the nest of treachery too long. The first Bolton he came across was a man he'd served two campaigns with. When he lifted his sword, the Bolton cowered, confusion in his eyes. Even when Robett's sword dug in, the man whispered, 'my lord?'

It was a bloody great fucking mess of men that once played as children. A few scheming old men and their pride started the war long ago and they'd been left to finish it.

"Surrender your arms!" Glover had his men shout, wherever they could. "Lay down your weapons, join us if you wish to live!"

Few had the stomach to fight Lord Glover. Those that did lay broken in the snow.


"Concede!" Jon roared, chasing Ramsay through the blaze of swords.

His men were falling fast. They'd seen the two flanks of Vale soldiers and their own men turn with Glover riders at their throats. Suddenly they were outnumbered, fighting on the lower ground. Even their spirits felt the blow. With the ruins of a great house literally smouldering in the backdrop, most felt that they were betraying the oaths their fathers and their fathers before them had sworn.

The sick bastard fed off the massacre. The more that died, the larger Ramsay's grin and the wilder the look of ecstasy in his eyes. He would have burned every nation to the ground if only to hear their screams.

A full-plated soldier had been flung into the air from the trunk Wun Wun's log. The man fought against nothing, clearing the tops of spears, swords and snapping jaws. He hit the side of a white mare. The ribs of the animal cracked beneath him while the force sent the beast tumbling to the side with a frightened whinny. Jon was on her back, plunged into the filth. His shoulder hit first, shooting a wave of pain through the arrow wound. Then the weight of his horse fell onto his legs, pinning them to the ground.

The horse writhed, trying to get up. Mud stuck to her coat. Boots trampled her tail. Jon used the body of a fallen man to pull himself out from under her. He spun around as soon as he was free, running his hands down the beast's neck. She lifted her head, looking at her master with a frightened brown eye. The screaming surrounds threatened to swallow them both. The mare placed her head back in the freezing mud and waited.

Jon Stark stood in the middle of the field – the ruins of Winterfell shadowing one side while fires burned on the other. The witch's words putrefied the air, inciting the carnage while the Red God feasted. Now it was Ramsay drawing the Stark bastard through the savagery.

Ramsay retreated into the ruins where the snow was white and the noise of war muted by the burned walls. He took a horn from his waist, held it to his lips and blew. It split through the air, calling his dogs from the fray. Most were dead, mounted on spears by the Wildlings who like to look at the bleeding heads while they fought. One creature appeared – a mangy grey thing with thin, wiry fur, eyes like ice and a missing ear. It clambered over the ruins, skipping on the black pieces of stone with the scratch of claw.

Alone, save for the dog, Jon shouted at Ramsay. "You'd set a hound upon a wolf?"

"You're no Stark..." Ramsay replied, settling into his saddle to watch.

Jon felt his boots crunch through the top layer of ice covering the virgin snow below. The dog had its eye on him, pacing along the short wall, waiting for a place to launch. Jon could hear its ravaged pants stick inside a withered throat. The creature was starved – half dead already, living off bone and carrion.

"Concede!" Jon screamed at the bastard, though he kept his eyes fixed on the dog. "Your men are dead. Can you hear the hush?"

There was a hush. Beyond the blackened walls an eerie quiet settled over the bowl of ice. Men were laying down their swords, kneeling in the muck.

"That is the sound of the close. I know because I've heard it before. There are truly terrifying things in this world, Ramsay but you are not one of them. You are a boy with an army. I've seen the dead take up arms. I know what waits us on the other side of the sword. Better to be alive. Death is the Long Night the stories whisper."

The Red Witch was balanced on a narrow wall, crumbled at one edge with huge cracks threatening to take the rest. Jon saw her as she was – a pale old woman with silver hair tussling with a light dusting of fresh snow. From the depths of the pit, the flames bowed, swayed and raged at her command. Jon could hear them, burning from inside his chest as if the Red God had left something in there – a dagger that turned at her words.


The flames were taking form. Littlefinger, brave enough to ride his horse to the edge of a snow drift overlooking the battle, witnessed the orange wall flicker into green. There was a voice coming from within the dancing light, something screaming at the world of men from beyond the veil. The men heard it too – Bolton, Stark – Umber and Wilding. They spun to face it, staggering backwards. Only the Mormonts held fast to their swords – confronting the fire as if they knew what lurked there.

Magic Littlefinger thought. The carefully constructed world of kings was at an end. His gaze shifted from the battle to the ice-locked mountain range beyond – to The North and the winds of winter. Man's skirmishes were immaterial to the hilt of a sorcerer and the breath of a raging dragon.


