BEAR ISLAND – THE BAY OF ICE

Neither the roots of ice nor the veneer of age could hold the heavy stones of Westwatch together. Large pieces of the cliff had collapsed hours earlier, filling parts of the gorge and diverting the flow of the Milkwater into a raging, uneven torrent that frothed voraciously, tearing yet more slices of ice from the walls of its prison. It was carving down to the ancient layers, revealing the shades of blue that mimicked the inner petals of a Winter Rose with dark grey creases of ash marring their faces like old scars.

"Out! Out! Out!" The command was shouted in several languages as Crows and Yinnish fled the castle. The air filled with the sound of stone tearing. Mortar crumbled. The iron fence that surrounded the compound bent awkwardly as it laid down in surrender. Parts of The Wall growled as the black rock came away.

"S-s-s-s-shit..." One of the young Crows stammered, as he made it into the snow and saw, for the first time, exactly what was about to happen.

A gaping wound existed in place of the West-most tower, its body drowned at the bottom of the Milkwater as little more than a stain in the restless water. Since the explosion, the ground beneath the castle had been steadily dropping into the gorge until reaching the point where the bulk of its weight was left to overhang empty air. The Crow watched foundation stones drop silently from the bottom. Cracks ran vertically up a split which was widening every second. The load of the suspended side started to pull away in earnest. Lines of men stationed at the top of The Wall leaned over the edge, mouths agape as the whole sorry mess teetered. Others ran, leaping off small balconies hoping the soft snows might catch them.

The young Crow dropped his weapons and waved frantically at those who were yet to flee the castle. There were more, higher up, manning the tops of the remaining towers who were unaware of the damage and the creeping certainty of their fate. He whistled at them. Screamed. Anything to turn their heads. Others beside him did the same even the Yinnish who sounded like screeching birds.

There was too much residual chaos for those on the castle to notice the unnatural tilt of the floor beneath their feet. Perhaps they could not hear the people panicking below as their gaze was pulled to the South-West, watching with horror the war playing out in front of Bear Island and the catastrophic fires that had spread out in every direction in fronts fanned by a wind that had been picking up all morning. They were consumed watching flame and ice play together.

Only as the castle gave a shriek, snapped down the middle and took on a frightening list did they finally realise that gravity was dragging them toward death. What had begun as a gradual erosion cumulated in a rush of sound and violence. Like a slip of fabric cascading off a lady's fingertips, Westwatch collapsed into the gorge.

The Crow kept eye contact with one of the men on the roof. As the building fell, he grew smaller and smaller until all the Crow could see was the empty edge of the cliff and layer of white fog pushed up by the collapse. Those that were left behind fell to their knees in shock. In the ravine the water reared up, momentarily stopped by the volume of rock in its throat but after only a few minutes the force of the river vaulted the obstacle and churned over the top – washing bodies and survivors alike into the current. If any survived the frigid water they'd wash up on the ice sheet where the war waged in earnest.

In Westwatch's wake stood – nothing. Its death had created an open bower through which anything could cross into the Lands of Always Winter. Beyond, the fringe of the Haunted Forest bristled, oddly calm as if it were the safe ground and not the keeper of hell. The Crow fished his sword out of the snow and forced himself to stand in his shaking boots.

"Up!" He shrieked at the others. "For fuck's sake get up!"


Jorah turned at the last moment in the air, curling to his side as he hit the seam of black water dividing the ice. He was sucked between the waves, sinking half a dozen feet in an instant before the freezing water pushed back against him and brought him to a momentary pause. Eyes open, he peered toward the surface where fires raged either side of the slit in the ice. Their ominous glow reminded him of the flames burning behind the black glass wall in Asshai. Trapped and beyond reach. Without sound or heat they were nothing more than a mirage to a dream. To Jorah, these macabre things posed as the last threads of the living world.

They unravelled...

Sinking – or was he still falling? Dragged down by the weight of his armour, Jorah realised with a rush of panic that the gaping depths were crying for his soul. The gods beneath the waves were old and savage – unfamiliar to the faces he prayed to in the trees as a child. They took all sorts and made sand from their bones. He writhed violently. His lungs shuddered. The light above faded fast and soon, he knew, there'd be no way to tell up from down or light from death.

Jorah reached for the buckles on the front of his plate armour. He tugged at the leather holds that secured his boots and pushed frantically at the steel pieces. Like a snake, he tried to shed the weight from his corpse but the clasps refused to give, stuck fast with frost that couldn't melt in the frigid current. Further down. The light above became a soft glow while the pressure of depth crushed his skull. His skin burned from the cold like being stabbed by a thousand pine needles. He coughed a surge of bubbles into the water. They ballooned wildly above. His mouth opened to a wash of salt. His arms dragged through the water, desperately stroking against the weight that he was wearing but it was as though all his sin and regret fastened its claws around his throat.

In a moment of desperation, Jorah turned his head to the side only to see a column of light cutting through the darkness. It reached endlessly down and all around other pieces of war were tumbling toward the cradle of the sea. Bodies, slipping from the ice sheet above, already dead… Pieces of wood from the destroyed boats, blackened... Swords, spinning blade first with glinting hilts... Bones… Veils of shadow where the blood ran thick in the tide...

Jorah retreated from an undead corpse which sank past him, writhing and gnashing its limbs furiously. He could have sworn that the darkness reached up and folded the spurned thing into oblivion. Taking back one of its own.

An errant length of rope brushed across his face. Jorah tangled his arm around it immediately. Another plume of bubbles escaped his lips. His heart beat deafening. Faster. Louder. He pulled on the rope and it held.

