LAST HEARTH – THE GIFT
Bordering a small, frozen lake the Last Hearth lay in sight of the mountains. Sheltered by a tall wood of unusually mottled cypress, it trod through the short days amid a rabble of shadows. The main hall rose above the rest of the village with a smoking thatch roof partially destroyed by earlier wars. It was often prey for raiding parties. Wildings. Boltons. Brave Skagosi. Imp-like forest Children with green, pointed faces and deep amber eyes... A boundary wall circled the settlement, torn down in places. Old broken logs protruded from the mud like the ribs of some slain beast. With all the strong Umber men dead or lingering in Winterfell, it was left to the women and children to rebuild what they could.
It was an arms race against the snow. Every day the ice sheet crept a little further down the mountain, rumbling and fracturing into glittering cascades. Beautiful, it paled in comparison to The Wall which loomed on the Northern horizon as a blue mirage. Again, the ground beneath the village shook, almost without sound. The villagers looked towards the tail of the Frost Fangs but all was quiet. Slowly, cautious sets of eyes drifted toward the cracked ice fields of The Gift, questioning the white clouds rising up along the horizon. Were they smoke or snow? The rattling ground had started last night and continued into dawn, as if giants were rolling in their coffins beneath the earth.
A man lay under a dying horse at the edge of the forest. The poor creature kicked its legs, scraping its hooves in the ice. It had barely enough energy left to draw breath beneath its own weight. Frost clung to its coat while icicles of blood formed where wear from the leathers had skinned it right down to the flesh.
Littlefinger groaned sharply, reaching out with one hand in a futile attempt to grasp the snow. Each time the horse shuffled, he felt his own body crush further into the frozen ground. His mind scattered in delirium. He thought he could hear the bones rushing through the forest in pursuit. They would not stop. He had seen the malice in their ungodly blue eyes. The purpose. These things did not behave like an army of men who paused after battle to regroup and plan. Strategy and careful plots – what nonsense. These creatures simply pressed on – running their meat down until it either died of exhaustion or stopped to fight.
Even Petyr's broken character had the clarity to see that if he raised a sword to one of those corpses he was as good as dead. They'd open the old scars in his chest and set his heart into the Northern wilderness. A beating muscle shedding blood until it stopped. Another piece of flesh gifted to the forest. An ornament for the gods to hang.
Instead, he managed to shuffle loose a dagger from his sleeve. With whispered empathy, foreign to his manner, Petyr stuck the blade into the horse's side. The beast surged to life, invigorated by the pain. It reared just enough for him to wriggle out, gasping for air. His horse laid its head back on the snow and died. A glass eye, black as night, turned in his direction.
Petyr rolled away from its despair and crawled onto the partially buried gravel path. He found the strength to stand as a murder of crows shrieked into the air, scared by something storming through the forest. His walk was more of a staggering lurch while patches of ice threatened to send him down. He was certain that if he fell now he would not have the strength to pick himself up.
The ashen gates of the Umber stronghold materialised beneath his palms. He threw himself into them – beating his fists and shouting incoherently. They shifted. A set of hands dragged him inside then immediately pinned him to a wooden log sticking out of the frozen ground. It looked ominously like the heart of a bonfire. Somewhere for people to be lashed and burned. The Umber guards – a pair of farmers by the looks of them – shook Petyr until his head lolled back to attention.
"Bugger's almost dead," said one.
"Another fucking Crow – run off from his post…"
"That's what happens when you stock The Wall with criminals and traitors. No honour. They don't give two shits about the realm."
"I do..." Petyr found his voice. It raked out of his throat like ice down a valley. "I – I – I have come from Eastwatch with a message for the Northern Lords."
Petyr told them everything. The words dribbled from his lips as blood from a wound. Soon his sense dissolved into manic repetition. Some thought he was completely mad, sent insane by the cold. Others were wary, surveying the unusual flock of crows that had come to perch in the wreck of their hall. There was something unnatural in the way the birds chattered.
The Umbers debated the weather and unholy signs in the smoke while Littlefinger was taken to the stables and shackled beside a pair of bemused goats. One of them nibbled at some pine needle stuck to his boot, unaware of the terror bearing down on them.
"Shoo… Away…" He muttered at the goat. The Umbers fed him hot mead, partially defrosting his mind. As it began to tick over, Petyr became aware of the odd silence hanging in the air. Fog curled up and over the walls. It smelled of ash and death. Birds beat their wings, scratching their tips against the ailing buildings. The familiar rustle of metal weapons plucked from rest accompanied whispers. Ghosts in the wood rolled their eyes around in their heads like crazed demons. They were listening to the forest – pricking their ears to the dragging swords.
There was nothing for Petyr to see. Trapped behind several layers of wood, the Umbers hadn't simply thrown him into a barn. No. In here, Petyr was completely hidden from view behind several layers of stalls and hay with the rest of the animals. The wooden panels at his back showed their opposing face to the outside world. He could see ice crystals growing like magic from the seams between the planks. Hell is here, he thought, twisting into the gaps of warmth. The ice reached his iron chains, burning his skin. Petyr let out a hiss...
The first clash of swords came. The dead did not shriek battle cries or seek to intimidate with song and dance, as the Easterners tried. There was no need to paint their bone faces or wear shrouds of grisly keepsakes when you walked in the skins of your foe. The creatures from the North had marched South to conquer in the most absolute sense.
Petyr had no energy to stand. It had left him as surely as his power. Words were worthless at the edge of a sword and even less so when the creature holding the sword could not understand them. Death and Magic were separate worlds to the living. It was no wonder that communication failed through anything but dream. Petyr didn't have dreams like those… They were for dragons, not birds. His dreams were far more pleasant. Warm, auburn hair plaited to a lady's waist and keen blue eyes that often settled only to pick apart his soul. A Riverrun girl. The young Tully who played with him in the waves beneath the crumbling Seaguard. There, in the thrashing surf with the achingly dangerous vaults of failing stone above them, he'd sold his soul to the gods of the sea if only for a moment of her love. A child's foolishness. His whole life, upon reflection, was one of foolery. There were times he wondered if he'd set the torture upon himself.
Something heavy fell against the stable door. It rattled sharply, shedding ice into his hair. The goats shuffled backwards with their hooves slipping on the frozen ground. Screams started up from the edges of the settlement. More swords were flung. A vat of oil tipped over. Flame roared and died, almost in a single breath. Petyr wasn't sure exactly how many wights had made it through before the Wall collapsed. Hundreds or thousands. It probably didn't matter. He'd long suspected that the entire realm could be brought to heel by a single sword.
THE FROST FANGS – THE LANDS OF ALWAYS WINTER IN THE MONTHS PRIOR
The army and all its frost-locked generals stopped on the banks of The Milkwater. Having butchered their way through the Northernmost regions they now faced off against the gap in The Frost Fangs. The Western lands lounged beyond. Their white edge formed a vast, reclaimed ocean – an endless plateau of sea ice extending the size of the land by untold miles that waxed and waned throughout the seasons. It came as jagged boulders, sharp ledges and nightmarish soggy patches where the salt water lapped between the cracks. Very few had ever tried to cross it. The odd, crazy Mormont. Stranded whalers. An explorer from Essos snapped in two by a rolling berg and desperate Freefolk fleeing something worse than the continuous groan of the ground shifting underfoot. Other than that, it was an untouched wilderness.
Inexplicably, the height of the mountains faltered. The uniform rigid back of the Frost Fangs went to pieces near The Wall where it had been mined extensively. A collapsed glacier swamped the pass, collapsed under its own weight and further eroded by fierce winds lifting off the Sunset Sea. It lay before the Night King as a glittering, white road.