The dog had a grip on Jon's leather skirts, pulling him through the ice inside the ruin. Jon swung at the mad thing. The dog shifted, side to side like lightening in a storm. Growling filled his ears. Rotting flesh from previous kills stuck to his fur, stinking the air. Desperately, Jon reached out with his free hand – grabbing the filthy creature by the scruff. It yelped furiously, letting go of the leather to bark and bite at Jon. The last time Jon held a dog like this it had been his tiny snow-pup, his Ghost whom he'd left in the flames. If there had ever been any love in this beast, Ramsay had killed it like he did everything else.

Jon ended the animal, slicing the dog's neck.

"Ramsay!" he screamed again. "Come down and fight you bastard!"

Ramsay had already dismounted and scaled a section of the ruins. He was heading toward the sorceress, drawn by her power. He formed a corrupt smirk at the thought of fucking the witch, tying her to a bed of flames when he was done and letting his men have what was left. Would she whisper her agony too – maybe call vengeance upon him from her fire demon... Exciting. He looked forward to meeting the gods of the underworld. If Melisandre was aware of the danger encroaching she showed no sign of it.

"I'm a little busy, Snow!" Ramsay replied, leaning over the wall for a moment to watch Jon stumble through the ice toward a set of burned steps.

Stark's bastard bent double, gripping to the ice-covered ruins which slid treacherously beneath his touch. Locked in heavy armour and elegant furs, he possessed none of his little brother's climbing skills. Bran would have been over the steps, up the wall and onto the awkward thrusts of the centre keep which stood jagged in the centre of the rubble. He'd always been more bird than man – perched from an alcove like a crow.

Ravens watched eagerly, staking out corpses on the field – waiting for them to be abandoned. Where Jon saw a slaughter, their beaks prepared for a feast.

"I said stop!" Jon was on the wall with Ramsay, Mormont's sword in his grip. "Enough."

"What?" Ramsay was momentarily distracted from his prey. "You want to have a chat now? I'm sorry, Snow – busy at the moment..."

"Stop!"

Ramsay sighed dramatically, brandishing his dagger. He'd been caught mid-stride. "If you won't wait your turn, I'll be forced to kill you first."


"Glover – you traitor."

Harrion Karstark had lost his horse, half his men but none of his will. A long, silver moustache was plaited into a beard the hung over his breastplate. Frost clung to it, obscuring the inlaid star that had been flown on banners above the North for as long as anyone could remember. The black star of winter itself. The Karstarks were all Starks at the root.

"I know loyalty," Harrion trudged toward Robett, more angry than violent. "My family stood with the Starks since the First Men founded this damned place and what for? A pup takes my Lord's head in the middle of that fucking castle." His sword stabbed the air in the direction of Winterfell. "There was honour in them once – a boy's cock brought an end to it and Lannister gold buried what was left for good."

That boy was dead. The Starks were not. "If you are seeking honour, Harrion, look to the child beyond the flame. Forget Robb and the boy on the wall, that girl is more Eddard than Eddard himself. One last time, honour your name. Save your fucking men and join us."

More of them fell behind, cut down by unwilling blades. Glover regretted every Karstark life.

"My oath was to the Starks," Glover added, begging the other lord. "Everything after that was treachery. This is the first honest thing I've done in years. What about you, are you going to follow that sick dog of a bastard? Roose would command you to gut that little shit and you know it. Ramsay will kill you all. There's no future in your vengeance. Where does it end? When you're all bones? Jon has come to defend the North, Sansa to rebuild. Are you part of the future or does your ancient house die here?"

Whatever his heart, Harrion's choices evaporated. Glover's men and a pair of Wildlings held swords to his throat. He had no choice but to bend the knee, discarding his weapon. His men followed, kneeling on the field of battle – laying their swords in the mud. The Stark army secured them leaving the Boltons to fight alone. Sheer numbers overpowered their fury. Before the sun began its arc toward the ground, the battle was done.

The field's attention was now drawn to wall of Winterfell where three figures balanced precariously on the stone. One, a witch, muttered at the sky. The other two stalked toward each other. Ramsay drew a bastard sword and dagger. Jon clutched the hilt of Longclaw, whispering words of the North. His sword was made for greater things than slaying bastards. No, not slaying, he reminded himself. Ramsay belonged to his sister. He kept seeing his poor brother Rickon, a child – slain and displayed like meat. Jon's arm dripped, a steady rain from his wound.

Ramsay lunged – barking like a mad dog. Jon stumbled, nearly tumbling from the wall in surprise. "Did I scare you, wolf?" Ramsay taunted. "Death has made you skittish. I can send you back there if you like – into the darkness. It'll all be over."

Jon's eyes diverted for a moment, as did the crowd's below. Before Ramsay noticed, he lowered his sword slightly. "What was it like, killing your father?" Jon asked, taking small steps forward – pushing Ramsay along the wall while holding his attention.

"Liberating!" he replied.

"The gods will curse you for it."

