THE BRIDGE OF SKULLS WESTWATCH – THE NORTH

Two shards of flint dropped into the fire. The dead army clawed over the rise of ice, digging their bones and blades into the impasse. It sparkled, like the uneasy curve of the ocean – a sheer blade of ice lusting after the land.

"Leave it..." Dorin gasped, his terrified eyes fixed on the maester.

There was no hope of the Southerner hearing his plea. Dorin watched the first corpse break the ridge. It threw itself onto the slope, barrelling toward the bridge, losing pieces of itself in the snow drift. As it approached the Bridge of Skulls an invisible boulder of ice knocked it off course. Shunted to the side, the skeleton missed the bridge entirely. It sailed through the air, passing the maester who was still crouched over the last puddle of Wildfire and then fell abruptly into the mess of ice below. The impact shattered the magic holding its limbs together leaving it a ruin in the shifting, half-frozen ravine.

No matter. Ten thousand more approached. A crunch of death. They moved to follow. Some of the ridge broke away under their weight, snapping in half. Those marooned on the doomed ice lost their footing as it scooted off into the gorge. One of the skeletons was thrown loose, tangling with the bridge. The creature looked up, eyeless sockets staring blankly at the maester. There was nothing in those pits.

"Run!" Dorin screamed.

The maester smashed the last of the Wildfire over the bridge. He turned, desperately hastening away. He saw Dorin at the edge of the bridge, stringing a bow with the tiny glow of a fire at his feet.

"They're coming!" The maester stumbled on the ice. It was impossible to move.

"Fuckin' aye!" Dorin screeched back, fumbling with the string. He looped it – then looped it again as his fingers failed. He'd strung a bow a million times and yet was barely able to hold the damn thing in place.

Pursuing the maester, the skeleton clawed at his cloak, tripping him. The maester's face smashed into the ice as he fell, sliding along the bridge with the creature attached. He wrestled on the ice until half his torso threatened to fall off the side. He yelped, grasping at the frozen ropes above as his weight shifted and he felt the pull from the abyss. They snapped in his hands. Ice showered his face, stabbing his flesh like knives with the cold. He was halfway between the Wildfire and Dorin when the army of undead breached the bridge.

Faster than the ice-heavy wind, their wretched figures scrambled forward. He had moments. Then the skeleton stabbed its bony hands into his thigh, spreading fresh blood over the ice.

"Do it! Bloody do it! You coward! Burn it all, you bastard! Burn it a-"

The bridge exploded in a ball of green fire. It ripped through the wood, smashing the structure apart. Dorin was thrown backwards into the snow with a roar of thunder. The force pinned him down – shook the castle behind and smashed fragile overhangs of ice from The Wall. They collapsed in the distance. Green smoke towered above. Dorin propped himself up. The Wildfire had melted away the ice from the cliff leaving a black scar in place of the bridge. Below, wights burned in a pool of freshly formed water. There was nothing left of the maester. He would sleep with the gods tonight.

On the other side of the cliff, the dead army amassed – cut off from Westeros. They stared at Dorin, marking him in their collective minds before they turned as one, eyeing The Wall. Then they vanished over the ridge and all was eerily serene. A ridge of glistening snow. Pastel skies tainted green. The milky eye of the sun, bloodshot with dusk.

Dorin vibrated with fear.

Wind scratched across The Wall, trembling a spray of blue 'd see those faces again.


NIGHTFORT – THE NORTH

The icicles hanging from the walls of the Nightfort chattered together like a line of king's glasses amid the height of a feast. Not that Edd had been privy to many of those – unless he was crouched under the tables, thieving from the lords and ladies while they spilled over their fine clothes and wrestled drunkenly in each others arms. They were no different to the starving hoards beyond the gates. One night was all he wanted. One night of that. What did he get? This shit.

Edd and his men fumbled within the fort's depths, imprisoned by a labyrinth of stone hallways. They sought refuge from the howling wind, now a distant whisper as it moved over the land, tearing across the bleak stone above.

"What was tha'?"