Cold Hands was always careful to keep his distance, stalking the dead men from the high mountain track worn by Freefolk. His horse walked behind, tethered with a ratty piece of rope. They spent most of their days in shadow cast by the overhanging ice sheets. Their world was one of filtered blue light. Every now and then the track wound high enough up one of the flanks to glimpse The Wall. It cut the landscape, weaving like a dragon's spine. There was no wonder the Thenn called it, 'The White Dragon'.
He knelt down to catch his breath. Cold Hands had seen many things in the past ten years. There were strange, dead cities buried in the snow drifts. Their flanks crept like the folds of a desert, consuming everything in their path. Then there were other secret places that he'd stumbled on, protected by curses and worrying whisperings that eked out from the ice. Where the sheets thinned, a certain glow could be seen during the long nights, caused by thick mats of algae trapped in the ocean beneath. On the Western side of the Frost Fangs, carpets of Blue Roses rustled in the wind, bobbing their elegant heads like a field of sapphires that bloomed in the moonglow. He wondered if any of these things were relics of the world the Night King and his creatures had destroyed – or if instead they were the cities built by the Whitewalkers before a sickness had taken over their form.
Cold Hands leaned toward the former. These creatures had no special knowledge of the ruins and seemed to be themselves searching for artefacts. Eventually Benjen came to believe that these were the crumbling ruins of the Deep Ones and the grotesque statues in the ice fields – pieces of their gods...
Not that it mattered. There was nothing in this cesspool of violence that could be placated. The dead were a plague and he had nothing left to lose. Benjen was brother to a dead King. A Stark exiled from Winterfell was no Stark at all.
To his horror, the army divided itself into two. One part headed West, through the pass while they other kept to the Southern path. Benjen could only follow one. There was almost no cover on the Western side of The Frost Fangs where he'd be subjected to ceaseless wind and almost certain capture. Besides, Westwatch was well defended by sheer cliffs, raging waters and the Bears. It could fight its own battles. When the Night King took his flank South, Benjen followed.
They kept this course until the tips of the Antler River brushed against the Milkwater. With The Fist of the First Men still to their South, the entire army marched into the Haunted Forest. There were lingering Freefolk to murder here, scattered in patches – huddled by fire pits or living in tiny, hide-covered hovels. There was nothing Benjen could do for them. He went to sleep with their screams and woke to silence. The Whitewalkers hung their kills in pieces as decoration for the pine branches. Frozen chunks of meat swayed with the wind – demented wind chimes to conjure restless spirits. When Benjen's horse lifted its nose to inspect a severed hand, he tugged the rein sharply.
The Nightswatch were unaware of this road which wound through the forest. It was as good as any in the South with cut gravel and stiff pine roots holding the edges. Salt clung to the air. The sound of waves crashing along the black shore rumbled beneath the crunch of snow. Eventually, they came upon Hardhome where the swirling waters of the Shivering Sea collided in the Bay of Seals. Gulls in their thousands huddled on the water. Their calls were the only sound to cut the frigid air.
Benjen held back as the Night King and his army approached the cliffs. Southern warships clustered against each other, moored awkwardly close to the shore. They flew Baratheon banners with burning red hearts but oddly it was men of the Nightswatch that assembled on the ailing docks. He'd never seen a gathering like it. Freefolk did not hold council with Nightswatchmen or Southern pretenders to the throne. Desperation. He could think of no other glue capable of binding the unlikely rabble.
A shiver clawed through the air. In all the spaces between the bowing pine branches, a thick fog gathered. It whipped itself up from the snow underfoot and then rolled over the land. When it reached the cliff edge, the bank of white fell toward the Freefolk settlement, blanketing everything in an eerie curtain of light.
Slaughter followed. Benjen watched the bones throw themselves over the cliffs and reassemble beneath. They rushed the wooden fortifications of Hardhome. Tore down the heavy pine walls sometimes with their ice fingers. Cut through the Ironwood buildings and quashed the blue flames that burned within the dwellings. Snow hissed on the coals. Blood froze to fallen blades. It went on and on until the only sound left to Benjen was that of bone snapping on ice. The Night King's generals strode into the settlement, plucking the dead from their slumber until one Ranger with a sword held the line, standing in front of a Whitewalker with his sword raised.
"Jon..." Benjen breathed, barely more than a scratch of pine needles against the ice. He shifted closer to the cliffs, locked in horror as he watched the young bastard circle the seven-foot tall Walker. "Run – you fool…" Instead their swords met with a clamour that drew the Night King's eye. The sword in Jon's hand left a metallic wail on the air as it swung, striking the Walker's ice blade. One swing missed the sword and cut the Walker short at the shoulder. The Valyrian steel unravelled the magic holding the dead thing together. Unbound and broken, it blew away as a shower of ice.
Furious, the Night King sent the rest of his men over the cliff to swamp the village. Vanquished, Hardhome languished in silence.
Aligned at the water's edge, the two forces stared longingly at one another. One by one, all the corpses stood up. The men ran and the dead waited.
The Night King returned his army to the forest. They kept themselves hidden from any Baratheon ships spying from the water. Benjen found himself in familiar woods. He'd hunted them often in his Ranging days. They opened into a barren bowl of ice with an intrusion of grey rock. Grown over the unusual geology was one of the largest Weirwoods in the realm. With a scrappy bower of crimson leaves, the gnarled roots twisted through the rock and bound the ice together. It was so old that it had somehow grown right through death and re-shot fresh limbs from its own corpse. For those that listened to whispers, it was the home of the lost watchman – the Three Eyed Raven.
Why had the Night King led his army to this place? Benjen tethered his horse to a tree then climbed half way up its ladder of brittle bark to watch the army spill into the ice field. They were held off until late in the evening by Children of the Forest who tossed fire at their feet, surrounding the tree in flame. It was for nothing. The flames died at the Night King's presence, folding harmlessly around his features. Moments later, the army poured into the caves below the tree which must have been a vast chasm for Benjen saw three hundred men easily sink into the darkness. Later, an explosion rattled the Weirwood's branches, knocking many of its leaves into the wind. Some knotted in pine needles beside his face. Smoke billowed through gaps in the bark.
Benjen waited many hours for the army to abandon White Tree. Only then did he lead his horse onto the ice. He stepped into a fresh layer of ash. There were bits of bone among it that could not be revived proving that there was some lingering power in the Children's magic. Benjen tossed the pearl fragments aside and ducked into the shadow of the cave. His horse would not follow so he left it grazing outside on the barren field.
The caverns beneath the Weirwood were rancid. Its walls were dark grey, dripping with stinking sap while the edges were layered with bone – animal and human – piled up in equal horror. Deeper inside, veils of shimmering, translucent Weirwood roots fell from the walls, trembling as his progress disturbed the air. Fungi, common to the shadows of the wood, thrived in every nook. Their fibrous extensions fluoresced as they broke down the layers of sap, lighting the way.
Among the tiny corpses were endless clumps of black feathers. Ravens – broken and picked apart – lay half frozen to the ground. Several hung, plucked and gutted, from string affixed to the roof. Benjen ducked under their headless remains only for his eye to be drawn to bloody motifs. Spirals covered the cave, drawn over and over through the aeons. Their shapes changed from faint, shell-like patterns to bold concentric suns.
The inner sanctum of the cave opened up to a hovel directly beneath the massive Weirwood. Here the white roots formed thick nests, woven over each other in a morbid mess. To his horror, Benjen saw that there were people caught in the weave, consumed except for the occasional limb that stuck out like bedrock from a field.
Greenseers.
