DRAGONSTONE – BLACKWATER BAY
What was left of Ser Willem Darry folded into the rough edge of the island where a mess of boulders lay sharp and untouched by the weather. Uneven, they'd spent centuries rolling down an ash flank on the Western side of Dragonmount and locked together at the bottom, many of them tumbling lazily into the bay. Miles and miles of the island carried on in this fashion of violence – one inhospitable vista after the next. Barefoot, Darry wedged himself firm then stared sightlessly toward King's Landing. Spray coated his skin. Age may have left his eyes vacant but the old knight inhaled deeply and found the ghost of flames in the air. Dragons, mournful, wept. Their wings left a murmur on the wind. Buildings fell. Walls tumbled. Gulls shrieked. A thousand footsteps trampled the marsh on the opposing shore. He remembered the taste of war on his lips and how it must look. Always the same... Ships choking Blackwater Bay and men drowning in her waves. Scavengers picking their bones clean. Death never changed her face. All it did was shift between masks, tricking men to their death and the pit of endless silence.
She'll be coming now, Darry realised, with a smile.
Dragonmount quivered underfoot. Boulders knocked about. A few fell into the water with a splash of salt. There was heat beneath his feet – fire stirring. The gods, he feared, were waking from their thousand years of sleep.
KING'S LANDING – WESTEROS
The silk shed dust as it unravelled, tumbling endlessly as it unfurled against the stone. A Targaryen banner, draped over the Red Keep's exterior in a stain of victory. Down it went, cut like a wound. Its trio of red embroidered dragons had their mouths agape in an endless roar echoed by two of their breathing counterparts who spent the early evening sweeping low circles over Blackwater Bay. The moon hid, unwilling to grace the sky leaving the stars and dying fires to light the smoke so thick this could have been twilight in Asshai.
"A suspicious man might take the view that you have been hiding these last hours."
Varys sunk his hands deep inside his sleeves. He stank of the rancid city. Proximity to its dispossessed sullied his person and dredged up dreadful memories. In some ways Varys would always be the Lysian beggar child – hand held out in wait of a stray coin. Depravity within poverty – it fed upon itself and festered at the edges of the city. "Vulgarity does not suit you, my friend." He rebuffed Tyrion. "Truly is there nowhere else to meet? Must we always stand in the presence of your sister's corpse? The reality of death is not so smooth and angelic as the marble statues lining the hall. All those frozen bodies, carved and polished into something reaching for perfection… It makes you wonder how the talented eye could create a thing so deceitful."
Tyrion purposely kept his gaze away from his sister. Each hour dragged Cersei Lannister further into the throne as if it were trying to consume her bones and add them to its display of charred swords. A few Dothraki blood riders wandered around the enormous room, heads craned to marvel at the ceiling, part of which had collapsed. Stars lay beyond and flashes of light from a nearby storm. Giant iron urns had been dragged in to flood the room with firelight. The process left scars on the once beautiful granite floors which were all but ruined along with everything else of elegance and indulgence in the empire. Soon, little would separate the nomadic empires of the East from the Western fortresses.
"Daenerys decided to leave things as they are until she returns from Highgarden. That includes my recently departed kin."
"Presumably issuing a morbid warning to any nobles considering a usurping of their own. It helps, I believe, to let the wavering glimpse their fate."
"A trick common to many. Why else do the Red Priestesses build pyres in the streets of Volantis or Northern kings take the heads of traitors themselves? Power. Make the common folk watch blood drip from their hands. I'll not reproach our Queen for endorsing well rehearsed methods. She was born in the stranglehold of brutality." Tyrion ran his hand across his face – tired or weary, it was difficult to tell. "I admit," he conceded, "that I do not enjoy it any more than you. Less so, I'd imagine but neither of us are in a position to tempt the Queen's patience. Speaking of which, did you locate Tommen?"
"There is no one left to whisper in this city," Varys complained. "All my birds have lost their wings. If Tommen is alive he will wash up with the tide. No… I returned for two reasons. Firstly, our gracious Lord Loras Tyrell has come to collect his payment."
"No surprises there."
"Quite. He is lingering nearby licking his wounds. Secondly, the Eastern savages which the Queen met on the edge of the Grey Waste have arrived in the North and taken possession of Eastwatch by the Sea."
Colour Tyrion genuinely shocked. He gaped dumbly at Varys before stammering a reply. "To tell you the truth, Varys, I was beginning to think they were either dead or a fabrication."
"In my experience, the Queen is many things – a fantasist is not one of them." Whatever Varys dreamed the conquest of Westeros to be like, this wasn't it. Not even close. "Based on this turn of fortune's wheel, I presume we can expect the second wing of her unholy fleet to arrive in the West – led by rebellious Greyjoys."
"That is a lot of men..."
"Women and children," Varys elaborated. "More than half a million at the outset and they have all come with bugger all in their ships. They will ensconce themselves in the North without a leader or consent of the local tribes. We must be cautious or a war we did not plan might catch alight."
"Write to the Northern Lords and the Night's Watch. Inform them of our intent to broker peace and then let us pray that everyone is too cold and tired to pick up a sword. Lord Tyrell..."
Loras Tyrell entered clad in battle armour. It had been washed but dents from recent blades scarred its surface. One extended into a line of stitches that trailed painfully up the young man's neck. His blue cape fanned out as he stopped, catching flecks of ash which continued to spill through the open roof. The hall had cracked open like an egg. He could only guess at what it had birthed... Loras ignored the corpse, broken coloured glass and piles of rubble from the ceiling. A passing Dothraki caught his eye but it was little more than a fleeting glance. "Lord Varys, Tyrion..." He bowed his head just enough. It was impossible to expect that they would ever be 'friendly'.
"Drink?" Offered Tyrion.
"Moments like these call for sobriety."
"Ah well..." Tyrion replied, not certain if he was relieved or concerned by the young man's resolve. Those eyes were cold. "These last few days I've had my first sober look at the world since I was a child."
"What do you make of it, Lord Tyrion, this world that we have built?"
"That my childhood horrors were as real as the ash at our feet. If I live through this war I am going to find myself a patch of land in the Westerlands, where the mountains touch the sea and the earth is red. Plant a few vines. Build a house out of pine – and no fucking birds. I cannot weather the caw of ravens."
"I shall give you the vines, Lannister, if it means and end to the violence."
Varys was not entirely certain what had transpired between the silent pair but he dared to hope that it was a beginning. He cleared his throat, stepped forward and showed Loras the paperwork which was so fresh the ink smudged as it was presented. The only part of its contents Loras riled at was the suggestion of imminent marriage but there was no point debating the condition as it had been written by his grandmother's hand.
Handing Loras a quill, Tyrion said, "As promised, caretaker of the Seven Kingdoms – to hold the throne in trust while the Queen attends to wars in the North. Do you so swear-" and so it continued, the ancient words that transformed a Lord into a god. They were well rehearsed passages, witnessed by a handful of disinterested horselords who pried gemstones from the pillars. They popped free and bounced on the floor like hail. In the East, only the cursed accepted power as a gift.