"Nothin'!" Edd snapped at one of the men. Their nerves were tightening his. There was nothing in this waste of rock to worry about except the bloody cold and bewildering architecture. "Shut up. Keep moving. When I find the bugger he'll wish the Wildlings got him!"

They were searching for Cub who'd wandered off on his own, incapable of following any reasonable order. Above, the ceiling creaked. Dust and ice trickled onto their backs, working through the gap between their necks and the fur like frozen hands diving into their spines. Their torches leaned against a brief rush of air as they braced a new corridor. They carried on, pushing deeper into the castle that had stood as a wretched tomb to all the horrors of Winters past.

Cub was found stood reverently before a howling pale face, staring into its withered features carved directly into the Weirwood. The Black Gate, in the flesh, locked on every front by black stone.

"Who could make such a thing?" Cub asked as the others approached, partly in awe, unable to look away. "If you could freeze a man's agony and all the blackness of his heart, it might look like this."

"Poet, eh? You might look like this," Edd lumbered forward, grabbing Cub by the scruff of his furs, "when I'm through with you!" His anger died in the presence of the Black Gate. It overwhelmed the space – howling at them. "Children..." Edd replied solemnly. "That's who did it. Children and the First Men." Those were stories to scare little lords. They rang true as he stood in its shadow. "There are many gates along The Wall – one at Castle Black too. Sam used to say this one was different. Loved to tell stories about it from them books he read in tha' old dragon's library. Said there was a stench o' magic about it. I ain' know much about magic but there's somethin' not right about it. What yer doin'?"

Cub wandered forward, pressing his hands against the cold surface ribbed with fissures. The wood pulsed beneath his hands as though it were alive. His hair stood on end – even the furs crackled against his skin.

"I seen what's on the other side," Edd cautioned, refusing to come any closer. Horrific. The feeling wouldn't leave him. Magic was a twisted, vicious thing.

"I feel it."

"Come away from there."

"They're waiting..."

"What is?"

"They are..." Ice crunching underfoot. Thousands of dead eyes. Bones torn from flesh. Behind them – horses with riders made of snow and death. Cub could see them in the screaming face.

Thud.

Cub broke away from the gate, smashing into Edd. Limbs tangled.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sound came from the Black Gate. Edd retrieved the torch he'd dropped and stared at the Weirwood. "Search the castle..." he hissed to his men.

"Edd – the gate!" One of them protested, gesturing urgently at the Black Gate.

"Search the bloody castle as you're told!" Edd growled – all of them whispering. "Whatever comes through that gate, we'll need more than common steel to fight them off. An' don' even think about runnin', you dogs!" he added, seeing several pairs of eyes waver. "They'll only hun' you down. I see you. Where would you run, home? Across them seas? Pick out a nice, sunny place for yourself n'some Lysene whorehouse with your tiny prick... Lovely. 'till the snows start. The waters freeze over an' the dead find you. No one's goin' to fight this war but us." Well, that's what Jon would say although his words did not inspire the same devotion. "Do as your ruddy told!" He snapped at them, which proved more effective.

The men scattered, fanning out into the Nightfort. Edd didn't know how long the Black Gate would keep out the dead army but knowing that it was there, a few inches from them, scared him shitless.


Dacey Mormont beat furiously against the wooden gate, slamming her frozen fists onto the surface until they were bloody. Crippled by the bitter wind, starved and grieved by what she'd seen, Dacey fell against the Black Gate in a wash of tears.


WINTERFELL RUINS – THE NORTH

Littlefinger stared into the flames at the heart of the forge. He'd been drawn in by the heat and stayed for the engaging sight of molten steel folding over itself. The smash of a blacksmith's anvil snapped him away. Sparks showered his furs. Sweat dripped into the forge, evaporating in the flames. There were whispers in that smoke, coagulating with its ash.

"Is it done?" Littlefinger asked prematurely, taking a step back from the intense heat radiating from the pit. "I did not bring you all this way for the pleasurable view."

It wasn't much of a view. The ruins of Winterfell hung like desolate mountains among the snow with trails of mist curling at their crests. A fragile ring of tents nested at its flanks, aglow with song and wine.