Every child in the North was warned of those who could commune with the Weirwood and dream their way through time. Woodswitches and skinchangers – dragons that wandered too far from Southern thrones. The romanticism of it evaporated with the stink of death. These corpses were slaves, bound with living chains that tightened year on year.
At the heart of the room sat a pale figure entombed on a Weirwood throne. A terrible gash split him from shoulder to hip while half his dried organs lay in his lap courtesy of the Night King's blade.
"Old fool..." Benjen hissed at Brynden Rivers. A red stain in the shape of a bird covered part of his face while the hollow from his missing eye had eroded all the way to the skull. Dried leaves collected in the hole. The old dragon was tied to the tree like all the rest except he'd not been there nearly as long – fifty years, not much more. It was a perch offered to those foolish enough to be drawn into the tree's grasp. The white wood conspired – with their blood leaves and deep roots – Benjen was certain they touched the sleeping corpses of the gods.
Benjen edged closer with fascination. It was not often the opportunity came to look upon the faces of history. This one was a true -
He backed away in shock. Feet scuffing the roots and bone. Brynden opened his remaining eye and peered at Benjen. It was sightless and blue – possessed by the magic of The Others. The Night King had done the unthinkable and installed one of his spies in the network of Weirwood.
Benjen drew his sword, intent on severing Brynden from his tomb. The cave shook. Above, the ungodly weight of ice expanded into the cracks and tried to tear the tunnel apart. Boulders fell between Benjen and Brynden. They were sharp, clipping the edge of thick roots which in turn bled afresh, drowning the floor in pools of sap. In the end he had no choice but to abandon his position and run towards the entrance. The cave collapsed in his wake. Benjen threw himself into the snow beside his faithful horse. He rolled onto his back, gasping and clutching his ruined chest. The shard of dragonglass burned in his skin. Like the old man, he was trapped between worlds.
Benjen did not expect to find his crippled nephew at the fringes of a hunting charge. A few dozen wights had broken off from the army, giving chase to something in the forest. The action made him wonder if some form of individual will remained to these tortured creatures. Were they more than weapons wielded by the Night King and his generals? Or was this simply a display of a greater order. Kill. Kill whatever you can. Cross the waves. Hunt the forests. Move as a pack… Benjen had been inclined to leave them to their murder until he heard a child scream. Kicking his heels, Benjen risked attacking the straggling soldiers – knocking them down with flame. It was a trick that worked in small numbers but proved useless against a proper fight.
After he'd set to rest every dead thing he could find, Benjen sat down in the snow beside the two shivering children. Meera he'd met once when she was a child. Howland used to take her on hunts, clutching to his furs. She had the old man's figure – strong and slight with a natural inclination towards a bow. Even after months abroad there remained something of the swamp about her.
"What's wrong with him?" Benjen asked, kneeling beside Bran's cart.
"He has slipped into a dream..." Meera replied, hovering close to the fire. The faint sunlight cut into her eyes which had expanded into great black disks. She'd been trapped in the darkness of the cave for too long. "It's been getting worse."
Benjen placed his palm across the boy's forehead. He was uncommonly warm despite his sallow skin and blue veins. "Young Master Stark should take care wandering in the branches of white trees." Then he told her of what he found in the cave. "Those roots are poison now. They should burn every last Weirwood."
He left his nephew and Howland's girl within sight of Castle Black. He dared not encroach within the shadow of The Wall. Even at a distance he could feel the magic twist inside the dead parts of his body – attempting to rip him apart from the inside out.
Benjen pressed on alone, trotting the edge of the Haunted Forest. The army was heading to Eastwatch castle. No doubt they thought to test the crumbling edge where the ice met the sea. It was no secret that The Wall had been in a state of collapse for many centuries. As the ice crumbled, so too did the magic. It was the mortar that held the thing together. When one fell, the whole sad stage went to pieces.
The march ended at the sea. Benjen backed away as ice cleaved off The Wall and fell what seemed an eternity before obliterating itself in the drifts of soft snow. The cracks on this side outstripped the Southern face. They were deeper too. Like great big blue scars, they crossed over each other. At the very top, Benjen saw the black mark of the watch tower. Unmanned. It must have been or the horn should have sounded. The dead were in full view.
"Come on, you bastards..." He begged his Brothers. "Blow the gods damn horn, you sons of bitches!"
Benjen stared at the silence.
The Night King smirked, cracking the side of his lip. His blue eyes closed and indulged, listening to the turn of the waves.
CASTLE BLACK – THE WALL
Lord Commander Thorne averted his gaze to the iron lanterns swaying backwards and forwards, dripping wax all over the floor while the foundations of the castle rattled. It went on for some time. Long enough that Thorne moved from his desk and placed his hand on the battered stone of the castle wall. Earthquakes were not unheard of in the North but those came from underfoot, shifting the ground sideways. This was different. The trembling originated from the ice wall itself as if it were trying to rid itself of the black castles.
His crow hopped across its stone perch, snapping its beak at the sound.
"That was fucking something." Thorne growled at one of the Southern recruits, who tried to suggest it was nothing to worry about. "I've been 'ere a lot longer than yer. I know what's what an' what's not." He returned to desk, pausing only to brush his fingers over the sword laying there. Howland Reed's possession had arrived. Thorne had asked to see it himself to make sure that the great man was dead. It was as good as a body and he afforded the sword the same reverence. "What'd yer say before?" He added, shaking off ghosts. "Someone at the gate?"
"Aye. Pair of children."
"Freefolk?"
"No. The girl says that the cripple boy is a Stark."
"There are no fuckin' Starks this far North," Thorne grunted.
He was forced to eat his words when the pair were brought to his office. Stark indeed – the teenager was every inch his father, Ned. While they warmed by the fire, Thorne paced warily back and forth, wearing a well-trod path in the stone. His raven shed another coal feather, picking at scraps of deer.
"Eddard's boy..." Thorne admitted. "Thought that one was dead fer sure."
Meera stepped toward the Lord Commander. Her eyes were locked to his desk where the pommel of the sword peeked out from the heshen covering. Cold tears cleared a layer of dirt from her skin.
"And what are you?" Thorne continued. "One of his minders?"
"That is my father's sword..." She replied, sharply. "I know what it means when another man's sword lays on a table. My father and brother are both dead because of this war. The Wall is no place for Reeds."
The war hasn't begun, Thorne thought to himself. The young Reed was right about one thing – her kind belonged in the swamps of the Greywater Watch where the mud was thickened with blood from the men and women of The Neck. They were defenders of the passage North.
"I must return to the South and hold peace between the armies. Perhaps we can stop them from destroyin' one another before the Winter. A field of corpses would be a dangerous thing at a time like this." Meera stepped towards the sword, unhindered by the Lord Commander. She tugged on edge of the heshen, causing it to spill over the side of the table. "How?"
"Wolves..." Thorne replied, as the snows fell harder outside.
"It's always wolves that take Reeds." She replied. Meera's gazed drifted toward the fireplace and Bran sitting on the chair, covered in rugs. His ungrateful eyes were as white as the snow falling outside. "Take care, Commander, this isn't the same boy my brother and I rescued from the Wolfswood. It was so long ago. My brother believed in Bran's visions and now he's broken into pieces. What was the point? All we found out there was death. I saw the Night King with my own eyes. He is filled with anger..." Meera added, tracing her fingertips along the flat edge of the sword. "He will come for this castle and all the others along The Wall until all that's left of our world is ash."
"If Lord Stark is havin' visions from them trees, surely we might use sum-o-it to ter fight? Old Maester Aemon, rest his soul, said the Weirwood could see our future."
