THE WHITE DAWN ICE SHEET – THE BAY OF ICE
Jorah retrieved Dawn from the dismal, endless drift of ice. Soot spoiled the pearl wrappings on the handle, leaving it an ashen bone on his hip when sheathed. Instinctively, Jorah felt around his waist for Snowflake but flinched when he remembered how its corpse had been carried across the wind by a shriek of magic. He took it as proof that the dead crawling across the world were of the same ilk as the frightening songs haunting the past – that the piles of crystallised ice tucked away in the giant's tomb had once had the same blue eyes.
The magic had been beaten once, it could be done again.
Except we are not a grand empire, Jorah thought cruelly of Westeros. The old wars had been won by the heroes of better men. In his travels the world over Jorah had found timid creatures, bastards, murderers and thieves. Soft princes held relics, too heavy for their coddled bones. Even the Dothraki with all their brazen violence did not have the cunning to wage war on a god. Yet these were the soldiers sent to guard the realm. An unwilling cult.
There were times when Jorah hated his father for choosing The Wall over Bear Island. For always saving other people's children over his own. Most of all for dying.
There were screams on the wind, riding the trailing gusts.
Without Snowflake, Jorah's advantage would have to be one of merit. No more cheap victories like those in the pits of Dorne... Aching bones and open wounds did not fill his body with confidence. Jorah knew all too well that these were his last battles – that he could probably count them on one hand.
I'm getting too old for this, he cursed, tightening the straps that held his armour in place. Blood dripped from the metal edges onto the ice. At least I got old, Jorah scorned, through a pained growl. Another strap – another screech of agony. His dreams were full of ghosts. They sidled up to him in the night and whispered lies about the darkness. Each time louder. Jorah worried that he was moving closer to them – approaching the gates and the end of life's realm. Once, he had been at peace with death. On the eve of battle for worthless kings he'd prepared to lay his bones down in the field but since Asshai he had not been able to escape the fear. Death was not simply night's endless veil. It was not peace or sleep. No. It was the realm of the gods where all their depravity was given a stage. Dorin. He was down there in the dark with them.
Viserion scratched ruthlessly at the translucent sheet of ice beneath his paws. It was thinner here, not quite frozen with imperfections twinkling in the sunlight. The creatures of the bay ripped through the water underneath, butting up against the foreign surface to test its strength. Penguins, fish and seals. Blue-ribbon silverfish suffocated first with their mouths latched on to the underside and rows of white teeth scraping desperately to find a way to the surface. One by one they dropped away into the black, or lingered in death like icicles hanging from the roof of a cavern.
"Stop that..." Jorah nudged the dragon's feet with his boot, not wanting the monster to crack apart the only solid land he had to stand on. There was no way to know if the magic that created it only hours before was stable. It did not feel stable in fact he could have sworn it breathed back. The enormous berg was not entirely latched onto the land at either side and so bobbed in the tide with the largest swell making Jorah feel as though he were striding the decks of a ghost ship. Occasionally it groaned with a muffled lurch of pain.
For a while Jorah did nothing.
The crack of the wind against his armour and the mournful chirp from Viserion was enough to still his mind. His earlier fury had not faded. It stirred against his soul leaving his eyes large and sharp, tearing through the vista of Bear Island whose usually concealed bedrock now bristled into view like the slag discarded by a blacksmith's forge.
The fires that had ravaged the misshapen outcrop for hours were now cowered beneath a thick snowfall. Vast columns of smoke churned toward the Storm God's realm like the poisoned banks of cloud forever shrouding Asshai. Westeros was dying one piece at a time, withering from the extremities. An ember glowed, nestled in the valley behind the harbour. Mormont village. Somewhere in its depths, Jorah's heart had collapsed into the pyre. It would die there, on the shores of that miserable rock. Melting. Evaporating. Smoking. Another ruin of war waiting for the ravenous forest to rise again with the Spring and consume the corpse. Yeen reborn.
His past dead, Jorah devoted his attention to the dead army chasing the survivors of the massacre toward the Westerosi mainland. He may not be the Lord of Bear Island but these were his people. They were alive for now but they'd soon find certain slaughter and resurrection against the cliffs.
Jorah placed his hand on Viserion's snout and leaned down, pressing his face against the rough dragonscale. Even if he could fly Viserion into battle, one dragon could not defeat an army without burning everything and everyone to death. It was the nightmare of all Northerners to die screeching in the flame but if the army were allowed to reach the mainland – what then?