"Takes time," Gendry replied, lifting the beginnings of a sword. He was a broad man with muscles sculptured in the heat of a forge. His dark hair was kept off his face by oil and sweat while the stink of him could rival a Wildling. "Almost no one forges like this."

"I'm aware," Littlefinger replied coolly. "I went to a great deal of trouble to hunt you from the Lysene shores."

Gendry lifted his arm, wiping a torrent from his brow before bringing the hammer down, beating the metal into submission. He did this again and again while dusting the glowing blade with black powder. The work was filthy. "Wish you'd left me there, m'lord," Gendry said, "bloody freezing up this way."

"We have a deal," Littlefinger reminded him, "if you can do what you say you can. Lys," he pondered, "lovely place to hide away – with the right amount of coin."

"Yeah, fine..." Gendry was nonplussed, shouldering out the lord from his forge. All he cared about was the glowing metal beneath and the embers of a sword. This was his chance to make weapons worthy of kings – weapons to be held by them and perhaps, weapons he could live through.

Despite his blood, Gendry was not fool enough to think he'd ever feel the weight of a crown. Those poor folk that wiled away their days fantasising about a footnote in the book of kings invited death and jealousy. It didn't interest him. A hundred of his siblings lay as babes in the earth. He'd lived to be a man because he was no one. Sword-smiths... they were truly immortal – their pages made of steel. When Gendry eyed the pair of Valyrian weapons in camp his thoughts drifted to the smiths that had forged them. They were made by different hands. The one with the wolf pummel was older – more beautifully tailored with a perfect edge and careful balance. Oathkeeper, owned by the blonde woman, had a harsher make. He'd seen the work before. That sword was a re-forge – a desecration of another's art. Gendry refused to re-work a Valyrian blade. Instead, he'd promised to make one afresh.

The lord was watching him, creeping at the edge of the firelight.

"Something else, m'lord?"

Littlefinger found himself stilled by the sight. The blacksmith clasped the glowing length of steel in one hand, its tip leaning back towards the flame. Robert's ghost fell over the man's face. It was uncanny. Dark eyes, black as night – why did those eyes haunt him? "No..."


Lady Lyanna Mormont attended her ravens.

"There's a talent to it," she announced, as the Lady of Winterfell approached all fur and fire-touched hair, speckled with snow. The black birds were free of their cages, hopping around the tumble of stones where he tiny bear laid seed. One perched on her shoulder, singing to the night. "I learned it from my mother. She always kept the finest creatures. It wasn't that she was terribly fond of birds. I think she rather disliked them. We're island folk, ravens are all we have to keep track of our southern cousins." Lyanna cared for her birds... There was a softness in the way they ruffled their feathers against her gloves, seeking her affection.

"I've never had ravens," Sansa replied, taking a seat beside her.

"You will now that you have a castle."

Sansa's gaze wandered to the broken walls. "I wouldn't call it a 'castle'. A ruin at best. I wish you had seen it before with the fires ablaze and music in the hall."

Lady Mormont presented the body of a child with the mind of a Lord. "You have an idea," she corrected. "Winterfell is more than a building. Who knows how many times it's been torn apart. It does not matter." One of the birds pecked at her fingers. "Hang your banners. Let the North see that their king has returned."

"Is that what you are doing, sending ravens with the news?"

"No. I am waiting for it. Here she is now..." Lyanna nodded to the sky where a black dot was flying towards them. It was close enough for the pyres to light its wings. "News from Bear Island. I have them write regular." The bird landed on her outstretched arm, digging in its slender claws, dusted in snow.

"Lady Mormont?" Sansa asked, as the bear's stoic expression darkened with concern.

Lyanna shooed the bird toward the others as she slid off the wall and paced about in the snow, considering the words scrawled over the parchment. Occasionally she'd pause to catch Sansa's eye before stalking off again in maddening circles. Brooding. Thinking. Every inch a bear. There wasn't an impulsive moment to them. Each decision was measured – considered – planned. They had less to bet with and everything to lose.

"It is a matter of some considerable delicacy. One that we cannot discuss out here."