"The trees guard their knowledge greedily. Bran barely spoke except to say that this place is the Night King's home. He was the one who built The Wall and all its castles. It was his hand that devised the locks that hold back the dead. I swear, though he has the hide of a monster now, that creature was a man first. A Lord and I know who he is…" Meera's gaze settle on Bran. He had the dark hair of all the lords before him. Stark after Stark after Stark… "Commander I warn you, if I am right then the Night King knows every mark and chip of this fortress. The knowledge Bran has learned won't help us win this war. If anything, we'll lose because of the words he's left dancing in the flame. He has installed spies in the Weirwood and cracks in the ice."
Then Meera levelled the whole truth at Thorne. His face paled. Even his raven fell silent.
"We've added a few secrets in the past few thousand years," Thorne's voice scratched defiantly, though he looked shaken. "The Great Builder Stark is a man, not a god. If he breathes then I 'ave a man who'll put a sword through his lungs. An' if I don't I'll do it me fuckin' self. Where are you going?"
Meera paused at the door. She couldn't bring herself to look at Bran any longer. Resentment coated her heart like a shell. "Home," she replied. "My people cannot be without an heir. I'm all that's left."
Thorne collected the heshen from the floor and wrapped the sword reverently. "Take this," he insisted, handing her the sword. "And a horse with a ride's worth of rations. Tell whomever you meet that The Wall is waiting and in need of hands."
Meera accepted the sword and the horse. "Save your rations. You need them more than me."
"Won't you take the Stark boy with yer – drop him off in Winterfell where he belongs?"
Meera shook her head. "No. No I believe Bran and I have gone as far as we can together. He must make his own way from here."
"Fair enough..."
After she left, the Lord Commander rode the lift up to the top of The Wall. He took a flaming torch from its hold and climbed the last few ice-locked steps to the enormous Ironwood pyre.
Thorne was many things. A fool was not one of them. He'd not play politics like the Southern lords. The war had come and he'd stand on the precipice to face the tide of swords.
WINTERFELL – THE NORTH
The raven rushed Winterfell's ailing walls, scraping its wing against the sheer surface before coming to perch at the maester's keep. Instead of an old man shrouded by Citadel robes, Lady Lyanna Mormont haunted the shadows. She grew older by the day, aged by the freezing winds and the souls of her departed kinsmen set to flame on the Winterfell fires. Their ash caught in her hair which had grown well past her shoulders and taken on a curl. Normally she kept it bound together in a tight plait but this morning she'd left it free to kick up in the wind.
Half an inch of candle burned its way toward the table, sinking slowly into a puddle of its own wax. A raven crashed through the open window. Lyanna pounced on it like a cat, catching it in her gloved hands. She turned the exhausted creature onto its back, placating it with soft coos while she retrieved the note. It was placed on the slate where it pecked at a few stray seeds.
Lyanna snapped off the seal from Castle Black.
'To the gracious Lady of Bear Island, how can one write the necessary words?'
After reading the message, she sank into the uncomfortable chair. The candle wavered, as if even the thought of his name could snuff a flame from its wick.
Podrick and Gendry ran into each other at the base of the raven tower. After a raised eyebrow they decided to head up the narrow spiral of steps together. The building formed one of the few parts of Winterfell to survive Silverwing's daring exit many months ago but it bore plenty of scars. The wind howled every crack while there was even a pale dragon scale or two, stuck in the ruin, glittering like jewels in the failing light. Podrick touched the edge of one as he passed and found his gloves shredded.
"Should we be worried?" Gendry asked, as it became clear they'd been summoned together.
"Hard to say with Lords and Ladies," Podrick replied honestly. "Never know, do you, what they're thinkin' - I mean… One minute you're in the Lord Tywin's office with your throat at the edge of a knife and the next it's an afternoon at Baelish's pleasure houses. They're a little mad, if you ask me. Easier to predict the Fates."
Gendry cocked his eyebrow at the Baelish remark, giving the unassuming Podrick a once over. "I thought those stories were a Fleabottom rumour?"
Podrick smirked.
"Oh – right."
"And the rumour about you went on with the Red Witch?"
Gendry flinched. Word has circled Winterfell quickly about his parentage. Without the danger of the Red Witch, Petyr Baelish or Lannister revenge it became an open secret.
"See, gossip is the wealth of knowledge, just like Tyrion used to say."
"At least you knew who to fear in King's Landing," Gendry pointed out. "I'm still not clear on who's in charge up here."
"The Starks rule the North."
"Which Stark? I saw Lady Sansa declared Queen but at the same time all them men out there in the square sing war songs to their Lord Snow."
"Maybe they're both in charge."
"Fine but what are we all gonna do when they decide to disagree on somethin'…? Whose orders do we follow?"
"I do as my Lady Brienne asks. As the son of a king, you're free to choose your battles."
"Yeah, free to choose the patch of snow I want to die on."
"That's the most freedom anyone can hope for." Podrick knocked on the old door at the top of the stairs, opened it and found Lyanna ensconced in the tower. "M'lady Mormont..." He dipped his head respectfully.
Gendry did the same, closing the door as requested. The ravenry at the top of the castle was repressively cold. Even the birds nestled safely in their cages crowed bitterly. Lady Lyanna had her chair turned to face the open window. The pale light, forged in the snow drifts surrounding Winterfell, made her eyes all the more restless.
"Is there some kind of assistance we can be 'ter you?" Podrick stepped forward, after a dragging silence.
Lyanna kept her gaze fixed to the approaching snow. "You are Southerners." Her statement hung, not requiring any form of answer. "It is the advice of such hearts that I require."
"Advice, my Lady?" Gendry shifted on his feet. "Between us, we haven't an ounce of your wisdom." To which Podrick raised no complaint.
"Natural reaction is a form of wisdom," Lyanna assured them, "and something which cannot be replicated by imagination alone. Kings and Queens have tried to guess the mood of their people instead of pressing their ear to the ground."
It was statements like that which left Podrick and Gendry quite certain that they had nothing to contribute. Still, they waited.
"I am going to ask you both a question – one which I wish you to answer at the same time – when I nod. Please, humour me in this. I'd not request your help if it were not vital."
"Yes."
"Yes, M'lady."
Lyanna shifted her gaze to the pair of men. Boys, really. The men all had pyres of their own. The Seven Kingdoms had been at war for a good five years, culling off the best swords. These two, well, what were they? A would-be king and squire. A bastard and a free-born slave. "Consider every page of history. All the faces of our story. The gods and the men that may or may not have lived within the tales of the maesters' scrolls. Now, the question. If you could choose any name – any name at all from this tapestry, who would you pick to defend The Wall in the coming war?"
She let them think this through. Then, with a creeping trepidation, she nodded at them to give their answer.
"Bran-"
"-that Builder Stark."
Lyanna swore, gruff and curt like sandpaper on wood. She pushed a pile of letters off the edge of the desk in frustration. They scattered to the wind, curling over each other, scraping along the slate floor like cinders in the flame. The motion snuffed the candle. A trail of smoke swirled from the wick.
"Apologies, M'lady, we did not mean to offend..."
"You have not offended me, Podrick," Lyanna replied, her voice dropping like a stone in a pond. "Merely confirmed what I feared. I'd ask you both to take a seat but the Starks are short on chairs. They are frugality taken to the edge of reason. Even Bear Island has seats enough for a full council and thick fires warming the hall. I wish I was back in that old pine room." Lyanna's sigh was far too heavy for her short years. "There is a truth I fear cannot lay in wait for long. When you were taught that knowledge is dangerous, this is what was meant."