When it was done, Loras approached the Iron Throne. Cersei Lannister – what was left of the flesh framed by a halo of burned swords. It was their blades that held his attention. Some of their pummels were intact. On them he saw sigils of lost Houses. Closer – Loras reached out and placed his palm on the throne where several swords were interlocked, all bearing the ancient Gardener 'hand'. "She was the worst of us." He hissed instead. "A creature so vile not even the gods want to take her into the underworld. I fear that Cersei is but a taste of what we face. How many times have we finished a battle only to ride onto a field made of fire? Dragons are fire. It is in their blood. It is all they have ever known. They fascinate us. We revel in their dance and take a few turns in their arms but while they spin and laugh the rest of us are left to watch our skin melt away. Our castles blacken. Thousands scream and die." Then he cast his eyes around the throne room and all the horror that had played out. "If I were King and not Caretaker, I'd tear this place down, stone by stone. It is the only way to strip the centuries of tyranny that led to this moment. You feel it too," he addressed Varys and Tyrion. "Shrinking away from what happened today but you are smart men. You can see the moves of this game unfolding..." Loras could as well. He imagined death dripping from every surface like wax down a candle. Why else had they manoeuvred him toward the throne?
"Loras, you are a true Tyrell," Varys nodded plaintively. "Despite all your suffering, there remains a passion for life. Injury prunes your will. I dare say that the realm would look quite different today if your marriage to Sansa Stark had proceeded. Alas, she is married to a Royce."
"You may inform the Queen that it is my intention to rebuild King's Landing and fashion it into an outpost of safety. If her wars are unsuccessful, we will be ready to receive the survivors in the South. On that, you have my word. I've had enough of killing." Renly's glass eyes followed Loras wherever he went. "Now if you'll excuse me, we are clearing bodies from the streets while ravens fly to Highgarden, waiting on news of the brewing battle. That treacherous Tarly has it in his mind the Targaryen queen wants his head on a spike. There's no reasoning with him. He can't stand the shame of backing the losing side."
"Oddly," said Varys, long after Loras vanished into the night, "I believe every silken word. He spins beautiful threads."
"He was thrown onto the board of kings," Tyrion agreed, "and he'll wear a crown of thorns."
"A shame... Now that the smoke has cleared," he changed the subject, directing Tyrion's attention elsewhere, "the damage to the city is not half so bad as we imagined. The North-Western edge is mostly intact. We have sent healers and Unsullied to secure every access point and government building along that front. The Gate of the Gods has been converted into a rally point for survivors. Many have returned from the surrounding fields and I felt a storm build late in the afternoon. It may set upon us in the next few days. I am certain the homeless will want to find shelter before the rains start. The Dragon Pit would be preferable but the interior is, as the pirates say, grim. Sparrows everywhere – all in bits by their own hand."
"You'll forgive me if I save my tears." Logistics was Tyrion's talent. He directed Varys to a map of the city – a war schematic he'd dragged out of his old desk. "What about the fortifications beneath the outer wall?"
Varys frowned. "I do not follow."
"The tunnels, Varys." He ran his finger along the parchment. "There are a great many of them. If memory serves they run from one end of the city to the next."
"I follow that there are military passages inside King's Landing's barricade. What I do not follow is your point."
"I have been inside them on many occasions – some of them more intimately than I would have liked while my nephew sat on the throne and enraged every lord from here to Winterfell. I had them stocked and repaired in case of a siege. There is room inside for hundreds if not thousands to wait out the storm."
For a moment Varys wondered if Tyrion's compassion was a true weakness – a character defect that might get him killed. "They are secure fortresses," Varys replied carefully, as if he shouldn't have to press that point. "We are dangling over the edge of a war we cannot predict and you want to fill the scaffolding with peasants..."
"Don't be difficult. I've got a headache and the best part of a chill." There was also something about burnt flesh in the air that left him nauseous. "Please just go and do whatever it is that you do to make things happen. By the time the Queen returns we need to have this situation under control."
"I am many things, Lord Tyrion – the string of a bow I am not." Although they both knew Varys would relent to Tyrion's order. All Tyrion had to do was whisper rumours of Faceless gods and his flesh would meet the flame once more. "All right..." Varys finally agreed. "But do me a favour." He leaned down and whispered. "Stop those savages from snitching every relic of worth in the empire. A victory over ourselves is a defeat. What dignity we have left is filling their pockets."
Jorah had never walked through the terraced gardens that wrapped around the Northern edge of the Red Keep. The cascade of low granite walls stepped lazily down toward Blackwater Bay in a maze of orchids and floral embellishments, fountains and bowers providing cover for the wicked creatures that usually nested in their depths, plotting.
The night fell fast and by the time he reached the lemon grove the stars had found their way through gaps in the smoke – most of which had been pushed down onto the bay by cool air. It concealed the water except for the masts of ships. Like the smoking ruins of Valyria, Jorah thought, leaning on the low stone wall. A cursory rumble from Dragonmount added to the ruinous vista. He wondered if the great black peak might open its throat and pour fire over the world. Erase all that they had done. Return this place to the sea and its black gods.
He ran his fingers through the ash coating the wall. Flecks tumbled from nowhere, chasing each other like dragons spiralling in thermals. They blurred with hellish dreams of ice locking Ironman's Bay and the Seagard vanishing in a white mist, thickening and curling around its high, barbaric walls – waves whipped into a frenzy at its feet…
Jorah steadied himself. From this particular terrace, looking North toward Dragonstone, Jorah could almost pretend that the city had survived. The destruction was concentrated in the South where fires continued to burn. He could hear them clawing and consuming. Here in the garden he was comforted by the rustle of leaves and soft hooting of dwarf owls.
He took a seat on the roughly cut steps. A lemon tree, strong and thick with Summer growth, drooped low. The bitter scent of citrus tainted the air. Jorah closed his eyes and thought of his father – tried to imagine him as a younger man dragging a pair of dragon children half way across the world. Keeping them in Braavos amid the tidal city and ancient groves that made do with floating islands of coral and salt-edged rain. Daenerys did not speak of this time and so he was left to wonder how the children were raised… Not as warriors. As scholars, perhaps – or were they schooled in his father's love of common sense? There wasn't enough of that in the world. More than that, Jorah wondered why. Why had his family taken this path of muddy streams, weaving dangerous tracks around the Targaryens over and over...
"These are strange gardens..."
"Aye," Jorah replied, unsurprised by Jon's heavy footsteps. Starks lacked the stealth of their wolf brethren. They moved as if they owned the world while bears crept with ears pricked to danger – enormous creatures invisible in the snow. "They are nothing like the cliff grove at Bear Island, or the Winterfell Godswood. Southern folk admire conformity and so they tie their vines with string and train them into unnatural shapes."
"But why?" Jon asked, honestly. "I do not understand it."
"Boredom, perhaps. Death does not breath so close to their fine necks. These fruit trees are not picked by starving hands. They are left as ornaments to rot."