The dragon breathed deeply.
"I know," Jorah answered the dragon's unasked question, "but I must do what Mormonts always do." He insisted. "Protected the North."
He gave a command in High Valyrian. Viserion reluctantly extended his injured wing around Jorah who cocked his head to the side, inspecting the gaping hole left by the ice spear. "Yer a bloody sook..." He whispered, climbing up onto the dragon's back, now confident the creature could fly. "I need you to help me with this one," added – softer, pleading… "And may all the gods forgive me."
The hole in the leathery wing set a whistle onto the air – a strange, hollow shrill like the Northern winds finding their way through cracks in The Wall. Jorah put his bloodied hands on the dragon's spines as they climbed into the air. Over the edge of its body he saw the grey stain of the dead running down the living – the edge of the ice sheet and the slate cliffs in front of Deepwood Motte.
CASTLE BLACK – THE WALL
Drogon landed heavily. His talons sank into the white drift, pushing a storm of crystals into the air where they clattered about in hollow screams.
The false snow swarmed the stumps at the edge of the forest where men from Castle Black had brutalised the remaining trees in order to warm the freezing caverns of the fort. There were so few living pines that Daenerys caught a glimpse of the Kingsroad winding off through the flat, swerving around frozen bogs in its endless meander. A few owner-less horses lingered with blood dried on their hides as they nudged the empty drifts for the ghostly silhouette of grass.
Daenerys could feel the ripple of that bloody star dripping into the sky. It grew larger all the time, ingratiating itself with the other celestial objects which dimmed in fear. Perhaps it was a visiting god, come to drive chaos into the realm. Or might it be the surviving fragment of a larger, ancient cataclysm – a harmless reminder of the fire in their dreams?
A pack of wolves howled.
Drogon snorted, warming his throat at the thought of their meat. He'd been hungry for them ever since catching their scent. They were close, infesting the area waiting to pick off weak Crows or clean up the mess of war. Daenerys' breath shortened. She had heard what happened on the banks of the Trident in the shadow of The Twins. Varys had eagerly told the story of wolves dragging corpses from the water only to rip the living and dead apart in the reeds. His lips had dripped with an unsettling indulgence as he described the ground with its stench of death buried to the rock that doubled in the morning, choking the Freys with putrid fog.
'They deserved it,' Varys had added, 'the Freys and the hell that follows them after the sacred oaths they broke.'
'And what does the Master of Whispers know of Oaths?' Jorah had asked, scorn scratching his words.
'Of oaths, nothing but I know a thing or two about wolves,' replied Varys, sliding his hands into his sleeves.
Daenerys took in the terrible sorrow of Castle Black while Drogon's wings unfolded.
Jorah had warned her that the building was a thing of misery but she had not expected desperation to seep from the stone itself. Black, withdrawn and brittle it crumbled at the edges as if it were already consigned to ruin. The structure of the fort lacked coherency as it scrambled up the face of the ice wall as a cancer riddling the pristine veil with scaffolding, ladders and lifts. Men of the Night's Watch ran over its surface like ants shedding a corpse of flesh. Every now and then Daenerys caught a glint of steel in the weary sunlight but soon even that dimmed under a band of ash dragged out of the Western sky.
Her eye followed the smoke to its funnel, churning out from what she knew to be Bear Island or its neighbour, Westwatch. I should keep flying, her heart demanded, but her eye warily returned to The Wall and the shuffle of bone.
Lord Commander Thorne approached, striding out to meet the uncrowned Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. He found her alone and unarmed aside from the watch of her monstrous dragon which shifted dangerously. Its hide was that of the sickly Shadow Lands, cracked and soot-like with flecks of ice caught between its bone horns. It was smaller than the great white beast that had perched upon The Wall but with its obvious youth came violence.
Thorne remained motionless as the Queen casually picked her way along the sprawling wing then stepped lightly onto the snow. The dragon immediately retracted its limb to the crunch of scale. A choking rot dirtied the air whenever it breathed.
Death, thought Thorne, given wings.
Thorne stopped well short of the Queen and immediately took a knee in the ice. There was no requirement for him to do so. The realm of The Wall and all its creatures were not bound to the Targaryen's reign – or that of any other who would call themselves, 'King'. Never to be taken as a fool, Thorne had shared festive halls and battlefields with plenty of tyrants. Pandering to their vanity was always cheaper than bribery and faster than politics so he kept his head down and eyes on the endless spread of white.