"Perhaps you shouldn't tell us," Podrick replied, nervously. "We're not good with danger – well, I'm not good with it – Gendry might fair a little better. Okay. I'll – I'll be quiet now." He trailed off as both Gendry and Lyanna gave him identical stares. There were times when he wondered how the hell he'd ended up at the pointy end of the realm, shivering to death in a realm of magic and violence. He wasn't anything like Lady Mormont, who looked as though she'd been born in the heart of a Weirwood. Podrick grew up in the sun, chucking pale pink stones into Blackwater Bay. "What?"
"How are you still alive?" Gendry muttered, under his breath.
Lyanna imparted a rare, half smile disarming him to the point that Podrick diverted his gaze to the barren floor. "This won't help… The army of the dead are almost at Eastwatch." Lyanna continued, holding up the scrap of paper from Castle Black. "They've been sighted by Howland Reed's daughter and Lord Brandon Stark, of Winterfell. They were attacked directly near Castle Black and forced to flee."
"Lady Sansa's brother is alive?" Gendry could not believe that a child had survived beyond The Wall for so many months. There had been nothing heard of him since the latest Greyjoy rebellion.
"Alive and currently in the care of Commander Thorne at Castle Black. When he is well enough, he'll make the journey to Winterfell. The more Starks in these walls the better. Her Uncle Benjen Stark was spotted too – although he chose to remain watching the army from beyond The Wall."
"Bran'll be wanting to take that commemorative plaque out o' the crypts..."
"Isn't he a legitimate, full-born heir of Eddard?" Gendry observed carefully, ignoring Podrick. "Are you worried that his presence will diminish the reign of Lady Sansa? She has become a great ally of yours."
"No, Gendry. Lord Brandon is a cripple – by Northern law that gives Sansa precedence over him in terms of succession. Even if Southern laws were applied, Sansa has led armies into battle. The men follow her on her own merits and will do so again when the snows deepen. This is doubly true considering her marriage to the Eeyrie. I am not sure it is fair of us to assume the worst of Lord Brandon Stark. The accounts I have heard suggest he is a quiet, rational creature devoted to his family. It is very unlikely that he has returned to cause trouble."
"He all but handed Winterfell to the Greyjoys..."
"A child lost Winterfell." It was a story that brushed close to Lyanna's heart. She'd taken it as a stern lesson. Undefended Houses were ripe for plunder. Lyanna encouraged the brutish nature of her own people – posturing their savagery to keep the Ironborn from pilfering Bear Island shores.
"Then what worries you about the news from The Wall, M'lady?" Podrick inched forwards. "Surely, on balance, it is good?"
"I have been down into the catacombs beneath Winterfell," Lyanna diverted, for a moment. "As have both of you. There are rooms upon rooms full of stone caskets and statues with iron swords across their knees, watching over Stark bones. When my mother saw to my education, the little of it she managed, she commenced with the history of the Stark Kings. When I asked her why she did not start with Bear Island she replied that life in the North had begun with the Stark reign and would end with them if there was not a Bear keeping watch of the Wolves." Lyanna paused, thinking of her mother. It was not right that she was dead. "I never knew what that meant until this letter arrived. You see, there are faces missing from the statues in the crypts. Names that have been scratched off the rock and gaps in the ancient line of kings. Mormonts aren't keeping watch over squabbling Stark Lords who pick fights with Southern kings. There are deeper truths in the snow."
"Like the – white dragon?" Asked Podrick. "Silverwing?"
Lyanna shook her head. "A sleeping dragon is not the closely guarded secret whispered between the Northern Houses. That was merely an accident of fate. Those exist. Gendry, you once accused me of speaking entirely in parables, well here is another. Do not read too much into the iceberg that crashes on the shore – for that is simply a block of ocean waiting for the sun to thaw. The ice may take on many ghoulish shapes from which the witches will read a foolish King's fate but tomorrow that berg will be another wave, indistinguishable from the rest."
"It was not my intention to cause any-"
All Lyanna needed to do was lift her hand and Gendry's lips stopped moving. She was not interested in reprimanding Robert Baratheon's son for speaking his mind. "What is not accidental, is the keeping of the crypt. The Starks are meticulous with its care. In the Godswood there is a heated pool of water and beside it, a headstone. I wonder how many have stopped to read the inscription?"
"M'lady Brienne did," Podrick replied. "She told me it was Brandon the Breaker – the old King of Winter."
Lyanna was impressed. "The King who fought against the army of the dead, united the Freefolk and all the realm. The foundation of the Starks… A better choice of name, perhaps, than the one you uttered earlier."
Gendry thought that Lyanna should be queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Despite her youth, she was the sanest person he'd ever met. A calm, careful thinker – like the Spider or Baelish but without their malice. "There's a partially flooded crypt for him, kept separate from the rest of the catacombs. A mark of respect?"
"You should know the answer to this puzzle, having been its victim. Blood magic, Gendry." Lyanna clarified. "It has the stink of it. There's a place on Bear Island that very few go – a lake buried in the fold of a mountain. For us, this is a sacred place where long forbidden sacrifices are made to the Old Gods. Even today, many common folk make the trek through the forest to place wreaths of bone in the densely packed wood where the steam keeps even the most voracious frost at bay. This is the place where Joramun-"
"The Wilding King?"
"Yes – struck Brandon, King of Winter down with an axe. The Freefolk King was quite mad by this time. There were rumours that he'd lost his mind, walking in the Frost Fangs and drinking Weirwood sap. He cut the Stark into pieces and took the various severed limbs into the forest where he nailed them to the pines in spirals of flesh. Then, he hiked up to the crest of the tallest cliffs. Where they faced the sea he fell to his knees and planted a Weirwood sapling in a pool of the Stark King's blood. The tree is still there, wrapped around the rocks with a face howling into the spray. Most consider this a story to keep children from wandering into the forest. Like all our nightmares, I suspect there is truth behind its lies."
"But Joramun fought side by side with the King of Winter," Gendry replied. "Why would he murder him?"
"War plays tricks on the mind. Joramun had it in his head that the Night King was coming back and the only way to stop him was with Stark blood. He heard whispers in his mind." Lyanna pressed her pale finger to her own temple.
"Forgive me, M'lady, what does this have to do with the future of the realm and our advice?"
"Lord Commander Thorne has learned the identity of the Night King."
Shock levelled both men. It was an ancient puzzle – a question nobody had tried to answer in a thousand years. "...his real name?"
"Yes, Gendry. Beyond doubt. The blade that comes for us all is Brandon the Builder – the supposed saviour of the realm. The younger brother of the old king. A prince of Stark blood."
The pair of them looked to each other. If those words had come from anyone other than Lyanna they might have questioned them but the Bear was a creature of facts. She had no time for anything else. If she was convinced then it must be true and what a terrifying truth it was.
"Bloody hell..." Gendry breathed.
Podrick, who'd gone an odd shade of grey, swallowed hard. "If – if he built The Wall," he asked bravely, "won't that mean he'll know how to get through it?"
"That is Lord Commander Thorne's concern. All accounts are that the main army is headed to Eastwatch where The Wall is crumbling. The waves have had many years to do their work, turning much of it to rubble. Perhaps that is even what he has waited for – weakness and decay. The Targaryen's barbarian army are waiting for him. Let us hope that is enough."
Gendry's eyes were dark with thought. "You're worried that strife will break out between the Northern Houses if they discover that a Stark ancestor is the root of all their fears… That is why his name was scratched off the walls in the tombs. The Starks have been distancing themselves from the truth since it happened. Bran the Builder became a bastard of their House. They could not tear down the things he had built so what – they made him vanish?"