"I was cursed before I was born. What more can they do to me? I fuck the gods. Old and new like I fucked your sister. She's a screamer – or do you already know? The she-wolf might give me a child yet. Could you let it live, rear it as a Stark? Or would you tear it from her breast and toss it in the fire for the Red God to feast? Your witch would like that."

Jon's grip on Longclaw was so tight he was in danger of snapping the pummel off.

"You should watch out for that money-grabber from the Fingers. Small men want what they cannot have. I hear he's been trying to get his cock wet since he realised my wife looks like your mother. Sorry. Not your mother, bastard. Sansa's more a whore than a queen but then, I hear that's where his talent lies. I -"

Ramsay was silenced by a blade from behind. It was held flush to his neck, angled to the vein. A slender arm wrapped around his chest, holding him in a morbid embrace. He'd recognise that scent of winter rose anywhere. She'd stunk out the keep with it.

"Sansa – my dear," Ramsay drawled. He moved to turn but her knife dug against his skin in earnest. Jon approached, the tip of Longclaw now at Ramsay's heart should he choose to fight. "A battle is no place for a noble lady. Come home, wife."

Sansa was cold. Her hand, steady as steel. She was home. "I killed your whore," she replied, tilting her head to the side. The men below watched Sansa's furs billow out behind her, caught in the wind along with her vibrant red hair like wings. She was taller than the men and frightening to behold. Even the witch paused to watch. "Miranda was fiercer than you'll ever be. I threw her from the wall and she cracked, like an egg. All her bile soaking into the stone... It was beautiful."

While Ramsay was distracted by the image, Sansa dragged her sword across his throat, slashing deep into the skin. His neck opened and a curtain of blood rained down over his armour, turning the flayed man sigil red. He struggled, dropping his dagger and sword, one each side of the wall. Sansa pressed her lips against his ear, whispering the last words he'd ever hear before she pushed him into the crowd of soldiers below.

Ramsay's body landed on a Stark banner. The sharpened end went through his thigh leaving him a mangled, twitching corpse in the snow.

At the harrowing sight, the Stark army knelt – rank after rank after rank.


THE HOUSE OF BLACK AND WHITE BRAAVOS – ESSOS

A man knew the rules. A girl did not. Why then, a man asked himself, was it the constant yapping of a wolf pup that loosened his hold on those rules? Twice a man had called himself Jaqen H'ghar and a girl had smiled. She understood what the others ignored – that there was no such thing as no one. Everything else was a lie.

"Where are you from?" Arya asked, cross-legged by the pool of water. There was a body slumped between her and Jaqen, recently expired. She could feel the warmth lift from the body, fed on by the temple stone. It was as if the house itself was carnivorous, hungry for faces. Centuries of blood had not sated the god within.

"Nowhere," a man replied calmly, dipping his hands into the water to retrieve the cup. He set it down on the lip of the pool then reached around the body, sliding it onto the floor. A girl watched indifferently. Death was nothing to the wolf.

"If you are here, you are from somewhere," she insisted, reaching for the cup. She toyed with the idea of dipping it into the sacred water if only to see what he'd do.

"Is a girl from somewhere?" he countered.

"Nowhere at all," she replied dutifully.

Arya's eyes said, Winterfell. I am from the North. A man could hear her words as clear as if she'd screamed them to the moon. If a girl could not be no one, a girl would have to die. He should have done it already – brought her to the water, held her under its surface or taken her with a single, swift slice of his sword. A man could not do it. Jaqen H'ghar could not do it and Arya Stark knew.

"Come with me," he said, inviting her to stand.

"What about him?" Arya nodded at the corpse.

"He'll not run away." A man led Arya to the lagoon's edge but not to kill her. The House of Black and White loomed on the other side, its reflection stretching nearly halfway across. It was a cold thing, bleak and scornful of the sun. "A man knows where a girl is from," he finally said, after they had sat in perfect silence for several hours.

Arya picked at the black stone that built the island beneath. There were hundreds of them, scattered through the water, linked by bridges. They looked like they had been coughed up by a dragon. She did not speak, fearing that she had failed some test of his.

"A girl has a list. She whispers it sometimes, when no one is around." Then his tone changed – perhaps a flicker of the man reaching for air. "You cannot kill what you do not know."

Arya's breath caught. Her dark eyes lifted while she shifted closer. These were the first real words he'd spoken since saying farewell.

"Northerners have always been caught up in the darkness. Winter has an allure. The everlasting cold. The calm and the silence. Not the Bears." He admitted. "They've the blood of the First. It makes them rage against the night, keeping watch over the ice-locked lands. A girl has the eyes of a wolf and no matter how many faces she wears, those eyes will remain. Most of us are driftwood, meandering toward the edge of the world. A girl is something else."

"Don't send me away..." Arya whispered, with no defence to his claim.

"A man does not know what he will do with Arya Stark."