"Your Grace..." Thorne breathed, as coarse as the wind.
"On your feet, Lord Commander." Daenerys struck back. "The company I keep would not have a man of the Watch kneel to the Crown unless his severed head lay in the snow beside us." She waited, amused by the curious glint in Thorne's eye. "Ser Jorah Mormont has explained to me the customs of the Watch. I'll not have you break them on my account."
"Mormont..." Thorne mulled the name over with a mix of distaste and admiration. He dragged himself off the ground, joints and leathers groaning. "The Mormonts haunt the North as determinedly as the Starks. Boy caused his father more pain than he was worth but," he half shrugged, "this is not the place to find the sad stories of ghosts. The gods must fancy him if – he's still alive."
If.
Daenerys swallowed at the chill. "This is not the first time you have seen a dragon." She observed.
Thorne always kept one eye on the beast. "No, Your Grace. We had a wild one here – larger than yours, I dare say. The ravens say it slept under Winterfell for a hundred years and put the place in a right mess when it woke up. Everyone knows that you have three dragons – you're one of their stories come ter life. But they are not the same as the monsters that conquered Westeros. Not even close. There are bigger things out here that you need ter keep an eye on."
"I put my hand on a dragon skull in the dead city of Sothoryos. Such creatures will never fly again, Commander."
If he was unsettled, Thorne kept it to himself. "The men appreciate the food an' weapons sent in your name," Thorne added, unsure if he had caused offence. Targaryens had a reputation for quick tempers. "As you see, Winter is settling and there's not much o' anything save your gifts to sustain our number. A command to man The Wall is one thing but obeying it does not come easy. Normally it's the kings that supply our number but they're in short supply themselves o' late."
"You may not be able to count on my gifts for much longer," she regretted. "The smoke in the West is, I fear, the contents of the Citadel's supply ships." It was not easy to hide the stammer in her words. "Did your watchers see what happened?"
"No, Your Grace. There was a flare o' green light on the horizon."
"Wildfire..."
"Aye… After that – smoke. Thick as night. The ash rained over us for an hour or so before the worst of it blew away. We should 'ave heard from the men at Westwatch but my ravens are unanswered. I've sent runners form the nearest fort to report. Is this why you've come?"
She shook her head and told him of the attack at Eastwatch castle by the Night King and his army. Her stone cold reply left Thorne unsettled. All the descriptions of the Queen had been accurate. Daenerys Targaryen was slight in statue, paler than mist and serene like the curve of Death's smile. Her eyes though – they caught the light in ways only jewels knew. She was inhumane. Rumour of her scaled back and curved teeth were simply propaganda from warring Houses. Daenerys Targaryen was a woman – a dangerous one at that.
"The men?"
"The Wall collapsed during the battle. It fell into the water taking many of my ships. The earthquake drowned the castle too. There is nothing left of the fort, Commander. I have seen with my own eyes where the ground opened and consumed every stone. By the time I reached Eastwatch, it was rubble and the men were feeding off the dead."
"The whole fort?" He struggled to envisage such a sight. The castles were the beasts of men. "Fucking impossible… Eastwatch is a giant of a thing."
"The Crows that lived have joined the ranks of my army holding the line. I left them with a dragon and one of your old Rangers guarding the edge of the realm."
"There's a Ranger at Eastwatch?"
"He called himself Benjen Stark."
The stoic man startled. "I thought that mad bastard was long dead?"
"So did he. In truth-" But she did not know how to say what she must. Daenerys gripped her chest in mimic of where the black glass lived in Benjen. "He is not entirely alive. The Night King's general tried to raise him as one of his soldiers but it did not work." Her eyes fell to Thorne's ugly black sword. "A piece of dragonglass through the heart has left him trapped somewhere between death and resurrection."
"These damned things," he hissed, "corrupting the dead. We burn ours so that they sleep undisturbed. Things were simpler, before… When it was just them Freefolk whores and the odd Winter storm." Thorne averted his gaze from her. He hated this world of magic. "I do not understand – if the East edge of The Wall was attacked, why are you here?"