"Infighting is not what worries me. I'm more concerned about the morale of the realm if they learn that the Night King built the prison they pray holds him back. It is one thing to face an ancestor but something else entirely to go toe to toe with a god. Brandon built the greatest monuments in our realm. He's had no equal in all the thousands of years since. If I share this information, what happens to the sanity of the army? Can anyone raise a battle cry with this under the surface?"
Podrick and Gendry were beginning to see her point.
"In my experience," Podrick began, offering her his view, "soldiers will fight when they are called to by a Lord they respect, regardless of the odds. I've seen it several times. They'll face defeat if they must."
"Oh Podrick – that's what I'm afraid of, can't you see? 'Defeat' is not an option open to us. I don't want an army of brave men to line up for death – I need them to fight and win." She shook her head, fraught with concern. "It matters too, when we reveal this information. If we attempt to keep it from the people and they learn of it mid-battle and that may be fatal. Telling the realm right now risks collapse before the war is begun. Any number of posturing warlords could use it to their advantage. Someone must choose which path to take. Right now, that choice rests with the keeper of this letter..." As fate would have it, in the paw of a Bear.
"Forgive me, My Lady, I have one thing to say." Gendry picked up the pile of papers on the floor and placed them on the desk for her. It was a strange action. "You said earlier that I understood blood magic because it was inflicted upon me. Well, by the same logic I understand deceit, for I had a secret kept from me my whole life. I grew up not knowing who I was – it was only when someone risked their life to share the truth of my parentage that I was able to grow into my true self. Of course, I may be wrong and you have no cause to listen to me but I believe the same is true of an army. If we do not know the exact nature of the enemy then we'll never find the strength to push past resistance into victory. It's only when we know the stakes – as they truly stand – the full of horror – that we reach the blade. At least, that is how I feel. I'll face this old Stark king whilst standing beside Lady Sansa. If he tears down The Wall then we'll be there with black swords and a new wall built of fire. If it takes an Eastern Queen and her dragons to do it, then so be it. Fuck the gods. I stand with my bones, my flesh and my bastard blood."
Lyanna pushed her chair back across the stone with a painful screech. She stalked over to Gendry, sizing up the Baratheon bastard. He had the wild, boar-ish hair of his father – rough and unkempt like the animal that had slain him. Despite the three foot gap between them, she carefully embraced him as a lady might her knight, then stepped back. "It is I that seeks forgiveness. I misjudged the common will. There is one further favour that I must ask of you, though I have no right. Podrick..." She turned her attention to the other boy, "I'm going to need a witch."
"What the fuck are we doing here?" Bronn asked, kicking snow off his boots.
"I knew you were drunk," Lady Brienne hissed. She kept a few paces in front of the wayward sellsword, creeping through the forest. It was nigh on dusk and the smoke from Winterfell's fires fell thick and rancid in the air around them. There was a moon already risen but it hung on its side, gold and weak, soon to be covered by the fog that lifted off the Frost fangs and came to settle on the land.
"Yeah, well – I'm sobering up now, ain't I?" He assured her.
Brienne wasn't particularly keen on her present company. Given a choice, she'd prefer the Hound but he refused to leave Lady Stark's shadow. She didn't blame him for that. Royce was a brutish creature. "What are you planning on doing with that?" Brienne asked, when Bronn randomly unsheathed his sword and brandished it at the pines.
"Thought I heard something."
"Put it away. That sword isn't going to be much good to you around these parts. I told you before, go to the smith and have him make you a new sort."
"That Eastern foolery? No. This 'ere is a perfectly good sword. Served me well in plenty o' wars. Only a dumb cunt heads into war with an untested blade. He can sharpen it, if he likes but I ain' taking one of those glass things – or one of those Valyrian needles."
Brienne shook her head in disbelief. "Your funeral pyre..."
Bronn kept his sword out but noted the ice forming along its edges. All his armour had been covered in fur and leather to stop it sucking in the cold and freezing him to death. He wasn't sure it was helping. The paths through the Wolfswood had long since vanished. Now they were visible only by the gaps between the large pines. "I don' care what that tiny Bear cunt said, there isn't a single shit that could survive a night out 'ere. You expect us to find an old woman in the wood? We'll find a corpse in the wood, that's what we'll find."
"Sh..." Brienne growled at her companion. "We won't find much of anything if you keep on like this."
The night came but they resisted the urge to light torches. The smoke, Lyanna had warned, led the wolves straight to you. Better to fumble about by the glow coming off the fog. Madness thought Brienne. The only company she had now was Bronn's shadow beside her. They walked so closely that they often brushed their furs together by accident. He was a big man but she was larger. It was a difference repeated in their moon shadows as they fell on the snow.
Finally, when they thought it impossible to pass any further into the wood, they came upon an enormous stump with a hollowed mouth and thatch of pine around the entrance. The hovel of a woodswitch.
Bronn lifted his sword and poked one of the hanging thatch figurines, tied to the lowest limb of the pine. There were dozens of the crudely formed toys slung into nooses and left to freeze. Some of them had glass beads, other bits of bone. One was covered in a cloak of black raven feathers.
"Don't tell me that the famous sellsword is afraid of an old woman?"
Bronn reached up and tore the closest figure from the branch, crushed it in his glove and tossed it into the snow. "Let's get this over with."
CASTLE BLACK – THE NORTH
Bran's mind remained locked in the last vision he'd received through the Weirwood sapling. Normally the visions broke after his hand left the surface of the pale wood but on this occasion Bran felt freezing metal slice through his skin. He lost control and tumbled around the ambling mind of the tree. This one was young with unfashioned thoughts left to drift. The sapling had shallow roots and no face with which to view the world. The Three Eyed Raven used to say that trees like this lay dreaming, waiting for the Children to come and carve their faces.
Their thoughts were not ready to be read. Perhaps that was why Bran sank into the depths until he took possession of a simple mind. He'd found it wandering in the darkness beneath The Three Eyed Raven's cave. A Wildling covered in scraps of fur, searching for something in the muck. Bran took that mind and forced the man to head deeper to places within the cave he'd never been too fearful to reach. At the bottom, a black river ran under the ice. The man lifted his burning stick, illuminating the cavern. A curtain of Weirwood roots draped into the water like a maiden's hair. It flowed through the innards of the world, heading towards the sunless sea – to a great lake that lived under the ice sheet brimming with sightless monsters and things better forgot. Deformed fish glowed with their own light, ducking in the current like those in the poisoned waters of Asshai. Bones instead of pebbles formed the riverbed with one immense giant skull breached the water at the edge of the man's flame.
The Wildling stepped into the water and glanced down. Bran jolted at the reflection. He knew this face.
Joramun.
But how old the man appeared with his long beard knotted with pieces of bark. Poorly healed scars festered down his face while most of his left ear was missing, burned off by the cold. This was a man who'd fought a war right to its bitter edge. Joramun opened his mouth to his reflection and – upon seeing his own eyes rolled back to white – screamed.
Bran was thrown from this vision and tossed into another. He awoke in a different mind, this time to strange hissing and the snapping of bone. He was still inside the cave. Bran looked down to see his own arm break in half beneath the strangling Weirwood roots. He was imprisoned in a greenseer's corpse. Leaf stood nearby, watching from the shadows. Time brushed by as if he was thumbing over the pages of a book until finally Bloodraven entered the cave and held a sword to Leaf's olive skin. Blood ran over Bran's eyes while old leaves fell across his body like feathers. The name, 'Shiera...' crept through the fog. Bran cried out as the crushing roots grew from his stomach, up the back of his throat and out his mouth. Bloodraven turned his single eye in Bran's direction.