Jon accepted that answer and leaned against the low wall. Even reclined Jorah Mormont was enormous. Jon could easily imagine him in the midst of the rebellion, sword raised in the thick of battle. He heard that the knight once cut a man near in half with a single strike. "I er…" Jon shifted as his throat caught the words. They had not finished their earlier conversation. "Wanted 'ter say something an yer don' 'ave to reply." In fact, he preferred if he didn't. "Lady Lyanna Mormont is quite young in the world but when I came ter stand before her she reminded me of words that should never 'ave been forgotten. Words between our fathers' fathers' fathers... You and I, our lonely houses, they 'ave shared loyalty for longer than any. Our kind 'ave lived at the edge of nothing and endured Winters that most kingdoms can't remember. There are people in the North who will call you a traitor for standing beside the Targaryen queen. More, I imagine, who'll call you harsher things than that when they hear of this day and the dead buried in the sky."
Jorah held his silence. The dead were in his lungs. True, there was fire in Jon's blood but he had the voice of Stark Kings. A steady, tone. The warmth, they used to say, in the snow. It ran strong in his veins – the North vanquishing all else.
"But you were once Lord of Bear Island and, without question, you are your father's son. I believe you echo the Lady Lyanna's words – that you are loyal ter the North. I 'aven't been 'ere long enough ter know if yer love this dragon queen like they say but your heart has pieces of ice that fire can't touch." Jon knew exactly what ice felt like. Stubborn loyalty to the point of absurdity. "I cannot bring myself to trust the daughter of the Mad King. Ned Stark refused to murder her as a child but I doubt he'd 'ave followed her into war either. Instead, I am trusting you. The North is trusting a Mormont's word. I wanted you ter know that."
Jorah flinched as ash clipped his eye. He didn't want people looking up to him. All that had been surrendered long ago. "I am like my mother," Jorah corrected, voice low. "My father always used to say. He did not like ter look at me too long because I 'ave her eyes. Endless like the sea. His words. I look to the water when I think of her. He told me that they set her on a boat, laid as if asleep and let it drift into the Bay of Ice where it was set alight by a single arrow from my father's bow. There she burned and sank under the waves." Jorah shifted. Jon had wide, trusting eyes but they were almost black. "You are Ned's sister, through and through. I remember her. Lyanna Stark used ter come an' watch the tournaments. Rumour added that she jousted in them too – taking up a mysterious House banner and knocking foolish men from their horses. She was the warrior in your sword arm. Rhaegar is the source of your foolish heart. I've seen the echo of him in the Queen."
"They say his heart is what killed him."
"I was there when Rhaegar died. Believe me, Snow, your father died because Robert Baratheon put a war hammer through his skull. He summoned bravery instead of sense. A good memory," Jorah added, "is the last thing the realm needs right now. Better we meet as strangers."
Jon took a step beneath Ser Mormont. It was peaceful in this nook the knight had found, hidden by darkness. For a moment, he saw the appeal of Southern lands. "Robert killed my father. I killed my mother. My grandfather killed my half my Uncle's family. They slew the my cousins in their sleep. There are no sides left to take. Only a history of violence. North is the only thing I have."
More silence followed. Jon felt drawn to the knight despite Davos' warning to keep a safe distance. So many of the good men in the realm – the ones who remembered what it was to fight – were dead. Robb's war with the Lannisters had finished off the few that remained. All Jon had left were farmers and children, most of which had the courage to hold a sword but not the skill to survive its blade. They'd all die in the first moments.
"I understand your devotion to the Targaryen queen..." Jon breathed bravely. "After I took The Black, we went ranging beyond The Wall – through the Haunted Forest and up into the ice surrounding the Fist of the First Men. You know – where the mountains rise twice as high and vanish in the clouds."
"I know it."
"I was captured by a party of Wildlings an' met a woman. Ygritte..." He had not said her name in so long that it stuck in his throat. "She had long red hair and green eyes. She tried to kill me the moment we met an' never stopped trying. There was no honour in loving her. Broke every vow I made – to my House and to the Watch – to your father but there was no choice. She was a fact of my existence."
Your heart did not set hundreds of thousands to flame in their homes, Jorah thought quietly to himself. "If it were as simple as love, I would have kept the Queen in Qarth or left her storming across the Dothraki Sea on the back of a silver mare. King's Landing is not the first city that she has left in ruin. It is not even the second or third. There is no forgiveness for the things that we have done. The best we can do is weigh their merit and hope that, on balance, we were good before we died."
"Are you worried?"
"About Daenerys?" Jorah scoffed. "She is safest on Drogon's back. Have you told the others about what I showed you?"
"I don't know how to tell them," Jon admitted. "There was a city on that map..."
"Aye. A city made of ice where dead things sleep – one that is not on any other maps."
"There's more that you haven't shared..."
"I see things," he admitted, "I was warned that they will come to pass. I did not believe that they were true until now."
"Like dragons..." Jon whispered, watching the pair of them play as shadows. "Do you believe the old stories? Dragons made of ice, I mean – that hunt the Shivering Sea."
"I cannot speak to ice dragons," Jorah replied, eyes firmly on the sea of smoke, "but I've seen a white spider the size of a bear. It was so long ago. I was a child. No one believes the things children see. Now? When I close my eyes I see the mighty Trident frozen solid and an army camped in the shadow of The Twins. The wolves are howling and death is feasting."
"For certain, you are a weird one then..." Davos peeked into the covered cart housing the Asshain priestess. Drawn to the glow of her caravan, the captain paced nearby for hours before deciding to risk intrusion. He'd expected one of the Queen's men to stop him but no one stood from their camp fires. Perhaps they thought the priestess had no need of a guard. "Qarth-"
"Quaithe..."
"That's the one." His upbeat tone endured even though the inside of the cloth-built space rippled with hostility. It stank of incense, magic and all the dead things that made their homes in the East.
"The smuggler," Quaithe relaxed into the cushions, unafraid. "There are no answers here, Onion Knight."
"I have not asked you any questions."
"Like all bereaved, you seek reason from the gods..." She purred, eyes fragment of fire behind her golden mask. "Justification, is this correct, for the fate of the young princess? The Baratheon girl – gifted to ungrateful gods by a false priest."
He felt foolish, sitting before her brimming with pointless hope. The were no words to bring back the dead. "Well, I tried all the other gods. Might as well give yours a go. I hear they are Eastern cunts, older than the rest."
No one would ever see it but a smile crept over Quaithe's smooth lips. "They are all the same gods," she warned him. "The Red Witch Melisandre sacrificed a child of royal blood to the flames for selfish reasons. Only she has the answers you seek but she has slipped beyond your reach. You'll not see her again." Quaithe grabbed Davos by the wrist and dragged him forward with considerable strength. "Most of what we see in this world are phantoms…" Her gaze deliberately lowered to the stumps of his missing fingers. "As real and absent as your butchered digits. You follow kings, Ser Davos, but you will never die for one. Onions bury themselves deep and wait out the Winter. When the Summer rains break and seep into the earth you shall be there to feel the light upon your face." Quaithe's eyes closed as if she could feel that promised sun.