Daenerys moved closer, coming within feet of the Commander. He was large, not as tall as her knight but certainly a formidable creature who could kill her where she stood. Part of her liked to tempt the gods. Dragons flirted with death and she was no different, eyeing his sword for a fraction too long. Her eyes eventually lifted to his weathered face. It reminded her of the cliffs at Meereen, gnarled, cruel and true. "Custom dictates that men of the Watch forget their pasts, does it not?"
"Aye."
"But as I understand it, you were loyal to my brother Rhaegar and fought at his side when called to do so..."
A crack split Thorne's usually unreadable expression. She had pulled those days from the grave and with their resurrection came the rush of that dead war into his heart. He said nothing.
"I know your name, Lord Alliser Thorne." Her voice slithered at him. "A man's pride does not die simply because it is banished. You ser, had a mountain of it. Despite this I hear you killed your Commander and took The Wall for yourself. When the gods returned Snow from death he allowed you to live. I have met this king of yours. He left you here with all the realm on your blade – do not imagine it escapes my notice."
How easily she wove her way into his mind… Thorne could feel her doing it, her words like smoke – conspiring him to her will. She knew the anchor of a man, even one that had been set in ice. Mormont had told her too much... "Your G-"
Daenerys cut him off. "Men fight and die in this wretched place because they want to earn their honour. To die without it is a fate worse than death for a man like you… I have met many men without this burden but none of them in the North. I am here," she continued, stepping around him. He was forced to follow to keep pace with her words which were softer than the snowfall. "Because there is an army of dead things come to kill you and once they are done with that, they'll come for everyone else. Do not lie to me, Ser Alliser Thorne and do not seek to protect me. Everyone who tried is dead."
"Canno' see a fuckin' thing in this shit." Thorne muttered under his breath, which echoed deep in the ice tunnel that ran through The Wall.
Having heeded the Queen's warning, he would not permit the men to raise the final rusted gate and so he and several of his best Watchmen were forced to press their faces against the bitter steel bars. The Haunted Forest loomed on the other side all black trunks and thick fog. There was an unusual scattering of Weirwood leaves tumbling across the scene like dribbles of blood. Snow fell heavy in the distance. The only other movement came from the bowing of limbs in the wind.
"Up top?"
"Nothin'..." Thorne's man replied. "Only crows. Damn things ar' scratchin' around up there pickin' at our faces. Mad ol' maester in the tower bloody scares 'em I reckon. Should've left the bugger outside."
Thorne peeled himself off the gate. "Close it," he hissed, then stood and waited as the mechanisms ground the doors back into place.
The Lord Commander refused to move until he'd placed his hand on the locks and bolts himself. He had faith that the steel could fast against a Wildling raid but tales of Hardhome filled his nightmares. A tide, they'd called it. A dead fucking tide.
"You don' open that gate fer anyone." Thorne added, sharply. "Not a Crow, not a Wildling, not me an' not a fucking king. It stays shut."
"Not much ter look at, is it?" Thorne asked later, when he found the Queen waiting in his cramped office. She stood within an inch of the fireplace, mesmerised by the flames. Thorne tallied the wealth in the quality of her furs, inlaid jewels and pieces of jewellery clipped into her plaited hair that trailed down her back like a dragon's tail. Oddly, none of her fineries stuck to her person. She had the grace of poverty earned during her famed years in exile. He looked for his raven but it had abandoned its pile of seed and set to hiding.
"Sit, if you wish." He offered. She did not. "There is no sign of the Night King or his army. Are you certain of-"
"I followed them."
"But did yer see them?"
Daenerys scoffed at the smoke. "They keep themselves hidden in the forest but I know they're here – or soon will be. My dragon can smell them on the air. It is the smallest things, Commander – a startling of crows, the canopies of pine swaying against the wind – a thick patch of mist collecting at the edge of The Wall. They are here," she insisted.
"Why? From what yer said they had a perfectly good path through at Eastwatch's ruin. Why not cross there and take the North along our Eastern flank?" He had a map laid over the table beneath his hands. Eastwatch was scratched out. "Yer said the Last Hearth is lost, well then that means there's nothin' ter stop them until either Karhold or Dreadfort. Neither is particularly well manned after the Northern wars. Plenty of corpses for that cunt ter raise buried in the fuckin' snow. Anything the wolves 'aven't cleaned up."
"Ser Jorah tells me that The Wall is more than ice and rock. I have seen the soldiers of the dead rush straight through it into the realms of man in defiance of the old magic but..."