The Isle of Faces. Its mist rose to Bran's waist. Pale trees thrust from the mud and shallow water. The island was soft underfoot, shifting as he walked forward. A woman waited ahead. Long, silver hair, crimped with tiny rings of gold, fell past her waist. She had fine features and a set of mismatched eyes. Her hand rested on the pommel of an enormous sword. It had a strange, milky blade that seemed to shift as readily as the mist and a Bloodstone set in the handle. The edges of the blade dripped red flame. Her lips moved, whispering a curse onto the filthy air.
Behind, Bran heard a growl. Then, padding through the sodden ground, an enormous white lion with eyes of ice. The creature sat itself down beside the woman and flicked its tail.
Bran transformed into a raven with three eyes and a set of shrivelled wings. He hopped down to the ground and ruffled his feathers in front of the lion, snapping his beak. Furious, the lion opened his jaws in a roar that blew Bran out of the vision.
Last, he fell onto a field. The world was white, caught in the grip of a long Winter. Ser Jorah Mormont and the Targaryen Queen were trying to run through thick, soft snow. They stumbled with every second step but the knight dragged the woman out and pushed her on. Ash rained from the sky while the ruins of a blackened forest poked out of the fresh snow drift ahead. They were being pursued by a pack of wolves. The howls getting closer. Somewhere, in the distance, Bran could hear a dragon wailing.
WINTERFELL – THE NORTH
The cold edged in on the lakes inside the Godswood. Where once the grey waters boiled and smoked, there was now a creep of frost around the edges. Animals of all sort clustered nearby, surviving off the steam. Lyanna doubted that the heat beneath Winterfell would die entirely. Though the slumbering dragon had exasperated the heat it was unlikely to be the source. There had been tales about the Winterfell springs long before the battle at Tumbleton. Indeed, the springs were the chief reason the castle was constructed. It was how the Starks survived the longest Winters while the rest of the North froze to death in their beds.
If Lyanna Mormont was right, it was old magic that left the ground smouldering and attracted Silverwing. Like The Neck's swamps or the Narrow Sea inundating the land bridge. A single moment of terror could leave a scorch mark on the world.
"Here he lays..." Lyanna said, resting her hand on the tombstone. She brushed away the muck from his name. For a king that saved the whole realm, he deserved more than a rock in the forest. Perhaps, should any of them live, Lyanna would do something about that.
"Bloody heck..." said Gendry, under his breath. The retreating waters left more of its entrance exposed – as if it had chosen to emerge from obscurity.
Carefully, they descended into the partially flooded tomb. Gloved hands reached for the weeping walls. Their torches struggled, gasping through the black oil that coated their pine bodies. The rubble left from Silverwing's dramatic exit made it easier to find a footing in the otherwise slippery world. Most of the Stark statues had fallen, smashing to pieces or decapitated where they lay, submerged on the floor. Lyanna, Podrick and Gendry pressed through the mess until they entered the barren, main chamber where a single stone sarcophagus waited. As predicted, it bore the name of Brandon the Breaker but lacked the usual decorative motifs. Where were the embossed wolves, the house shield – the names of his sons? All that had been scratched into the stone was a border of illegible text that most mistook for meaningless decoration.
"Asshai'i..." Gendry was the first to whisper, stepping up to the sarcophagus.
"Yes, I thought you might recognise it. Baelish plucked you from Lys where you were trained in the ancient art of Valyrian Steel making. Odds were on you coming across the old words..."
Gendry stopped short of actually touching the stone. "You were not sure?"
Lyanna shook her head. "How could I be? Bear Island keeps no such texts."
Podrick received Gendry's torch as the dark-haired man circled the stone container. "Is this the magic you spoke of?" Lyanna nodded silently in reply to his question. Her fingernails dug into the grooves made by the text. There was blood dried in them. "So you believe that there's magic in Winterfell and it comes from this burial?"
"All I can do is work with what I know," Lyanna explained. "Bran the Breaker was buried on Bear Island where he was killed. His bones are at the bottom of the lake."
"Then who's this?" Podrick asked.
"A prisoner of war..." Lyanna whispered. "Close your eyes. Sometimes I think I can hear it move..."
Footsteps splashed through water in the cavern behind, startling them. All three turned to see a very pissed off Bronn, dusted in frost followed by Lady Brienne who was carrying a tiny old woman across her arms. Her white hair was so long that its ratty ends dragged in the water. As she turned her face toward the flame they saw that she had a pair of dark red eyes.
"What are you cunts up to eh? Sniffing about in the dark… Oh, apologies M'Lady Mormont. Didn' see yer there behind o' Podrick."
Podrick flinched slightly. There were times when he felt like he was responsible for Bronn's manners.
Brienne set the woodswitch down carefully beside the coffin. She barely stood three foot high while her sagging skin was stained with ornate tattoos. Originally spirals, their details hung in misshapen lines beneath her knotted hair.
"You are neither a ghost nor a witch..." Lyanna stepped in front of the woodswitch before kneeling down, careful not to get too close. There was fire in those eyes and something else quite inhuman. "Are you as they say, a child of the forest?"
Those red eyes flicked up to the Bear. "Not quite. What do you want?"
"Your help..."
A laugh scratched through the air. "My child. What makes you think anyone can help you? The Wall is broken. The magic was old and fragile. Now it is gone… The only creatures with power are those that walk with death. I have seen it in the smoke between the trees."
WEST OF THE SHADOW TOWER – THE NORTH
After passing The Shadow Tower, the peaks of The Frost Fangs turned The Wall into a chaotic surge of ice and rock. Although the ice structure continued to amble up and over even the most violent mountains, sometimes it was only two feet high.
"Even the great builder himself struggled with the mountains..." said Melisandre, taking a moment to rest upon the low, broken wall. They'd climbed so high into the Frost Fangs that the air felt like nothing in their lungs. Every few steps they had to stop and catch their breath or find themselves on the ground, gasping for it. On their left and above the grey flanks continued to climb. They were higher now than even the glaciers could reach.
Dorin collapsed beside her, his beard thick with ice. He cast his gaze back down to the East. The entire flank of Westeros stretched out on the flats. From here, Dorin could see it all. The Wall scrambling like river all the way to the coast. The Lands of Always Winter, glittering and serene and the scraps of the North with castles scattered in the blossoming ice fields. The forests were dying, retreating South while an odd orange haze rose off the furthest edge of the horizon. While they froze, Essos was burning.
"It is not as big as you think, from up 'ere..."
"The world?" Melisandre asked, casting her eye over the same view. There was smoke puffing in a dark column from Eastwatch by the Sea. "This is not the world, only a tiny scrap of it. You cannot stand on a mountain and see everything. Thank the gods or men might try and conquer it." That was all she could say before pausing to catch her breath. For a while now, they'd watched the Night King's army move East. Not even they had seen the second flank on the other side of the ranges.
Dorin swung his leg over the side of The Wall and let himself slowly fall onto the pile of snow beneath.
"Where are you going?"
He nodded at a dark slither in the mountain. "Tonight I'm sleeping in a fuckin' cave out o' this filthy cold. Come if yer want. Maybe yer can start us a fire."
"That is not how our magic works..."
"Then what's the good o' yer eh? Fire Priestess who can' start a damn campfire."
The small cavern kept the worst of the wind off them. Melisandre relented and lit a fire the traditional way in the wood Dorin and other Mormonts had left stashed in the cave over the centuries. It was a common stop with its walls adorned by graffiti.
"Tha' one's mine." Dorin pointed to a crude stick figure stabbing a giant bear. "One day I reckon this'll be all that's left of our stories. A few scraps of charcoal in a cave."
"You wouldn't be the first."