"I swore I'd kill 'er and I will." Davos was not a man of violence but he'd carved out an exception for the Red Woman. Slaying her was something he dreamed of. Nightly, he tied her to a pyre and held a torch to its edge. Her screams became Shireen's and he woke.
"Her name belongs to somebody else..." Quaithe turned the man's hand over and dragged his glove off. When she pressed her fingertips to the centre of his palm, the wound in his stomach tightened bitterly as if the knife were still turning in his flesh. "Poisoned steel lingers. You have come across more than one blade in your years upon the sea."
"They ain' nothing special," Davos replied, snatching his hand away. Embarrassed, he covered the mutilated flesh. "Was all the fashion for a while, till the coin dried up along with all the food. I 'eard a rumour 'bout you – way back… A few folk up White Harbour way are convinced that you are one of them dragons that watched the palace at Summerhall burn. They even say you coaxed the flames… Made them burn like the sun, they said. Green and red and yellow." Davos watched Quaithe retreat – a nerve touched. "S'all right," he assured her. "You were correct, I did come 'ere with a question."
"You best ask it," she hissed.
"What was it drove you to Asshai? Seamen like me, we hear pretty messed up shit about the end of the world. Filthy waters full of dead things with a fire of their own. Islands that steam and burn when the waves break… Basilisks curled up on white shorelines and of course, the largest city ever built left in permanent darkness in a place without a sun. Only jewel merchants from the Jade Sea are crazy enough to make that journey – not Targaryen princesses running from their fathers."
The gold plates covering Quaithe's face rustled like leaves. Their inscriptions held back the light and murmured with unsaid words. "You would understand my reasons," she explained, "if you had laid eyes upon the broken shores of which you speak. All things are drawn to their home, Ser Davos. Asshai is the spark from whence we came. It is a charred corpse with a beating heart – though it stammers now, catching with rigor mortis. There is something spectacular about planting your feet at the edge of greatness and knowing with certainty that at our most brilliant efforts have failed. Only then do you understand that life is not a cycle as the gentle Westerosi gods proclaim. There's no wheel, tipping over itself but a pit into which we all fall. You ask why I went there – the answer is to see with my own eyes the past and future condensed into a single horizon. I do not need trees to reveal the world's secrets – the evening sky suffices."
"That Tarly boy was right to fear you," Davos made to leave. Before he did, he lingered at the curtain, close enough for the cloth to brush against his face. "I 'ave a theory about people who live too long in the world. They lose their way. A young princess taught me how ter read. She gave me a book an' it was full of stories about ancient rulers clinging to power and empires dying as deserts lapped through their grand gates while seaside villages shrink to a single man wading in the low tide with a net. That last one I saw with me own eyes. You? You're drowning in the darkest parts of this place."
"I wander upon a broken shore… On Iron bones and raven's eyes. Milkglass are my winter moons, rough her frosts the tide made raw. Into the bay the great ice floes die, under waves, songs from the runes come with a rush of bone, of smoke and salt, shell, rock, gold and tempered steel. Then nothing cold can move to breathe. A city fallen, stars brought to halt. Blood stilled in parchment's seal. A broken shore, where black waters seethe. Then from under the rocks, the gods stir in their sleep. The Summers burn. The Winters freeze..." Quaithe's violet eyes blinked slowly behind the slits of her mask. "The gods endowed you with a sharp set of eyes," she added in a purr. "Look well at those you serve."
THE SKIES ABOVE THE REACH – WESTEROS
Beneath, the ground shivered. Fields left to wrack and ruin became vast carpets of purple flowers. Stinking weeds. In the starlight, they danced, caressing each other as they strangled everything else. Scattered across the gently rolling hills lay outcrops of rock – castles abandoned in the centuries of war. Some had fires light within where farmers took shelter. Others stood, dark and morbid, skeletons of rock and mausoleums to nameless dead.
Sam Tarly leaned as far as he dared to the right, watching the fields beneath a wing. The dragon moved around him. Even in a smooth glide the muscles along its spine twitched. Its chest grew and shrank with each passing breath. Behind, a tail trailed the sky, swinging like a rudder. Riding a dragon was quieter than he'd imagined. Aside from the constant scratch of scales rubbing against each other, the world was silent. He ran his hands over those scales. The ones interlocked beside the saddle were huge, nearly the size of shield with a similar convex shape. Sam could easily see why the old stories thought they came from beneath the ocean. They were inherently aquatic, despite their love of flame, making homes of sea caves and hunting gulls and fish.
The dragon was not as intriguing as the silver woman laid over its back. Daenerys' eyes were closed, as if in sleep. Her bloodied clothes had dried but there was evidence of the battle matted in her long, white hair. Sam knew exactly why she'd kept the impractical braid. Kharls, Marwyn told him the previous evening, never cut their hair. It is taken from them in defeat. Her silver hair cascades past her waist, Sam listened despite Marwyn's lascivious gaze, a testament to her conquest. When you look at her remember, that girl united the horse tribes. A vicious people who value strength and violence. You can tell a leader from their followers and they chose her, along with a ruthless – cockless army, a drunk Lannister, an exiled knight and a House famous for bending the knee after their liege lords burned.
"H-how old are you?" Sam asked nervously. He wasn't good with drawn out silences. When people were quiet the world took over, especially in the North. At The Wall, standing on the rotten edge, there were days so quiet that he heard the ice scream. "Only I was thinking," he continued, despite no evidence of a reply from the Targaryen, "you'd be going on twenty this year. I'm twenty-one – in a bit. Not that different really, a year. The distance gets smaller, doesn't it – as we get on? Then one day there's no difference at all. We become adults. Odd really, when you think about it. I think about it. The longer I do the more I worry that there are no adults – only children that got old."
Daenerys was asleep against her dragon, lulled into peace by the steady thud of his heart. Her limbs were twisted in lengths of leather, tethered to the saddle behind where Sam perched. She had not slept properly for so long that her dreams sank their claws in.
"Aye, shut up, Sam..." He said to himself. Babbling nonsense was one of his worst habits. His father hated it beyond words. "Look..." Sam whispered. His voice was not loud enough to carry past the roar of air but he felt he had to speak, even if only the gods heard. "Spare my shit of a brother… He'll come 'round to your view of the world, I know he will. One look at them walking dead and his knee is as good as bent. Give him what Jon gave me – a chance."
SEA DRAGON POINT – SUNSET SEA
"There and there again. Another one over near the cliffs. Wait for the swell to drop a moment. See. There. Smashing up against the edge there. Bergs."
The pieces of ice had been drifting around them for hours. Many were small outcrops of ice that wandered the surface in white convoys. They spread over the water like ribbons of silk. Others were huge. The largest was big enough to stand level with the castle on Old Wyke. Theon didn't know what to do as he watched the pale monsters drift through the water.