"My Lady, it is cold and dark, should we not move closer to the castle?" Ser Davos Seaworth buried his hands in his cloak to stop them shaking. Dragonstone's dungeonswere a cauldron compared to the frigid outskirts of Winterfell castle. His concern was honestly meant if not misplaced. These were children of Winter.

Lady Mormont and Lady Stark had bid him meet in the Godswood, alone. It was out of fear of the tiny bear that he obliged but Ser Davos kept an eye over his shoulder on the glow of the sprawling camp set up around the outskirts of the castle. He was right to fear. Mormont held a torch above her head, ignoring the sparks that raged out of its heart onto her face. Beneath the light her eyes were almost black.

"That would not be wise," Lyanna replied. "I seek your council."

The Stark girl remained silent. Davos ducked under a bower of Weirwood leaves, stepping closer to the pair. "As you wish, though I doubt I'll be much good ter you."

"You served as advisor to a king before..."

"A dead king, m'lady."

"I'll risk it." Lyanna dropped the torch between them. It burned in the snow at their feet. "Less than a day past an army of Wildlings attacked Bear Island." She held up her hand when they both tried to interrupt. "The invaders were killed – all of them – violently. Their bodies were burned and the rest drowned in the bay as is our way. We've been fighting hoards off our shores for a thousand years. Bear Island does not enjoy the security of an ice wall. The Bay of Ice that separates us from the North has been freezing over."

"Victory – that is good news, your people are all alive?"

"Lady Sansa, you do not understand..." Beside her, Davos swore. "He does."

"That's a right mess there."

"How should we tell them?"

"Tell them? Seven hells. Why do you want to go and do that? Best not to mention it."

"We must tell them," Lyanna insisted. "This was not a small landing party. There were hundreds of Wildlings. Whole tribes now shift as smoke."

"You said there were no survivors?" Sansa clarified. "We could bury it. Why risk telling the Wildling King something that might destroy the alliance? Our situation is tenuous. Jon granted them land and several abandoned castles but with the snows coming, there's nothing to grow or hunt. The Wildling dream of rolling green hills and forest brimming with game has evaporated and with it, some of their loyalty."

"It is a famous victory, Lady Stark. Proud men will spread word of it through the North sooner or later. If we are to lose the allegiance of the Wildlings, better we do so predictably. The risk of concealing this and having it surface in the midst of battle could be worse... Fatal, even, with things as they are."

"Or they may turn and murder us in our beds right here..." Davos cautioned. "We might out number them but they could decimate our forces on short notice. You weren't there in Castle Black. There's a fine line between savagery and ferocity. Sometimes no line at all."

"Ser Davos, you are wise."

"Flattery is wasted on men like me." He sighed heavily. It was snowing again. If it fell any more often, Winterfell was in danger of being buried before the damn thing was built. "There are smarter men than me in this camp. My advice would be to seek theirs."

"Being clever and acting wisely are scarcely the same thing, Ser Davos," Mormont replied. "You cut to the heart of people. What do you think resides in Tormund's organ if we tear the flesh away?"

"Not half so much fire as I'd find in yours."

The corner of Lady Mormont's lip found a smile.

"It is not Tormund that concerns me," Davos continued. "He seems decent enough, all things considered. Its the Wildlings themselves. They've been fighting these wars longer than us. Mance banded them together more than a decade ago and it's been nothing but one long battle from that day to this. Now, with a bit of wine in their bellies and a moment of peace from the violence, they're collapsing. I have seen many men beaten. Those lost at sea have the same look."

"I cannot wake dead men," Lady Mormont quipped. "It has happened. Maesters debate what might have been done better until their lips are purple. I need only to know what remains to be done with what we have."

What a fucking mess... Davos tried not to imagine the bodies floating in the sea. He knew what those bodies looked like, bloated and crawling with crabs. His son's body dipping into the waters visited him nightly. "I beg your pardon but the advice you seek I cannot give. In times like these, Stannis would seek council from the Red Woman."

She revolted at the thought. "Only a fool dabbles in the murmurs of gods."