And kept holding…

Hand over hand, Jorah dragged himself against the water with no idea of what he was climbing toward. Bubbles rose either side forming strings like pearls stolen from the lungs of the dying that littered the sand at the bottom. He kept his thoughts away from the sea creatures that were surely closing in on the scent. Jorah had watched the desecration of life in the waters of the Blackwater. Shadows and flares of silver scale. Even the cold had no power against Jorah's rage to survive.

The flames drew closer. Suddenly he could hear the noise of war, muffled but present in the water. His lungs convulsed. Water streamed into his throat. He coughed violently but that expelled the little air he had left and replaced it with even more water.

His hand broke through the surface and took hold of the ice shelf. The other found a broken mast. Jorah used them both to haul his enormous weight from the water. The solid ground beneath his chest forced the water out of his lungs. For several minutes all Jorah could do was lay halfway onto the ice, coughing and choking on the world that had nearly taken him. Any passing thing with half a will could have slain him in those moments. Nothing dared.

Finally, his breathing steadied. Jorah took the mast with both hands and used it to roll himself out of the water and onto the berg which was home to a large piece of flaming wreckage. He lay on his back, staring up at the steel ribs of a ship, stripped bare as the wood burned away. All he desired was the warmth funnelling off it – how it gave feeling to his frozen, shivering limbs. He held his hands in front of his face and watched them shake so much that he could not hope to hold a sword – blue and pale like death itself. Then, in the distance, he heard Viserion screech. Jorah tried to pick him out from the sky but the smoke was thick, hiding most of the world.

Pieces shed off the ship like leaves set free by Autumn. They riddled the air and lay on the ground beside him – burning as if the stars themselves were falling from their place. Beneath the general screech of swords the dead were howling. This was horrible crush of bone that the old stories whispered of. He had never feared war. Never hesitated to grasp a sword and step into the shit-soaked grass but this… It was the sound...

Viserion's constant crying broke Jorah free. He rolled uneasily onto his side. Water poured out from the folds in his armour. His white cape was stiff with ice. It melted as he backed closer to the flames' embrace until it whipped back around his form, dripping. Finally, Jorah returned to his feet. The ground bobbed up and down against the waterline. How harmless the water looked from the safety of the ice...

Jorah edged carefully around the ship, avoiding the drops of glowing wildfire that had not yet caught and the slick of oil that surrounded it like a blood stain. He'd been right all along. This devastation was a deliberate act, however extreme, to protect the island. Wildfire, by its very nature, was a force unto itself that often caused more horror than what it was intended to prevent. As Jorah stepped under a burning crossbeam a gust of wind took the smoke momentarily, revealing the ice field and all who warred upon it in a fragment of sunlight.

Jorah froze. He could have been standing on the Milkglass Sands on the day its bones were made.

He had no idea what time it was but somewhere above the shrouds of thick, brown smoke the sun was high and hot. The smouldering wrecks competed with an unnatural icy mist that blocked out the light and reduced their star to a white orb that occasionally blinked at the rampant death.

Jorah picked up an unburned plank of wood, scraped it through a patch of oil and held it to the flame until it caught. Brandishing it as a weapon, he staggered through the smoke looking for something to kill. The flames folded behind him. Jorah ducked, spun immediately and swung the plank through the air with a stream of light, smacking the flat edge into the chest of a lumbering corpse. Bits of it pulverised, bursting away from the impact while the creature, lighter for the loss of its flesh, left the ground and vanished into the burning ship where it screeched in agony. More were coming through the smoke. He could hear them. Swarming. They pursued any living creature when blood was on the wind.

The smoke collapsed onto the ice field, setting them into false darkness.

There were two more creatures nearby. Jorah closed his eyes and listened, attempting to pick them out from the slosh of sea and crumbling fire at his back.

The dead came at him in unison, leaping from the ground. These two were smaller, previously Freefolk children. They fought like ravenous dogs, clawing and snarling – scratching and swiping at his face. His armour deflected most of their blows. One, he knocked into the water where it sank immediately. The other, Jorah broke into smaller and smaller pieces, separating its limbs with repeated beatings. It refused to die, twitching independently but at least what remained could not follow. He felt sick looking at its tiny skull. There were braids in its hair and the remnants of a ribbon put there by a loving parent. We are fighting for the dead too, Jorah reminded himself, then touched the flame to its head, setting it to sleep.

"Viserion!" Jorah screamed, hoping to call the dragon down from the air. He had to get off the ice. These were killing grounds.

His berg touched a larger sheet of ice on the opposing side, hovering close enough that Jorah could step off onto what felt like stable ground. He continued through the curtain of smoke, so thick it reminded him of the great sea fogs that used to roll in over Bear Island at the start of Winter. The air was putrid, full of smouldering flesh and the sour stink of whale and seal oil. Every now and then he thought he saw things move through it. People running. Creatures pursuing. A confused seagull that did not realise that it was flying close to the ground. A house of shrikes.

Trapped in this world of spectres, he tried to focus on the dragon. He listened for the beat of its wings and the sounds of mournful song. Viserion was Daenerys' child. There was not a single pound of Jorah that would allow anything to happen to that creature. He had watched the khaleesi put herself back together with her three dragons at the centre of her world. It was because of them that she had survived this long in a world that wanted to murder her. They were her sword, shield and heart, the three pieces of her soul – Viserion a little more, 'heart' than the others. He was the softest of the three, always mewing for affection.

"Viserion!" He called out every few minutes, with no idea which direction he was walking – to or away from the battle. "Bloody gods..." Jorah startled, diverting his foot at the last minute. A Yinnish man was spread in several pieces on the ice, tangled with nerve threads and exposed sinew. In war, men were cut down, usually with a few heavy wounds but this man had been dragged apart, shredded to the bone and shattered so fast that his beating heart had slipped from its fleshy prison, coming to rest on the ice before it had a chance to stop beating. Jorah had seen horrific sights but even he averted his gaze.