Asha joined him on the deck draped in fur. Her breath came as plumes of mist while in the haze of grey clouds meandering over the water they found swirls of snow. There was more of it, freshly laid, over Sea Dragon Point. The Wolfswood that crept along the Northern edge of the cliffs was hidden in thick falls. Winterfell sat on the other side. They could pick it by the columns of smoke rising into the sky.
Their ship led the fleet which was inflated by Pol Qo's stolen Mantarian ships. The Eastern Horseman kept to himself. Short with a cone-shaped head and dressed in yellow robes he was easy to pick on the prow of a nearby ship.
The water turned to chop as they neared the point. One of the bergs drifted through the centre of the fleet. Sails twisted. The winds rushed in awkward mayhem. The cliffs cast a shadow over the water, dropping the temperature as they sailed beneath.
It ended as soon as they'd cleared Sea Dragon Point. In front, two startling vistas appeared. The first was Bear Island rising out of The Bay of Ice, smouldering and green despite the clutch of winter strangling the water at its shore. The second was the bank of white on the Northern horizon where the Lands of Always Winter butted up against the bay. The faintest press of mountains against the sky came in and out of focus, almost a shadow except it was made of light.
"Have you ever seen the waters like this, little brother?" Asha asked Theon, leaning into the wind.
Theon shook his head. There were a too many bergs to count. They were were breaking off fresh glaciers on the opposing shore. Fishing boats tried to weave between them, catching their nets on the sharp edges. "Those damn things will sink us."
Asha turned, raised her hand and gave the command to the fleet to go slow. Sails deflated, laying down against the Ironwood masts. She reached forward to steady herself as the boat pulled up in the water and caught its own bow wave. Ahead, they saw hundreds of white gulls circling Bear Island's cliffs, screeching desperately. They thickened near an old Weirwood whose ruby leaves thrived in the sudden cold.
Pol Qo's eye was drawn to an unholy rise of blue on the far North-Eastern shore. The land was higher, more than twice that of the thin white line that ran all the way along the horizon. Atop it stood the edge of The Wall. Enormous, the man-made creation towered above a scattering of mountains to the East, eclipsing them. A dark stain on its edge Pol Qo presumed to be their destination. Westwatch. First, they had to charter peace with the tiny island sitting in the heart of the bay.
He directed his ships to circle left, wrapping themselves around the island at a distance. There were a great many of them and when added to the Greyjoy's number there were almost enough for a perfect ring. Only one ship proceeded towards the crumbling dock at the harbour entrance.
A bell on the island rang over and over. The sound echoed in the ice bergs. Instead of organised soldiers, locals emerged straight from the forest, one at a time, carrying axes.
First Men. Theon hadn't realised how different they were from the rest of the realm until he saw them without their finery and ceremony. In that moment, it was as though he'd never left his childhood at Winterfell. The Starks and the Mormonts – they were kin. Terrifying kin.
"Are you all right?" Asha asked, placing her hand on his back.
Theon nodded. "These people do not understand surrender," he whispered. "I'd not fight them for all the gold in the realm."
"We are not here to fight," she reminded him.
"I wish there were a way to tell them that before we step onto their island."
The wait was the worst part. With their ship creeping through the dangerous waters, the welcoming party on the shore thickened. Several hundred packed the moss-soaked rocks. Some climbed recently beached bergs, sitting on the cleaves of ice with no fear. Most of the fishing boats had been pulled up the beach to the tree line. Theon noticed the occasional rotting corpse wedged in dangerous rocks, easy to pick with hovering seagulls tearing at the decayed flesh.
"There was a battle here recently."
"With the Boltons?"
"I doubt that..." Theon replied. "Ramsay Bolton had no interest in poverty and believe me, these people are poor. They came trading at Winterfell when I was young, offering a few pelts and seal oil in exchange for grain. It was a terrible deal for Ned but he made it anyway. Every year. He'd never see them starve or let them lose their honour begging. They'd be glad of Ned's generosity now. I heard it were the Mormonts that brought the North together, rallying for my brother."
"Snow is not your brother," Asha reminded him sharply. "Your brothers are dead."
Theon shook his head defiantly. "Hate it if you like but those boys were my brothers."
The jetty was short and unusual, tacked to the beach to the left of the harbour entrance. The fringe of Bear Island ended in deep water which, on a fair day, turned an eerie blue. Today the skies were grey along with everything that lulled around underneath.
Sailors tossed the ship's ropes into waiting hands who tethered them firmly to the ancient wood. The true harbour set deep in the islands embrace was built solely for shallow-hulled fishing boats. A ship this size would beach through the passage and wreck on the towering cliffs that hemmed its neck in.
"Smart..." Asha whispered, eyeing the set up. "It's difficult to board an island if you can't dock."
"They did away with their old jetties long ago. Our fault, I imagine. Too many Ironborn raiding parties. They decided to cut themselves off from the world and struggle on."
Asha pushed her fur hood off onto her shoulders. "It's warm here..."
"That's the rocks," Theon replied, as the side of the boat scraped the jetty, settling itself. "There's heat in 'em. Ned used to say it were the old gods stirring."
"Did you believe him?"
"I don't know what ter believe," Theon admitted. "For a long time I thought the Starks were monsters for keeping me hostage as a child. Then I met Ramsay… Now, if what they say is true about what's coming over that wall of ice – we might need to redefine our childhood monsters."
"Mine was always the sea..." She whispered. "Whipped into a storm, there is nothing like a war between the sea and sky. The old priest that drowned us as children – he went mad toward the end, throwing himself against the rocks as the tide came in. He said that he'd seen them – the oceans beneath the sea. Water made of fire."
A Mormont welcome involved cold stares from blue eyes. Hard people… They shifted at the end of the jetty ready to cut the visitors into pieces for their fire. Theon turned his nose at the smell of death lapping at the dock. Beneath the clear water, ice cold, he could see bone and flesh picked at by silver fish with sharp teeth and yellow fins.
Theon was conscious of the copper squid clasp holding his fur in place and the matching figurehead leaning from the bow of his ship. He looked for the young Mormont Lady but Lyanna was not there. Instead a tall maester wrapped in heavy chains stepped forward. He had red hair, edged in grey and green eyes.
"You are not welcome in these waters, Theon..." The maester introduced himself with a Riverfolk accent. He nodded to Asha, "That goes doubly so for you. We've nothing to reave save a few salted fish. These years are hard years." The maester stopped short of mentioning the terrifying fleet waiting in the bay still brandishing Mantarian sails. The demonic creatures painted on their canvases shivered in the wind.
"We 'ave not come to your waters to thieve and butcher," Theon assured the maester, for all the good it did.
"Your word is worth less that dirt, Greyjoy. A skilled builder can make bricks from mud. You are a traitor thrice over. What use are you?"
"None at all," Theon replied, without the slightest trace of mockery. "Look behind me, maester. I have not come to offer you my word. The bulk of the ships floating in your waters belong to Queen Daenerys Targaryen."