The were thin seams of dragonglass in the rock but not enough to mine. Instead, it glinted in the firelight. "The First Men tha' built this wall slept right 'ere in this cave," Dorin added, directing her attention down to the faintest markings. "Always amused me," he added, "how them bastards were just the same as us, sittin' at a fire, freezin' their bollocks off while they waited for the night ter pass. Simple men with a set o' orders. Sure, maybe there were giants an' mammoths helpin' ter drag blocks of ice on the flat but I fuckin' guarantee the only folk stupid enough to try an' build somethin' up here were blokes with axes. Mormonts, probably. We were all o'er these parts – right up int'er the North."
Melisandre managed a rare smile as she passed Dorin a cup of hot water. Their moment of calm was interrupted by a terrible screeching.
"Crows..." Said Dorin, setting the tea down. He stood up and walked toward the entrance of the cave. At night, the world was silver, lit by the moon with a thick blanket of fog covering most of the land beneath the mountain. An unusual flock of crows numbering in the hundreds descended on the low wall of ice.
"Dorin – is there something wrong?"
"Maybe..."
After gathering their things, Dorin and Melisandre returned to The Wall and climbed back onto its flank. They could hear the crows ahead, around the curve of the mountain. They were chatting and screeching at each other, feasting and fighting.
"Dorin..." The Red Priestess whispered, withdrawing her hand from The Wall. There was a dark stain in the ice – a pool of black blood that had frozen solid. He lingered beside her and together they turned their eyes on the side of the nearest mountain only to see an enormous sheet of blood in the snow.
Without a word, they pressed on, climbing fast until they made it over the crest of The Wall – the highest point of the whole construction where it brushed against the gods. Only the grey peak of the mountain protruded a few dozen feet higher. It too, had a fresh stain of blood.
The other side of the world cut away sharply where the Frost Fangs ended in the Sunset Sea. Only a small passage of ice allowed horses to traverse the Westernmost side of Westeros, warily treading the path as it crumbled into the waves. Here, the waters were wild with salt foam and weed churned into a sodden mess that caught in the glacier. Whipped up by the wind, the Storm God clawed at the land like a fever-striken animal creating gullies and dangerous bridges made of ice. Beyond, the bay was choked by a fresh wash of bergs. They flowed so thick that Dorin had trouble distinguishing the Lands of Always Winter from the water.
"Are you all right?" Asked the Red Priestess, when Dorin failed to move or even breathe.
Dorin shook his head. "The bay is freezing over..." He whispered. "It has happened before – never in living memory..." And yet it could be sworn that Dorin had seen the horrors for himself. "We have to hurry. Soon we won' need a boat ter reach Bear Island."
"Is that Westwatch?" She pointed to a black monster straddling the side of a cliff. Beneath, a great valley had been forged by the mouth of the Milkwater. It ran too fast and with too much violence to freeze. "There's an army moored in the water behind your island. That will be the rest of the Dragon Queen's fleet."
"Fuckin' Eastern ships. See them hulls? One good knock an' you'll watch 'em dance with the merefolk. No good, that soft Eastern wood. Yer need Ironwood to sail these waters – what there is tha'?"
Melisandre climbed a little higher on the bones of the mountain. "A fire – further North..."
"There's another river up there – one tha' doesn' have a name."
"Well, if it is a ship, there is not enough left of it to do much sailing. Perhaps they wrecked in the ice and set the hull alight for warmth."
"...Perhaps..." Though Dorin could not think of any sane sailor who'd scuttle a ship on those shores. "Witch..." His voice dropped, this time not unkindly. Dorin trudged through the shallow snow, canting sideways to balance. One of his hands gripped the grey mountain while his feet slid. Beneath, The Wall continued, rambling down the last mountain flank where the ancient builders had placed a small watch tower, again, barely big enough to house a single man. It was here that the trail of strange, black blood ended. Deep, unfrozen pools of it swamped The Wall. Like a shadow, it stuck to the ice, flowing from a five parallel slits. Several huge, pearl dragon scales floated on the surface. They drifted on the dragon's blood like petals on the water. One spun slowly, caught in the wind.
Dorin reached a flat area of snow and sank immediately to his knees. It was hard and unforgiving but he could not feel its resistance through his sorrow.
A great, white beast had died with her body draped across The Wall jutting her spine out at unnatural angles. Her head lay in Westeros, pushed to one side where it had hit the mountain and shattered half the snout while the dragon's tail hung over the edge on the opposing side. The body had crushed the watch house, breaking it into useless driftwood.
"Silverwing..." Dorin averted his gaze as a pair of tears froze in his eyelashes. It physically hurt to see a majestic creature ruined. How little did the gods care that they saw fit to leave her here?
Melisandre scrambled forward, vaulted the low wall then lifted her robes as she stepped into the blood. It was three inches deep and thick, like sap. She could feel it dragging on her cloak. This was the creature that destroyed Winterfell. It was easily larger than the Targaryen's black dragon and far – far older. Indeed, the dragon was immense – nearly as large as the dreaded Balereon. Had it not slumbered for so long in the dirt, it could have been greater.
A thousand crows perched along its silver spines, pecking at the flesh.
Dorin joined her. "We have to burn it," he grunted. "Burn it now, before something wakes it up."
"What could kill a dragon this big?" Melisandre raised her hand to the gashes on its stomach. "Another dragon? One of the Queen's creatures?"
"Unlikely," Dorin spread whale oil over part of the body. He did not have much but he used every drop. "Her dragons don't have the nerve to hunt something this size… They are children, yet to leave the nest." He struck his flint – again and again until a spark caught the oil. It was the only thing that burned, rising in a brief surge of heat before dying off without leaving a mark on Silverwing. "Won't bloody burn…"
The crows, initially frightened away by the flames, slowly fell out of the sky and took up their places on the corpse. Their black beaks smacked against the scales. Picking. Endlessly. Black eyes, unblinking.
Dorin felt his blood turn to ice. He walked to the head of the dragon until he faced off against its eye. It had rolled back into its skull leaving only the ball, white as snow. "You must do somethin'..." He hissed at the Red Witch. "Otherwise, what is the good o' yer?"
"Not even a creature of fire can conjure flame from a frozen world, old man," she protested. "Maybe dragons cannot be burned."
"Try..."
THE RUINS OF HARRENHAL – THE CROWN LANDS
Drogon turned his enormous black head to the sky and screeched. A burst of fire thrust from his lungs, rising into a ball of flame – drifting like a star until it died in smoke.
Daenerys stopped. She had been about to step into an old boat that had been left moored at the remains of a jetty, collapsing into the swamp of The God's Eye. The air bristled from the sound. Leaves dislodged and tumbled through the wind. Jorah, always a step beside her, was the first to turn and see the black dragon creep around the outside of Harrenhal's largest tower, tearing pieces of stone off with his claws. Drogon fussed, whipping his tail so sharply that he knocked a pine tree onto a slant with its roots dragging out of the soft mud. He used to do the exact same thing from Daenerys' shoulder when he spotted something in the desert.
Jorah reached for Daenerys' arm, clasping it firmly as he'd done when faced with an army of swords.
"What is it?" She whispered, when he failed to speak.
"My Queen..." Jorah kept a firm hold, his thumb pressing against the metal armband that sat beneath the fur sleeve. "Did you hear that?"
"I heard only Drogon..."
Jorah refused to move, held in place while the other two dragons woke from sleep and started to sing. "The ground moved."
They abandoned the swamp and returned to the tower, climbing to its peak where they were greeted by Drogon. Jorah was the first to emerge onto the rooftop. He was struck in the face by a gust of wind. There, in the distance, a column of smoke rose from Eastwatch as the Queen's fleet started to burn.
"There..." Daenerys drew his eye to the left where another column of smoke lifted off the top of the Frost Fangs.