More corpses littered the ground ahead. Jorah soon realised that he was walking backwards through time, towards the start line of the battle while the sound dampened. A Mormont axe lay alone. Ice and blood on its blade. A bear painted on the wooden handle. A dragonglass dagger stuck out of a pile of bones. He stooped to pull it free before hooking the axe onto the back of his belt.

Eventually the freezing air bettered the smoke, lowering it into a front of billowing clouds that washed at waist level. Jorah confirmed that he had been walking directly North, away from the main battle and towards the empty Lands of Always Winter where its shoreline was shagged with ice. He stopped, looking over his shoulder towards Bear Island. Its shadow rose out of the smoke like the peak of a mountain with rivers of fire pouring down its sides and spilling out of view. There was Viserion, circling, looking for a place to land.

The vision left him numb. Its desolation – its hopelessness… All Jorah could do was watch the world burn.


Scales scraped against pine bark. The creak of leather as wings folded. Heavy steps shuddered in the rock. A deep, rattling call vibrated, alien-like on the air. An overpowering scent of rotting fish wafted over the forest as a set of jaws flexed.

Dorin's eyes opened. Soot caught in his lashes, sticking them together at the edges. He blinked them free. Frowned. Lifted his arm slowly and watched in astonishment as it emerged from several feet of freshly laid ash which had been busy burying him like a demonic snowfall while he slept.

Driven by the fear that he'd suffocate to death, Dorin forced himself to sit up. He looked down in dismay at the wood protruding from his chest. No, that had not been a dream. Where his body did not ache it burned.

"I'll deal with that later..." He muttered, prying himself from the shallow grave.

Dorin froze. There was movement in the forest nearby. The explosion had cleared a patch of trees away from the edge of the cliff. They all laid down on their sides creating a bit of protection in the void beneath their huge girths. Pacing restlessly through the sunlight and smoke was the enormous body of a chalk-coloured dragon. It was huge, far larger than when Dorin had last seen the queen's black creature. When it moved, the pines swayed in sympathy, setting innumerable puffs of snow into the air. It was a thing with delicate features, quills of bone and unusual brown markings scattered almost like ancient script.

A smile crept onto Dorin's lips. "Aren't you a magnificent thing?" He purred, forgetting himself.

Viserion caught Dorin's smell on the air, turned and set his enormous, hungry eyes on the person wading through the ash.

They are monsters too, Dorin reminded himself firmly. "E-easy..." Dorin lifted his hands in surrender.

The dragon peeled back its top lip revealing a line of sharp, uneven fangs glistening with saliva. A litany of exotic sounds came directly from its diaphragm, shuddering in the massive resonating chamber of its chest cavity before hitting the air like muffled drums. Dorin wondered why the dragon did not rush him immediately. Perhaps, being raised by the queen, it was used to the company of soldiers and was cautious of its mother's ire. Dorin certainly hoped so. Already staked through the chest, the last thing that he wanted was to end up as a meal.

"That's it..." Dorin continued to charm the creature. He made no attempt to approach the dragon, preferring instead to take a few hesitant steps backwards. Its body was so vast that it would struggle to follow him into the tree line. "Where'd you come from, eh? Don' remember inviting no dragons to this ol' scrap."

The dragon snapped its jaws in a show of force, not unlike a wolf yapping. Eventually Viserion pushed himself against the bank of pines and tried to fold its wings up. Immediately Dorin realised that one of the wings refused to sit flush to its back. It was injured. That's why it had sought refuge in the shadow of the forest instead of parading around in the sky ravaging a terrible curtain of fire on the dead.

"Know how yer feel." Dorin lowered his hands slowly. "What about this… I take a look at yer wing, you fix me chest up? No… Yeah. Thankless fucking task. Get o'er here then – come on. Great big bloody lizard, you are." Dorin did his best to approach without causing the creature alarm. Dragons were not stupid. The old maesters were correct when they detailed a kind of unnatural intelligence uncommon in horses but certainly Dorin had met smarter dogs. "Oy!" Dorin yelped, when Viserion shifted, knocking him with a misplaced paw. The jolt dislodged another surge of blood from Dorin's chest reminding him that he was still wandering around with a tree through his hide. "Stop that. Raised by a runaway and a tyrant. I guess there was never really any hope for yer manners. There we go. Piece of ice straight through the wing. No wonder you were 'avin' a whinge."

Dorin snapped his hand away from the spear made of ice.

"What the shit!" He hissed, shaking his hand furiously to no avail. The surface of the ice spear had burned a hole straight through his thick leather glove and covered the rest in a layer of frost. "You bastard."

He leaned closer to the dragon's wing and saw the skin black and shrivelled around the wound wherever it touched the icy shaft. It was strange looking ice too, solid and blue – more like sapphire than water and unforgivingly hard. Dorin guessed it had come from one of those undead things… He didn't like all this fucking magic in the world. The natural order was a thing of beauty but now everything was wrong. All these cults and religions that wished powerful magic upon the realm and look at what their prayers had brought – murder and annihilation. Absolution but not of the kind that filled their dreams.

"You just stay still and don' kill me." Dorin advised the dragon. "Then, after we get this damn thing out – we'll go find your mother, aye?"


THE RUINS OF EASTWATCH CASTLE – THE WALL

Lorath crawled through the pitch. His world was one of darkness, rock, ice and the brush of fibrous Weirwood roots. He had no idea how long he'd been trapped beneath the collapsed castle, only that more than the foundations had fractured when the full weight of The Wall collapsed. He'd felt it. The ground open up, split apart and suck part of the castle hungrily down.

His first fear was that the Whitewalker or its creatures would be trapped with him. That he'd be hunted and murdered out of sight becoming one of their number. After the first few hours passed in silence, Lorath realised that he was alone in the underworld. Faced with the prospect of freezing to death in a crevice, he'd forced himself to move. Move to keep alive.