A glint of fear was hidden well. "Even more reason for them to burn. The Southern king is a Lannister cub. Our king sits in Winterfell and his name is St-"
"Stark..." Theon finished for the maester, exhaling the predictable word firmly. "King Tommen is dead, or soon as shit will be."
"And what, exactly? You've taken up a dragon banner and sail in league with the Mad King's daughter? Enough blood has bled for her red banners."
"Daenerys is not looking for bent knees." Theon half-turned and extended his arm toward the armada. "These people are not from Westeros. Daenerys met them on the farthest Eastern edge of the world. They are survivors from the great city of Yin," a few shared looks of acknowledgement, "now a complete ruin, fallen into the Jade Sea. They sail under the leader of the horse tribes of the Jogos Nhai – their natural enemy now turned kin. Their world collapsed..." Theon stepped toward the maester. "They are here because Westeros is the last stand against the dead and this tiny island is where the realm of the living stands and says no, we will not bow to death."
Asha also closed in on the maester. He was wavering, she could tell. It was as though everyone could suddenly feel the cold wind picking up from the water and the Lands of Always Winter weighing heavy in their fear. How many hours did the Bears spend watching the sheets of ice grow? Did they notice their grey harbour starting to lock up… Were there things that moved about in the night that made them fearful of the dark? Mormonts had always known.
"Turn us away – we will go," Asha added, her voice quiet. "Winterfell and The Wall will have us but Pol Qo – the leader of their fleet, he was with the queen when she lay on the dirt and dreamed our futures. She saw this bay turned into a white lake and bone walkers crossing in their thousands."
Bear Island was not large enough for the queen's army to make landfall. Instead the ships banded together, throwing ropes and boards across their decks turning themselves into a floating mass of wood and sail. They became a barge that used the main island as protection from passing ice bergs, careful to remain in the smooth water that dragged behind. They would need a guide to sail ahead of the fleet and take them to the treacherous docks of Westwatch. Only the Mormonts knew the secrets of those waters.
Pol Qo came ashore with a few of the Yinnish guards. They were terribly mismatched with the guards tall and slender while Pol Qo had a cone shaped head, bright clothes and tattooed arms. Neither were as immense as the native population of Bear Island. They were thick with muscle – the men and women alike. Even the children were the size of adults.
It was Theon and his sister who felt the full breadth of hostility from the islanders. Centuries of violence from their kin brimmed in their memory. Asha in particular had sailed these waters herself once or twice – sunk a fishing trawler and taken the catch for her men. There was no honour in it. Ironborn didn't care for honour.
"I'll be amazed if we are not killed in our sleep, little brother," Asha whispered, as they were led into the great hall. It was cavern of pine and smoke, built as a Keep rather than a gilded banquet hall. It was warm, at least, and all of them were drawn toward the fires.
"The maester will not touch us," Theon replied, rubbing his hands together in the golden light. Poor as they were, there was something comforting about the solid immensity of the hall. It had the look of a thousand years. "He is sending a raven to the Lady of Bear Island. She will decide what to do with us. We are fortunate that they honour the old ways. We broke bread in their hall."
The Yinnish guards eyed the primitive surrounds, reaching out to lay their hands on the thick pine logs that formed the walls before bending to do the same to the black glass floor. The light from the fires reflected across the surface like a dark pool. The Mormonts had not made that floor themselves. Something terrible had happened in this place or worse…
A bear roared, deep in the mountain forest. Pol Qo turned to the sound then hissed words to the Yinnish guards. Only the maester understood their bastardised High Valyrian.
The sun set fast. Pol Qo watched the watery orb track through the thin layer of clouds until half its body lay in the Sunset Sea. He'd never seen waters turn so soft, folding together like silver silk. They took on moments of colour – a wave catching the sun here and there until something changed and all the floating chunks of ice laid across the surface transformed into pink sentries. Beautiful. A terrifying match to the icy world that lay to the North.
Theon climbed Bear Island's Keep and found Pol Qo sitting on the cusp of its stone edge. Clearly, he was a man used to perching on the overhangs of mountains and showed no fear of the drop beneath. Instead his eyes were fixed on the water as they had been on the plains.
"Look..." Pol Qo raised his hand, muttering in High Valyrian.
Theon did not understand the words but he turned his eye to the patch of water basking in sunset. For a while he stared, searching between the lazy bergs for a ship. Then he realised it wasn't a vessel he was supposed to be looking for. Pol Qo grabbed him by the head and forcibly turned it as you might a child. Then he saw – shifting in the rose light – an ice spider.
He backed away from the wall at once, eyes wide and hand over his mouth. Theon tripped over his own feet, landing on Keep's uneven ground.
Pol Qo laughed and uttered in his native tongue, speaking of foals and their unsteady nerves. He was not afraid of the creature clinging to the ice. No. Pol Qo wanted to get a closer look.
Theon closed his eyes and could have sworn that he heard the Keep whisper beneath his hands. The rock was wet even though there'd been no snow or rain in the past day. It was always wet, catching ocean mist. The whole bloody island was just one thick carpet of moss breaking into sporadic plumes of spore.
Asha pushed aside a thick bank of fern growing from the collapsed trunk of a pine. It has crashed through the valley long ago, originally bridging the steep sides of the narrow gorge before decay broke it apart and sent it to a final slumber in the shallow mountain stream. She climbed through its body.
She followed the stream to its source which turned out to be a deep, clear pool high up the gorge where unusually tall pines had grown so close together that only their tops sported limbs. The rest became an impenetrable wall with their thick roots crossed like mangroves over the boulders at the edge of the water. Asha climbed over these too, leaving her clothes draped over their twisted forms.
Dipping her head back, Asha searched the flat-faced cliffs. They were so sheer that nothing grew on their surface except ice, higher up. There were a few hours left in the afternoon and she was desperate to rid herself of the stink of the sea. Months she's spent on the run. Examining herself she realised that her ribs stuck through her skin and if she didn't see a fight soon, her muscles would start to wither. That would prove fatal. They'd have to train, all of them, either on sea or shore.
For the first time in decades her skin was blemish free. Victarion's hand marks around her neck were gone and the slashes from his sword had dissolved into neat silver lines that crossed her back and shoulder. As her feet stepped into the steaming water – heated from burning rocks deep in the centre of the lake, she realised there was one mark of Victarion's violence that could not be hidden. It would grow, larger by the day.
She sank into the water and swam into the centre where the steam roared off the surface. The heat was intoxicating, enveloping her in caressing currents. Bear Island was spoken of as a knife point in the waves – a piece of broken land surrounded by ice and salt but its depths protected a haven of warmth and green. It was an outpost of survival. Was it any wonder the Mormonts fought fiercely – they loved their grey mountains and valleys made of pine where bears roamed and caverns vanished, delving beneath the sea.
Then she opened her eyes and saw with horror what had been affixed to the trees on the far side of the pool. A wall of faces. Dead. Eyeless and withered. Preserved by the vapour coming from the pool. Hundreds of Wildling heads severed at the neck with tendons left hanging like roots. Trophies of a recent slaughter.