Lady Mormont reached up and snapped a small branch from the Weirwood tree. It had a spray of frosted leaves – almost black in the darkness. She held them over the fire burning at their feet and let it drop. The flames consumed it as perfumed smoke lifted. Suddenly, the flames rose several feet – pushing them all backwards. Around them, the halo of light surprised a pair of hungry wolves that had crept up upon them, preparing to strike. They scattered into the Godswood, afraid of the fire. Ser Davos was afraid too. He drew his sword, turning slowly at the forest, searching for hungry eyes in the dark.

"You see – Ser Davos?" Lady Mormont asked. "The more light we shed, the clearer danger becomes. The darkness does not protect us from it."


The Red Woman held Jon Snow's sword across her bare palms. To him she was a withered creature, lingering at the last thread of life while the rest of the world lusted after a play of magic and shadows she called her face.

"In the East, where the deserts kiss the sea, there are beaches that stretch as far as you can see. At night, if the seas are warm and the rains have been, the edge of the tide glows as if it were an ember. There's no heat. The light comes from seaweed, torn apart from its watery grave and washed against the sand."

Jon stared at the sorceress. He did not know why he chose to spend so many nights in her melancholy company. Perhaps it was because she had pulled him out from death's submersion – because she knew the truth of what waited from them when the wars were done...

"Traders walk the beaches, collecting the weed into glass jars. They sell it to conjurers and physicians. It's very popular in Yi Ti where drama usurps truth. I imported a great deal of this substance while serving King Stannis. I'd -" her words were interrupted by a half-smile on her cracked lips, "-crush it up into a powder and mix it with oil and pig's blood. There were grand ceremonies amidst the sacrificial pyres. He'd dip his sword into the mixture, buried in holes in the sand and pull from the beach a glowing sword. Azor Ahai's sword. Or so I prayed."

"It was a trick..."

She nodded. "Of course. I used to think all magic was a trick. I was very good at them. It's all in the delivery – much like leadership."

Jon thought about the blue-skinned demon he'd watched raise an army from the water. There was no trickery to his magic – it was real. As real as his own body, dragged from death. "Trickery will not help us where we're going."

Melisandre nodded. "I know. Have you heard the prophecies, my Lord?" Jon remained stoic. "They all agree that to defeat the things that hunt us in the night Azor Ahai must wield a sword touched by fire."

"Valyrian steel defeats their weapons," Jon replied. "I've held ordinary swords and felt them shatter in my hand, broken by their ice knives. The sword you hold now does not break when it is struck."

"It is a fine sword," she agreed, handing it back to Jon. "But it is not as the prophecies foretold."

"Perhaps you can dip it in sheep's blood..." The flap of their tent folded up. Snow and wind cut in. "Sansa... what's wrong?" She was followed into the tent by Ser Davos and Lady Mormont, both of whom eyed the witch darkly before lingering near the fire. Around them, the animal hide billowed with gusts of wind. "The Wildlings have left," Jon replied, after they had finished.

"When?" Sansa stepped forward.

"At dusk. Lord Baelish and a legion of his men left for the Dreadfort to secure the Bolton gold." If anything, the departure of Baelish alarmed his sister more. He watched her turn her back on the fire while Lady Mormont spoke.

"That is unwise. Was not Lord Baelish Master of Coin for the Crown? Word was he lost a great deal of it into his own wealth."

"Aye," Davos agreed. "I heard that too."

"We have to pay for the Vale's armies. He's taken them to the Dreadfort to feed them as much as anything else. Look around you. Winterfell can't support an army in its current state. We have to break it into pieces – position them carefully where they can rest and re-group. Let Lord Baelish think he has won a victory. Gold is of no use to us at the present."

Petyr is cleverer than that, Sansa realised. While they were squabbling over gold, he was allying the Wildling army to his side. With that much gold and a proper force, he could start buying off the South. Wealthy men pine for gold, perhaps his first lure would be cast at Lord Randyll Tarly... If only he'd taken her with him.


THE SHIVERING SEA

Snowflake lay on the small table in Jorah's cabin. He stared, enraptured by its curve of ice and the mist that lifted off the surface as though it burned with the cold. A forest of pine, trembling. Ice cracking underfoot. Smoke and festering bodies drifting with the fog. Memories, dreams or glimpses of the future? They tormented Jorah whenever his body threatened sleep until he was afraid to rest.