It was a hopeless task. Eventually, he was certain, he'd dislodge a piece of rock that would crush him in half or he'd fall asleep and never wake again. The idea of endless nothing terrified him. Kept his eyes open. His hands reaching forward into nowhere. Nails flaking away and blood pounding in his ears.

Sometimes he touched the rough surface of rock. Wreckage, he presumed. The castle's corpse was here with him. He imagined himself crawling through its carcass. At least it was warmer than the surrounding ice. Lorath pulled himself onto the slab and rested. The alcove was large enough for him to sit, crunching up his sore body. He'd sell his soul for a whisper of light. A thread, even, of fire to break the pitch. Instead Lorath was forced to see with his hands – running them over everything. Ice. All of it. Smooth and bulbous, flecked with sharp pieces of glass and a few veins of Weirwood. The Wall was bound together by the ghost trees. He had read every document he could find relating to its construction but the ancient texts were always vague about The Wall as though it were willed into being in some magical conjuring. The truth, Lorath grew to realise, was buried deeper than the whispers of priests. There was sweat in this ice. Bones of Northmen. A great burden of death paid for the safety of the realm and the realm had forgotten its bargain. Lorath could almost feel a coin flipping in the air – its faces flashing – preparing to land on their fate like a stone to the bottom of the lake.

Suddenly, the world around Lorath shook. An earthquake? Another part of The Wall collapsing? He clutched his limbs instinctively into his chest and slammed his eyes shut replacing one darkness with another then waited for the inevitable weight to crush down.

Instead, the ground beneath split apart. He slid sharply, knocked onto his side. Arms – flailed. His body rolled, crashing into unseen walls and overhangs. Lorath yelped as daggers of ice sliced through his skin then screamed as the ground beneath him disappeared. He fell several metres into oblivion then hit another slab of stone shoulder first. It was angled in the opposing direction and sent him rolling wildly out of control. On the way down, his head smacked against the side. Lorath went limp and continued his passage in perfect silence except for the scrape of leather and flesh against the ice.


Daenerys stood on the ice with her arms outstretched, palms facing the sky. It was noon. The sun wandered overhead lighting every misery of the previous night. Even Jorah's strange Northern friend was made worse by the sun. Benjen shared company with the corpses being hauled into pyres. She wondered if he thought about throwing himself into the flame. That desire had lived in her once. Daenerys knew what it was to burn away the pain and Benjen was a man of great pain. It was easily read in his dark eyes. A creature with nothing to live for but his sword.

"Where is the snow coming from?" Daenerys asked, when Benjen stopped beside her with an unasked question, the same as her knight. A Northern trait, she realised.

"Snow?" He replied, genuinely uncertain. The sky above was a perfect canvas of blue while the sea wind kept the air clear of fog. For the first time in weeks, he could see for a hundred miles. "There is no snow."

Daenerys blinked away the snowflakes from her eyelashes. It spiralled around her. White drops caught in the wind, melting through her fingertips... "Of course there's-" Before she could finish, the snow vanished and it was as Benjen said, a clear day. "Is there a problem?"

Benjen could think of a few more after what he'd seen but stuck with, "Aye. Your army refuse to burn the bodies of the dead."

"Did you explain to them t-"

"They have no wish to bury them. No. Your army wants to go about eating them." He watched the Queen flinch but she was not as alarmed as he'd imagined she'd be. "There is simply not enough food. Even with the Skagosi helping these bodies they're dragging across the ice..." He stepped aside so that she could watch. "I'm afraid, ter them, this is a feast. They're thin as rails, some of them. Long journey at sea an' before that, who knows."

"So be it."

"So be it?"

"You heard me perfectly well." Daenerys placed her hand momentarily on her chest, feeling something stick in her throat. Smoke…

"Somethin' else… About what I was doing ranging before-" He tapped the wound over his heart. "I cannot tell you if what I was lookin' for is real but I 'ave a feeling I made it this far ter tell you what I know."


BEAR ISLAND – THE BAY OF ICE

Slowly, Jorah passed the burning wooden plank into his left hand while simultaneously withdrawing Snowflake in his right. The Whitewalker watched with an air of irreverence. What must it think of a lone warrior after so many thousands had been felled that morning? Its gaze sharpened with interest when Jorah approached close enough for it to see the ice-bound sword. One of its swords...

To Jorah's surprise, the creature dismounted its dead horse and casually strode a few paces in his direction. It moved as if it were part of the smoke. Inhuman. Sinister. Whitewalkers were stalked by shrouds – be they ice, fog or smoke. Like dreams, they thrived in the twilight.

Jorah expected it to pull its own ice sword on him. Five metres away – close enough for Jorah to see the blue veins crossing beneath its crystallised skin and still its hands were empty. Jorah shifted his grip on Snowflake, preparing to strike at the Whitewalker. They could be killed, he knew that much. Two had died in his presence, one by his own hand. He hoped their weakness to be a misplaced trust in their infallibility.

There was a grin on its cursed lips. Thin bands, they pulled to the edge. Even its blue eyes smiled. It reached towards him, pale hand empty. A few wisps of snow chased each other between the opposing forces. Jorah sucked in a breath of frigid air. From nowhere, a high pitched whine filled the air. Shrill, it ran at a fever pitch. Jorah gasped as his eardrums vibrated sharply. He turned his head to the side, attempting to escape the sound coming from the Whitewalker. The pain was crippling but out of the corner of his eye, Jorah saw Snowflake's blade shudder.

Idiot… Jorah realised, too late to save himself.