Pol Qo's spear was made from obsidian. Its grip was wrapped in layers of horse hair knotted with teeth. The plan was to wait until morning but when word spread of a monstrous spider drifting in the bay there was no stopping the Bears. They dragged their fishing boats off the shore and piled in carrying axes and two-foot curved fishing blades.
The horselord sat at the front of one of these low vessels, pointing toward the berg. When the light died the torches were lit along with lanterns hung off the back on flexible wooden poles that bowed with the swell.
"This is a mistake..." Asha breathed against Theon's neck. They were sat together in the narrow boat behind Pol Qo. Two more Mormonts rowed behind, powering them across the water. "There's no moon tonight. We can't see shit in this water. We fall in here we die."
"And if we wait," he replied, "the creature could vanish into the tide. No one would believe our story. Pol Qo is right to hunt it where it sleeps."
Their words were replaced by the lap of water against the hull. Larger waves splashed over the edge. When the spray dried it left white stains of salt. Five more boats spread out around them, all transforming into sad, yellow halos of light on the black water. There should have been stars but the clouds became a blanket during the night. Only Bear Island and the raft of ships let out a glow and, further East, the fires of Winterfell produced hue on the underside of the clouds. Theon wondered what they were burning – men or pine.
Hours later, the boats approached around the berg. It was larger than they realised, vaulting out of the water in three vertical rises and one low, beach-like stretch where the water was less than a foot off the ice, sitting beneath the edge of the fishing boats. The crew were silent, not wanting to wake the ice spider which had folded itself up into a ball, all its horrific legs tucked in and its eyes closed – waiting out the night. There is sat, perfectly still – white like the snow. Invisible, Theon imagined, in its natural home in the unnamed mountains of the North.
Theon's hands shook as he reached over the edge of the boat and pushed a metal pick into the ice. The Mormont behind him pushed another in, tethering them. The boat felt the pull of the current immediately. They were drifting together. Dancing in the waves.
Pol Qo moved first, stepping silently onto the ice – spear raised. He used the wooden end to steady himself while all but one man joined the raiding party. The other boats held back, leaning to watch the terrifying sight. Theon and Asha took the right side. She held a lantern and carried an urn filled with oil. Careful, she kept the light away from the sleeping creature not knowing that it was blind.
The ice spider had limbs of bone yet it was not dead. Fine, transparent hairs clawed their way across its segmented legs. Its fangs were covered in thick flaps of white skin. The black tips of its legs were buried in the ice, feeling the cautious steps of its prey inch closer. It has spun a few fine threads of web between the rough sides of the berg. Several tiny crystals formed along their line, dripping from the silver thread.
The Mormont fishermen, big men with bear pelts, hesitated.
It was a horror made flesh. A few murmured words to the sea. Others cursed the winds. Eight eyes opened. They were not blue like old songs and this creature was not possessed by the dead. It was alive with a will of its own. A thing woken from sleep, deep in the North and drawn towards a feast of flesh. It could probably taste the dead in the trails of ash that has been steadily falling over the land.
Asha nodded to the front right leg. Curled up, they'd not noticed at first that it was missing its lower two segments. The creature was injured and unable to walk over the waves. It was trapped on the berg – possibly marooned by a glacier crumbling into the bay.
Pol Qo decided he would lead – which no one challenged. Already small, he ducked even lower, angling his spear upwards. The spider sensed the movement and shifted, unfurling several of its limbs, more than doubling its size. Awe brought everyone pause. Like the first glimpse of a dragon, the ice spider felt like a dream – or nightmare that entered the waking hours. It was real enough that its shift in weight rocked the berg. Hands went out, each person steadying themselves. In warning, the ice spider retracted part of the skin covering its fangs revealing black fangs as thick as Theon's arm. Venom dripped onto the ice beneath and hissed in a cloud of yellow smoke.
A Mormont swore. Pol Qo scampered sideways with astonishing speed and sprung forwards, embedding his spear in the fold between the two sections of the creatures abdomen. Grey liquid expelled and parts of the exoskeleton crunched inwards like ruined glass.
Silence. Spiders had no voice with which to scream. All three remaining legs on the right side lifted from the ground, curling up and smashing in repeated strikes on the ice beside Pol Qo. He held onto the end of his spear and found himself lifted from the ground, flailing in the air as the creature tried to kick him free. The Mormonts ducked the other way and hacked at the closest limb with their axes, severing the tip. It lurched forwards, fangs arching out. Wind whistled across their smooth surface as they plunged toward the men. One escaped – the other was stuck through the shoulder – crushing the bone and flesh into a paste. Life lingered as the man dropped his axe and gurgled blood. His body convulsed – nerves quivering uncontrollably. Then the venom began its horrific course, melting what was left until the arm separated and a bloody pool smouldered.
"Theon – look out!"
Theon pressed himself against the ice wall. A spider leg swiped harmlessly by and slammed into ice above his head, sending a shower of white over him. Pol Qo's spear came free. He hit the ground gripping it, coated in the awful liquid that flowed from the spider's body. Enraged, the creature spread itself, clawing away from the ground – retreating to the higher flanks of the ice wall where it could lean down, fangs twitching. Lit from Asha's flame beneath, its shadow formed, monstrous above.
"Fookin' thing's as big as a bear!" The remaining Mormont plucked his fallen friend's axe from the ground and wielded them both.
"I'll burn it-" Asha moved forward, but her brother caught her jacket and dragged her away. "No – we do that and who will believe us? They need to see – those Southern born."
"Who fucking cares?" Asha replied.
"You will," said Theon, "when you want their help."
Pol Qo dropped his spear and extracted a pair of daggers. He held one in each hand then launched himself at the ice, using them as climbing spikes to haul himself up the wall of ice toward the spider.
"Mad bastard..." Theon breathed, watching the foreigner. "Keep it distracted! We better give 'im a hand."
So they did, launching failed attacks at the spider one at time, forcing it to reach out and swipe at them with fang and leg. They could see its fury in the way it held itself. Each movement of their blades was echoed in the spider. Back. Forward. Back. They played with it until beads of venom swelled at the points of both fangs. It wanted to murder them. It felt the ghost of their blades in its soggy flesh.
Pol Qo climbed higher than the spider, turned then dropped down from a great height, landing on the creature's back with both blades stabbing into its shell. The spider reared ferociously – stretched toward the heavens.
"Now!" Screamed Theon, and all of them surged forward.
The horselord worked his way along the spider's back, dragging himself by the blades until he reached its head. Its bristles tore through his clothing and flesh. Then, staring into one of its eyes with a morbid fascination, he plunged the knife into its skull.
No one knew what to say. The ice spider was dragged into a log cabin where it could be kept safe from scavengers. It was smaller, curled up on its back in death but no less horrific. The maester, in particular, leaned in and ran his hand down one of the solidified hairs that covered its legs. The flesh on his hand split apart. He jolted, staring dumbly at his bleeding hand.