The ship rocked. Untouched wine sloshed over the edges of a goblet. A fresh breeze cleared the stench of incense from the room. He'd not had the security of a room for months and yet, without the fringes of the wild threatening at his heels, Jorah heard the future's screams more loudly.

"Does it have a name?"

Jorah startled, knocking the wine off the table in surprise. There was a child spread across his window like some kind of ocean spider. Lady Stark cocked her head, catching the moonlight before leaping into his room. She must have scaled the outside of the ship – scrambling across precarious ropes at the edge of the waves.

He swore, holding his head with momentary fright. "Thought you were a sea monster."

"Might be," Arya replied, swinging into the cabin. She touched down soundlessly, strutting around the sparse room. There wasn't much to it. Any possessions one normally acquired had been lost in the hasty escape from Meereen and subsequent shipwreck. All that he had left were smouldering candles and a strange looking sword. The sword drew Arya closer. "Does it?" she prompted again. He'd not answered her question. "I told you the name of mine."

"Ah..." Jorah refilled the goblet of wine. "'Snowflake'."

She seemed to approve of that. "Is it made of ice?"

Odd, how children asked the questions men could not. Jorah watched her reach for the sword's blade. He stopped her, moments before her fingertips intersected the surface. "It burns if you touch it," he explained, releasing her wrist. Jorah rolled up his sleeve to show her a nasty array of brown lines scorched into his flesh. Her eyes quickly wandered from the scars to the lines of text patterning his skin. It had darkened again, flaring up like a rash. Jorah turned his sleeve down.

This time when Arya reached for Snowflake, she took it by the lashings of cloth and leather at its hilt. It was heavy, nearly twice as long as Needle but Arya liked its indifference. The sword was brutal. Eventually she made the knight laugh softly with her play. "Did you learn that in Braavos?"

"It's a water dance," she held the sword aloft and spun artfully. "My father brought a teacher from Braavos to King's Landing. He was the best swordsman in the world. I'm going to kill the man that killed him."

Instead of mocking her, Jorah respected that reckless will. "I believe you." He drank his wine then stepped forward, taking the sword from her and laying it back on the table. She came and sat opposite. Unlike the others on board who wrapped themselves in fur and suede, he and Arya were dressed lightly. Even riding the Shivering Sea they were a long way from the breath of Winter.

"Can't sleep either..." Arya said, nodding at his untouched bed. "Yours was the only window with light. The rest are asleep."

"I dream," Jorah replied, taking another sip. "Not good ones."

"So I do I. I'm a wolf, running through the forests in the North. Sometimes I find myself back home, sitting on the ruins of Winterfell. I don't understand why but in my dreams its always a pile of blackened rock."

"You don't know then... Winterfell was destroyed." He told her about the dragon and the war. Her brother and sister fighting taking her father's place as leaders in the North. She was most taken with the silver dragon and Jorah found himself telling her tales of the queen's three beasts, two of which slipped through the sky outside the window.

"What do you see," she asked, when he was finished, "when you're dreaming?"

Jorah looked off into the distance – to the moon hung over the waves. "Drowning, mostly," he replied. "I'm walking over ice fields – endless stretches of what used to be ocean when the Summers lasted a hundred years. I can hear it cracking underfoot, moving with the tide beneath. Then it splits apart. A fissure opens. I fall. The water drags me down and the ice closes over head. There's a pale light above and darkness all around. I'm wrapped in the ocean. Swallowed by its silence. It never ends. I lay there, staring at the light but it fades."

"And your dreams, are they real – like mine?"

He didn't tell her about the other dream where Daenerys lay in a twin pools of blood, spreading out across the ice like dragon wings, her eyes pale and vacant. "Who can know?" Jorah folded the sword into layers of fabric. After the girl grew tired of his stoic company and crawled back out the window Jorah unravelled the a frightening relic from his robes. He set the black glass candle in the centre of the table. It was lifeless. Cold. Empty like the waters from his dreams.