Snowflake's gorgeous bastard blade dissolved and spilled into the air as a tiny granules of ice leaving only empty leather straps in Jorah's hand. The magic that bound it together had been undone by a thought. These creatures were practitioners of magic. Conjurers. Necromancers… Ice was their creature. Jorah might have lived his entire life in the embrace of Winter but it had no affinity for him. It was exactly as his father warned – a beast looking for something to kill and there he was, always out of reach. Not any more.

Jorah dropped the rags and reached immediately for the heavier, milkglass sword. Dawn slid free of its binding. It had been a while since Jorah had drawn it – almost forgetting how it cut through the air with an audible breath. The sunlight caught every chiselled face and turned the surface into liquid fire – an illusion, no more but it was stunning. A layer of mist formed along its edge making it appear to smoke.

The Whitewalker suddenly withdrew, stumbling unnaturally backwards.

"Not so keen on this..." Jorah taunted, swiping Dawn through the air. "Met before?"

Jorah enjoyed the turn in the wind. To see, for the first time, a slither of fear tarnish those demon eyes. The knight strode closer, advancing quickly on the creature but it was too fast and mounted its horse. It galloped South, into the flame and smoke with Jorah brandishing Dawn in a hail of curses.

He was left surrounded by an empty field of scorched corpses and twitching bones. Jorah swallowed his bile then shifted, startled by another crash in the distance as Westwatch castle died in the gorge.

For a while Jorah stood motionless on the ice, watching impassively as the fires burned. The winds were clearing the smoke, pushing the fires over the crest of Bear Island's jagged interior. Even these died away as the wildfire vanished and the oil dried. He shook his head, wondering what had become of all the thousands of people fighting. Jorah had never seen a battlefield cleared out so fast or a skirmish lost so quickly. These were arguably the toughest fighters in the realm and all that was left after half a day was an expanse of devastation. Viserion's calls had stopped and now all Jorah could hear was the distant howl of wolves.

Then something else emerged – the deep thrall of Bear Island's bells.


Forest fires traipsed up and down the mountainous terrain. They struggled to survive the further they strayed inland. In the deepest valleys, where the trees were dressed in sheets of ice and the myriad of rivers were still as death, they suffocated and reduced to coals.

It took Jorah many hours to traverse the bobbing field of burning bergs and walls of collapsing wreckage before he reached the solid, unyielding black rock that formed Bear Island's soul. He climbed the narrow paths along the face of the sea cliffs. The sun, now setting over the battlefield, cast their harrow face in a golden mask and picked the smallest, dying roots of Ghostgrass and twisted pine from their shadows.

Eventually he reached the forest track and paused at the first dozen or so trees laid backwards over each other. There were no bodies here – no footprints in the snow or trace of blood. It seemed to him that everyone who could had fled straight over the ice toward the mainland or perished trying in the water.

Under the canopy of the broken forest, Jorah heard the wolves cry out. They were closer, calling each other from their dens. Jorah kept Dawn in hand in case a stray pack thought to take him on. Aside from the wind in the pines or the constant fall of ice dripping off the forest, there was no one. The path transformed into a mess of ancient stone cut into the bedrock twisting several times before entering the largest village on the island.

Jorah had prepared himself for ruin but its houses were untouched. Like the ghost city of Yeen, all its pieces were left in place. The market wagons were piled high with salted fish. Weed hung through the street in curtains. Smooth, white smoke chuffed out of several houses. The odd dog sniffed around its owner's door. At the top of the village, the main hall and Mormont Keep where he was born cast its usual afternoon shadow and he was reminded of his father's wise old words, that the sun, stone and sea cared nothing for the plight of men. The only thing amiss was the constant tolling of the bells. They echoed from the unseen walls of the mountains looming beyond the forest made louder by the march of Winter.

He hesitated to enter the village. The shame, even when faced with an abandoned coffin, pressed firmly at his heart. The lush steam vents hissed all though the buildings, famously warming the tiny outpost, seemed to snarl at his presence. It was the Keep that enticed him on. The pillar of old rock with his mother's blood in the cracks. Step by step, he edged towards it until darkness fell over him and he reached for the door. Its maroon paint had peeled away and the wood rotted, replaced by encroaching moss.

Jorah sheathed his sword and placed his palm upon the surface. With a gentle push it gave way. The tolling was louder now that he stood within the throat of the Keep. The rhythmic sound stole every other note from the air. Even here, where he'd thought to find survivors huddled together, seeking refuge from the war, there was no one. A few lines of unused weapons, stockpiles of wheat and bedding for the guards. That was all that comprised the lower floor.

He started on the spiral steps. One hand on the outer wall, the other holding onto the frail wooden bannister that had snapped off in places in the grip of careless bears. Now and then, he passed one of the slit windows. Jorah kept his eyes away from the temptation of the view. Up instead… Endlessly circling. Some part of him was sure that he could hear his mother's voice coming from a face he'd long forgotten.

Jorah entered the last room before the roof. Its interior was pristine – familiar yet alien. Unlike the other Lords of Bear Island, he had refused to live in the Keep. He'd been aloof, even from his earliest years, preferring Dorin's cabin in the forest, the tavern floor or any sea cave good enough to keep out the cold. Suddenly Jorah realised that for all his life he'd been running from this room.

The revelation cooled his blood quicker than the frost.

There was a finely woven river mat laid in front of the unlit fireplace. A faded bear, stooped over a river with its paw in search of fish. Its dye had faded but care had been taken of the mat over the years. Slowly, he walked over and knelt down, ignoring the pain in his body. He pulled his gloves off, took hold of the edge of the rug and folded it aside.

Bare stone.

Not a blemish. Not a mark.

A crow hopped across the open window. Its claws scratched against the stone before it tilted its head to the side and cawed.


WINTERFELL – THE NORTH

"Snow? Snow! Aye – shit." Ser Davos swung his leg over the back of his horse and dismounted into the white drift languishing across the Kingsroad. He made it to Jon Snow's side as the fool toppled sideways giving himself a face full of ice. "What's up with yer now?" Davos grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled the young Stark back into his arms. "Snow?"