Pol Qo's sorcerer tossed herbs into the fire, filling the room with choking smoke but no one had the nerve to stop him. He was, as the guards said, making sure the creature's soul stayed dead.
"We cannot keep it," the maester insisted. "You know our ways. The dead are burned."
"I am not asking you to keep it forever," Theon insisted, "only long enough for us to work out a way to convince the others that it is real."
"Then you will spare the men to watch it. Night and day. If it moves it will be reduced to ash."
"Theon..." Asha pulled him away. "They've agreed to take us to Westwatch."
"I guess that means that they believe us."
"Perhaps. Either way, we need to go. We came to secure the castle and now we can."
It was Theon's turn to take his sister by the arm and pull her closer. He lowered his voice to nothing more than a breath. "The things we did to get here – the blood we spilled to fill that fleet to the brim, we never speak of it again. We are thieves, pirates and murderers – all of us… Pol Qo especially so. That ends. We weren't born with honour so we will have to find it in the shadow of The Wall."
Asha did not take his words quite as seriously as he would have liked. Her lip curled in humour. She wanted to survive the Winter but that did not mean changing her soul. "As you wish, brother but I'll not be the one to tell him."
Theon eyed the horselord. "I'll do it."
"You don't speak High Valyrian."
"That maester does. He can help."
The Bear Island maester had taken refuge in the lower levels of the Keep. Once they'd been dungeons. There were still fragments of chain hanging from the wall and grooves in the floor where doors and bars were mounted. Now it was a store house – hollowed out and re-packed with grain from the mainland. Dried fish were stacked on shelves and vats of oil were kept separate. A simple desk was pushed against one of the walls where a few scrolls were kept.
"Not much of a maester's quarters," said Theon, entering cautiously.
The maester set his quill down. "It is more than can be said of the Iron Islands. I heard they slew their maester and fed his entrails to the sharks."
"Good for burleying the waters, or so my sister says. I wouldn't know. I was raised inland."
"Yes, Theon. Everyone in the North knows your story. It is not the kind of fame one wants to court. Why are you here?"
He was about to reply when Theon spotted a pile of raven scrolls bearing Benjen Stark's name. "What's this then?" Theon went for one but the maester was out of his seat, putting himself between the Ironborn and the scrolls.
"That's not your business now."
"Benjen's dead… Ned told us so himself. Missing in the North. Everyone knows it. What is he doing sending you ravens?"
"They're not my ravens..." The maester held his nerve.
WESTWATCH BY THE BRIDGE – THE NORTH
The castle was abandoned. Perched on the brink with its feet choked in the foundations of The Wall, the wind howled through its empty rooms. It was a monstrosity of Northern architecture but this was nothing compared to the vast cracks running in vertical tracks at the edge of The Wall. The constant bombardment of storms funnelled along the gorge tore pieces off it every year. The crawl of Winter made it worse. There were days when it was only the stone holding the divide and nights where its imminent collapsed threatened to tear a hole in the entire enterprise.
"There was a bridge there..." Asha stepped toward the edge of the gorge. A pair of stone posts remained with the limp ruins of chain hanging from them. She dared not step any closer. The exposed cliff was coated in layers of ice polished smooth. She didn't need to. There was a mirror of it on the other side where a segment of the Bridge of Skulls survived, hanging flat against the cliff. Its edges were burned. The waters beneath ran so fast that rest of the bridge would be sunken in the bay.
"A man by the name of Dorin blew it to pieces with Wildfire," Theon explained. "The maester said it happened a few months back. No one will say fer definite but the walkers were here, on the other side of the gorge. They tried to cross the bridge so the old man destroyed it."
"Is that why the Wildlings attacked Bear Island? Were they running from the dead?"
Theon shifted cautiously. "They don't talk about that and we shouldn't either."
"I saw the spoils myself, Theon. They kept their heads for show."
"And now everyone has to forget, Asha. For a little while at least we keep our mouths shut and our eyes North. What difference does it make to us who kills who?"
"All I am saying is that these people are dangerous. Your Stark captors might have licked their cocks for honour but they'll tear our skin off if they think it's to their advantage."
"Are we any better?" He asked her, seriously. "If you want a list of the depraved you should start with Victarion."
Asha tore herself away from Theon. "You know nothing of Victarion," she cautioned. "I pray you never will."
WINTERFELL – THE NORTH
Lyanna Mormont dripped a small puddle of yellow wax onto the rolled parchment – yellow because the red wax had been exhausted last month and now they were forced to ration the candles and use seal oil to fuel the lanterns in the castle. It burned with a familiar scent – a stale stink that used to permeate the vaulted halls of her home. Ironically it burned with twice the ferocity leaving the innards of Winterfell practically ablaze.
"M'lady…"
"There is no point lingering at my door, Payne," Lyanna remained seated at the desk. She was not yet tall enough to reach the floor and kept her feet balanced on an old crate.
Podrick knew better than to judge a person by their statue. His years in service to Tyrion taught him that the most dangerous people were often the smallest, moving unnoticed through the world. "Whose fate do you toy with this afternoon?" He half-joked.
"The realm, I imagine. Though on this occasion the risk is mostly personal." She tied the thread, preparing the message for a raven which she would select herself. Lyanna trusted no one. "You will find out soon, I guess..." She sighed, convincing herself to speak. Podrick sidled in and closed the door. At least the castle walls had calmed since their calamity. They no longer moved beneath the softest touch. "There is no hiding this secret, even if I wished to. Bear Island is host to a fleet of Targaryen ships, led by Ironborn and stocked with raiders from the East. I know," Lyanna watched her company's eyes widen in disbelief, "imagine the songs the maesters will concoct when news reaches their ears. Without laying so much as a banner upon our shore, the Mad King's daughter has outflanked the Northern empire and drowned our number."
"Ironborn..." Podrick missed the material point. "I heard they had taken up in Casterly Rock. How did they align with the Targaryen?"
He spends too much time around Brienne – whose interests lay South, thought Lyanna unkindly to herself. "Victarion remains in open occupation of the Lannister lands. These Ironborn are his niece and nephew – whom he tried to murder when he took the salt throne. No doubt Theon Greyjoy and his sister wave dragon banners in the hope that she'll gift them the Iron Islands when all is said and done. Perhaps she will… Perhaps everyone will be dead. It does not matter. Bear Island fought off a Wildling raid but it cannot push back against a force of this size. Varys," she held up a scrap of paper from the spider, "panics. He believes all Northern folk are quick to stir at their swords. In truth, we look the other way more often than he'd like if it holds the peace. Death is a waste of life."
"And that letter is..."
"To the maester at Bear Island instructing him to safely escort these Greyjoys and their foreign friends to Westwatch castle. At least this way it will be manned and if Victarion decides to sniff around he might cower at the fleet left moored in the bay. Do you know why we keep so many bears on Bear Island?"
Podrick felt the air prick with ice. "They are good for hunting?"
"We like to keep fear close. Makes us alert – like a touch of frost."