Jaqen steadied the horses, throwing a glance at the ominous ruin of a castle rising out of the open field of white. Winterfell. In all its hideous glory. A fortress built by stiff bastards from bits of old brimstone. It reminded Jaqen of the crumbling buildings at the edge of Valyria, poking out of the smouldering forest. He could see pyres lit at random, a godswood with steam pouring from its heart and pieces of an army teeming at its flanks like ants around a nest.

"Something wrong?" Jaqen asked.

"No – thought he'd take a piss with his cock in the ice aye – there's a problem!" Davos snapped.

Jon pawed at the armour covering his chest, unable to get a grip on the ties holding it in place. Davos saw drops of blood dribbling from beneath the fur-covered plate. His eyes widened as it ran faster. He pulled off his gloves, tossed them to the side and unfastened the buckles. As the plate loosened, the blood ran faster, forming scars on the ground beneath them.

The road around them was empty on account of the storm they'd ridden through on the previous night. It had passed now, leaving the world glistening under a fresh dusting of white including Winterfell which loomed more like a dwarf mountain than a fragment of civilisation.

Pulling the armour away from Jon's chest, Davos saw the old stab wounds from The Wall had opened up – angry and alive with violence.

"That's not possible…" Davos muttered. "You were healed, you were. That Red Witch put you right!"

Jaqen appeared, tearing off a length of cloth from his cloak. He wound it around the bastard's chest, pulling it tight. "We must hurry, Onion Knight." He advised. "We cannot save the boy out here."

Davos stared dumbly, shocked as Jaqen managed to lift Jon back onto his horse and strap him in place. Jon helped amid groans of pain and a sudden, severe sense of disorientation. Jaqen could not wait for Davos. He leaned over the side of his own horse, took hold of the reins and gave Jon's horse a sharp tug. The pair rode off with a start – hooves sinking into the snow.

For a while, Davos watched the two horses canter off toward the castle. He looked down to see his hands wet with warm blood. It trickled through the cracks in his skin as rivers until finally slipping between the stumps where two of his fingers had been and dripping onto the snow.

Alive. That is what Jon had been. He'd felt the change in his skin. The sudden heat in his flesh…

He mounted his horse and followed. The snowfalls hid a great deal of sin as far as Winterfell was concerned. It was only as he drew close, crossing the last bit of straight road in the open, that Davos could see the enormous foundation blocks laying on their own in the middle of nowhere – too heavy to move. None of the walls were straight any more and, though the Starks had gone to great effort to repair them, there was fragile air to the lopsided patchwork. If there was a last stand to be had in the North, Davos would not choose to make it here.

"Fookin' hell..." He muttered under his breath, realising that this wreck of a place was being touted as the living's best hope against the army of the dead. Forget the Night King and his hoards. Any old fool with a flag and a few hundred decent men could take it in a state like this.

They were certainly Northerners guarding it. Most of the men were a good head taller than Southern folk, drowned in grey fur and nearly as wide as they were tall. Their great thick beards were choked with ice and when they leaned up against the walls of the castle, they might have been just another rock.

No one stopped them from riding straight into the gates. By the time Davos entered the courtyard, Jaqen and Jon were already inside, ushered into the depths. Clear skies lingered above, a crystal ocean as Davos dipped his head back.

"I know you, Ser."

Davos spun around a little too fast causing his boots to skid on the frozen mud. Brienne caught his arm, holding him steady. The moment he looked up and saw her steel eyes, the old man smiled.

"Been told before, supposed to get me-self a better pair. Not good for the snow."

"Southern boots. Southern clothes. Southern sword..." Brienne teased, releasing his arm only when she was certain that he'd regained his footing. "What am I to do with you, ser? Feed you to the crows?"

"Might save the gods some time."

This time, they embraced. When they pulled back, Brienne said, "I was not sure that you would return. News travels fast along the Kingsroad. I cannot say that I believe everything I've heard but there are a lot of ashen faces coming this way."

"It is probably true," Davos admitted, his gaze hovering at the castle entrance where Jon had been carried into. He knew that there was no point following. "A right old mess, the whole bloody thing. I have survived a lot of shit in my time but no one has seen hell like that since the damn conquest."

"The King…?"

"All fookin' dead. Tommen. Cersei. More than half the nobles and a good deal of the commonfolk." He shook his head, entirely missing the flicker of concern in Brienne at the mention of the Lannisters. "A real net o' sharks. Aye I could do with a drink. This wreck have somethin' resemblin' a tavern yet?"

Brienne softened, expression approaching warmth.


There were only two healers in Winterfell and they were both bent over Jon Snow, cutting the cloth away from the wounds. They argued sharply with each other with a Lysene accent, hissing and grasping at metal tools. Jaqen sank against the old walls to watch. He could save Snow if he wanted to. His skills far exceeded the pair of healers but curiosity held him back.

Jaqen had seen this man dragged from death. Whatever had opened up the old wounds on his chest had clearly shifted the rules of the game. The question now was, what did that mean? If Snow lived, then Death had an interest in the game. If he died on the table, Jaqen would have to ask himself some difficult questions about what to do. He wasn't meant to be in the North. He shouldn't be involved in wars or falling onto petty sides. He only did it because he thought that was the will of the gods. If it wasn't – was he left to follow his own will? Did he even know what his will looked like? He'd been a servant longer than he'd ever been a man.

"You – in the corner."

Jaqen frowned when he was singled out by one of the healers.

"Yes, you, arse-hole. Either help or get out."

Before Jaqen had the chance to choose, he was forced to hold a glowing poker to the open wounds and sear the flesh closed to Snow's deafening screams.


Davos was certain he'd heard something above the clamour of the tavern but the metal mug crashed down in front of him and that was the end of his concern. Brienne sidled into her seat. Even sitting she was taller than most people in the room with a shock of short, blonde hair.

She must have caught his thought because she opened with, "I like it here, in the North. Everything is bigger – especially since the Freefolk arrived. Spent a few hours in conversation with the Thenn…"

"How'd that go?"

Brienne offered a playfully horrified look in reply. "Half my time is spent stopping skirmishes – the other, breaking them up." Brienne shook her head. "You wouldn't believe it would you? With all that has happened and all that is about to, we still try and rip each other apart. A pack of bloody dogs."

Davos shrugged and nudged his beer across the table, not yet drinking it. "Doesn't surprise me. I 'ave seen men at their worst – starved so close to the bone you'd think they were part of that dead cunt's army an' yet there they were, fightin' over how high to build their walls. S'what makes us. All the bullshit. You've got some o' that too. The bullshit."

Brienne tensed, taking a sip of piss-poor beer scraped from the bottom of the barrel.

"You want to ask. Ask." Davos offered.

"Would it do me any good?" She replied.

Davos felt for her so he was inclined to do the least harm. "The Kingslayer's alive."

The breath she'd been holding back slipped out. She ran her thumb around the rim of her cup. "He hates that title." Then she shook her head. "People think of him as a character – a line in one of their songs. He's not a hero or a traitor. He was a knight – when that meant something – who chose the better of two evils and ripped his soul apart in the process. What did the realm give him as a reward? Constant mockery. The theft of his talent and the annihilation of his family. I wanted him to die in King's Landing." Brienne shook her head.

"Dare-say you don' mean that." Davos replied softly.


BEAR ISLAND – THE BAY OF ICE

Higher up in Mormont Keep, Jorah stepped onto the platform housing the bells. The pair of old, brass monstrosities, bland and spotted with age, swung back and forth. Their hammers hit, one after the other. Up here the sound was so loud Jorah could barely stand against it. The rope used to set them in motion hung in the gap beneath them – taught and swinging. Cautious, Jorah ducked to avoid the bodies of the bells and crawled to the edge. At the end of the rope was the cracked neck of the old maester. His body swung off the end, hitting the side of the pit wall with each pass. Normally, the terrible action would only earn a few tolls but the Night King had revived the maester as he passed through the island. His eyes shone blue. His limbs scraped the air while his body fought to free itself, keeping the bells chiming.

Viserion. The dragon's cry cut above that of the bells. Jorah retreated to the edge of the Keep where he had a view out over Bear Island. All around, the fires were dying away, unable to keep themselves lit in the wet and cold. Behind, in the North, the wreckage of the ships was almost gone. Large channels had opened up in the ice sheet, put there by the heat. They'd close soon. Jorah had learned already that there was no way to stop the progress of Winter. It was beyond the skill of men.

In front, he could just about see the fleeing smear on the ice toward the mainland where his people were rushing at the open water. A volley of boats waited to pick them up from the fragmented ice but behind them, the Night King and his army were pursuing. If he could get to Viserion, he might be able to help them or at least buy them more time to cross the remaining open water.


The dragon mewed in pain. It was somewhere beyond the next layer of pines but Jorah struggled to find a way in through the mess created by the explosion. He sheathed his sword, ignoring the nearby howl of wolves and climbed around smashed stumps and fallen trunks. He grabbed the enormous girths and lifted his body over their sloped tops, rolling off the other side and into the maelstrom of broken branches. Water ran at his feet where a river had been disrupted by the mess. The pile of wood was full of scattered life, bounding out of sight.

Jorah scaled the largest pine, at least three hundred years old, laying flush to the ground. He wedged his feet against the nodes of broken branches and dug his hands into the open layers of bark. Jorah growled with the effort, feeling bones inside his body howl with disapproval – the ligaments that held them together hissing. Finally, he swung his leg up over and slid down the opposing side into a soft pile of snow. He could hear the wind kicking over the ice sheets and see the white mountains from the Lands of Always Winter through the smoke. There, pressed against the shadow of the remaining trees, was Viserion.

"The hell are you doing all the way over here?" Jorah demanded, before he saw the dark streaks of blood in the clearing.

Five wolves snapped at the body on the ground, dragging it between each other – shaking their heads viciously as they tore chunks of meat free. The dragon watched on, hiding as if it too were afraid that the wolves might turn while it sat injured.

Heads down, the wolves pushed their bloody snouts into the pink flesh. They jostled each other, scrapping over their chosen position. Most were an even grey, spotted white to camouflage themselves in the white forests of Bear Island. The smallest male was jet black with silver eyes and white fangs which he bared often while the largest female had a tawny patch on her tail and limped, missing a back paw. It was this female that lifted her snout and set her amber eyes on Jorah first. She snarled – quietly, as though he were simply another wolf edging in for a pick at the corpse.

Tears crossed the waterline in Jorah's eyes. They were hot, melting the veneer of snow that had taken hold of his skin. They built at the edges, engorging like pools before they dropped off his face. Some ungodly type of rage closed in on his chest. He lost track of the world's smaller sounds. There was nothing to him expect the feasting wolves and destroyed body. He took his sword and raised over one of his shoulders, twisting his huge torso to one side as he stepped up onto one of the pine stumps and launched himself through the air with a furious roar.

At first, the wolves reared up toward him – growling and barking. Jorah cut down. The combined weight of his strength and fury cut one of the animals clean in half. The two pieces peeled away to the side – mournful sounds coming from its mouth as the last air passed. As it twitched in the ice, another wolf came over to it, opened its jaws and bit down on the dead wolf's ear before dragging the head and front half of the body into the forest to eat alone.

The remaining three wolves were more interested in Jorah. They padded from side to side, snouts dripping and tails flicked up in agitation. They all wanted to kill him but none were brave enough to strike out first. Jorah chose for them, lunging at the closest wolf. He missed, staggered and landed with Dawn's tip stuck in the ice. One of the wolves jumped onto his back. Paws came over his shoulder and a pair of jaws snapped at the back of his neck. With one hand, Jorah tore the creature off his body and tossed it through the air. It yelped when it hit the ground – looked up and saw that it was laying beneath a dragon. The last two stood their ground, guarding their kill. Jorah pulled his sword from the ice and kept coming towards them.

Jorah's skin crawled whenever he allowed himself to look at the open ribs. Dorin's cheek had been pealed open and eaten out with his tongue pulled through the gaping hole. His neck was mauled to the spine on one side while both his hands were missing. It was not death itself that upset Jorah. He was no stranger to horror or murder. Seeing someone that he loved served as meat for wolves and crows… To be set a few rungs down life's ladder… It messed with a person's mind.

Jorah attacked the pair of wolves relentlessly until they gave up and vanished into the forest where they all started howling. Ignoring Viserion, Jorah stabbed his sword into the snow then kept hold of the handle as he lowered himself to his knees. Dorin's eyes were open and the remaining side of his lips locked in a smile. Jorah wrapped his hand around the spear protruding from his chest and pulled it free, tossing to the side.

He stared at the old man, completely lost. Bear Island smouldered and the distant screams of its fleeing people murdered the peace. Jorah had never allowed himself to believe that war would touch these shores. His home had always lingered at the fringe of the world, set apart from Southern kings and ambitious warlords. There was nothing here of value to any but those born on the frozen cliffs. Even the Ironborn turned their noses up at the ugly forest in the bay, inching close enough only to pillage the waters. An unpleasant monstrosity, the maesters at the Citadel wrote but to Jorah, its unforgiving ranges, black as filth and the endless damp comprised the chasm of his heart and it was dead.

Jorah reached down, folding Dorin's loose pieces back into a pile.

The bones rattled. Dorin's head rolled in Jorah's arms and looked at him with a set of iridium eyes. The body jolted back to life and came at Jorah, snarling and hissing through the holes in its face. Jorah fell back in terror, trapped in the worst nightmare imaginable.

"NO!" Jorah shrieked. "God damn it, no!" He veered sharply to the side, missing the corpse's strike. If it had really been Dorin's soul and not that dead fucking cunt of a frozen king, he would not have missed. Jorah stabbed Dawn right through Dorin's back, pinning the creature to the ice with sharp crack. It writhed violently, refusing to die. Blood ran from the recently dead flesh, painting the world red.

Jorah staggered away, tripping over his own feet. He pulled a flask of oil from his belt and shook it out over the creature. Some of it ran down the blade of the sword, rolling across the milkglass like streaming tears. Then he struck the flint and showered the mess in sparks, waiting for something to catch. It did. A circle of fire ate away the fur and leather with a rush before quickly engulfing Dorin's body. Jorah focused his attention on the sword rather than watch Dorin disintegrate to ash. The blade was shifting colours becoming an odd pearl colour as the heat intensified.

The creature squealed, upsetting Viserion who pawed the ground and dragged his tail around until finally the magic died and Jorah was left standing beside a roaring fire with Dawn at the heart of the flames, untouched.

He felt neither heat nor cold. Inside his mind stretched a void as bare as the Sunset Sea was vast. His thoughts pressed at the edges like fishermen clinging to the safety of the shore. Jorah knew, as he lifted his gaze to the fresh sheet of ice, that he was the last Bear on the island.


CASTLE BLACK – THE WALL

"Well," one of the watchmen leaning against the rise of ice at the top of The Wall eyed the thick black smoke rising in the West, "this is some bullshit right here."

"An' there an' all..." The other Crow nodded to the East where a lighter veil of smoke was dying off. "Commander say anythin'?"

"Not a fucking word."

"No one tells us nothin'." He complained, feeling the crisp press of air claw at his face. His beard wasn't as thick as it could be but he was prepared to blame that on the shit they subsisted on. Bits of rabbit. Mostly dried fish from Bear Island. There was a grain caravan on its way. They could see it lumbering slowly towards them on the almost vanished Kingsroad.

"Yeah well – these swords are about as useless as an old pine branch. You heard what those cunts were saying before."

"Wan' us ter use tha' black glass shit. No fuckin' way. I ain' want ter get tha' close to one of them frozen buggers. Prefer 'em at a good few feet an' all."

"Give up, mate. We do as we're told and if we're told to use this shit," he paused to pull out the rudimentary glass dagger given to them from the last wagon of supplies, "then that's what we use. Odd looking though," he noted, somewhat softer as he lifted the item to the light. "My grandmother found a bit of it way back in the snow. A left over, I reckon, from some war."

The pair of them felt untouchable in the air, high above the rest of the violence. It was returning to the castle for meals and sleep that gave them the jitters. No. The highest branches always made the safest perches.

"Dragons."

"What?"

"That shit o'er there." The man tugged his cloak off a stray piece of metal sticking out of the ice. "Smoke. Fire. Dragons."

The other man brandished his dragonglass dagger. "Always fucking dragons with you."

"Didn' yer go an' see that dragon scale the Wildling brought in? Yer know..." He insisted, gesturing to his own, diminished beard. "Big red fella? Boys flipped it o'er an' used it as a card table – stupid shits."

"If you are so keen on this dragon business, I can put in a good word for you with Thorne. He'll send you to Eastwatch. That Southern Queen is over there with her winged demons. If you're really lucky, she might even let you feed them. I'd do that for you, right…"

The man narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his companion. "Last I heard, dragons eat Crows."

"Love is a dangerous thing, my friend. Especially the love of a dragon."