"An' I heard you walked out of a funeral pyre." Thorne lingered by the window which had been boarded up against the cold. He placed his hand on the smooth pine. "Perhaps, the Night King himself cannot pass? We don't know how far the influence of his magic extends." There was a pause between them. "This is your theory as to why Eastwatch earned its reprieve from the dead?" His hand fell from the window. Thorne turned, eyes pale and fearful. "Targaryen – you have made a miscalculation. Like all Southern lords you came here and thought you had the North figured out."
Daenerys stirred from the fire and squared her gaze on the aging Commander. His surrounds were sparse, exactly like his manners. Still, she found herself coming to value the brevity of Northern men. "Is Castle Black not the gateway to the Lands of Always Winter?"
"If we are speaking of magic and dead things, you must go further West to the Nightfort. There waits the old screaming Black Gate made of Weirwood. They say it was his castle, the place the Night King took his Watcher vows and practised filth to the cheers of his men. Whatever magic was spun in those cold days, its roots lay there."
Her voice shook. She had walked through it in the House of the Undying. "Y-you have men guarding it?"
"Barely. It is wrack and ruin. The Wildlings feared its ugly face. We never had to man it – not in a thousand years."
"How far?"
"Two days – if we run along The Wall. A few hours on that dragon of yours."
"I have to warn the men you have there." It was then that Daenerys noticed his eyes walking over her in something more alarming than lechery. "What…?"
"You look like her," he hissed. Sometimes the Queen was little more than a fleck of snow against the wall. Thorne shook the thought from his mind and rubbed his face in his freezing hands. "I-uh-I have seen her," he confessed.
As Daenerys abandoned the fire, the flames curled back into the logs. She knew exactly who he was talking about. Daenerys saw her too – in her dreams. The white woman. "Awake – asleep?"
"Awake," Thorne breathed. "In the fort. I'm not mad," he insisted, knowing how this must sound. "But I swear there is something of that witch still 'ere. All up and down The Wall there are stories of her. I do not know what I believe of the dead but know what I saw. I 'ave men that'll swear to the same." He insisted. "She is as real as you or I. The Night King's woman. She is waiting fer him."
They were interrupted by Thorne's door flying open on its hinges, smashing into the wall and snuffing several candles. A Wildling tumbled through with a Watchman grasping frantically at his arms, trying to hold the rabid man back. Thorne was in front of the Queen with his sword pointed at the pair before Daenerys drew breath. The Wildling threw his hands up into the air, desperately hoping to stop a blade with his flesh.
"Lunatic!" The Crow grabbed the Wildling by the back of his cloak and hauled him to his unsteady feet. His clothes stank of sweat and shit from the filth surrounding the castle. "Lucky the Commander didn' bloody kill ya!" Then to Thorne, "Couldn' stop him. Says there's somethin' yer need ter see – both o' yer. Knocked down three o' yer men ter get in 'ere."
The Wildling shook off the Crow and nodded. He was a pale bundle of bones and red hair – a beard that didn't quite grow and deep wounds that buckled where the skin had healed. "Can speak fer me-self." He hesitated upon seeing the Queen. Only the very old had hair like hers and where he was from, very few found enough years for that. "Down there." He pointed at the ground.
"The Freefolk have been sneaking through The Wall using tunnels like these for centuries," Thorne explained to the Queen, as the party of four diverted from the main castle into an ice-logged passageway where only the barest scrap of wooden framework was visible beneath the layers of ice. "Old Mormont, he used to call it a piece of shit an' he was right."
"His son told me that The Wall was never made to keep the Freefolk from travelling South."
"It was built so long ago we forgot what's it for. Got caught up in scraps. Kings and Queens came an' went – adding pieces here and tearing others down. Whatever was fashionable to the Southern lords or used as bribes to appease Stark and his bannermen. That's new..." Thorne stopped beside a wide crack that had split the low ice ceiling clear in half. He felt the edge with his glove but it cut straight through the leather to his flesh. "When Eastwatch fell, we felt it." He explained, watching paradoxical drops of water fall from its edge. "Whole damn place groaned and snapped in our ears. Before that, there was another tremor, even larger. Took down one of our lifts with three men inside. We're still pickin' bits of them out of the mud. This bloody thing," he nodded at The Wall, "she's old and brittle. A good kick and I reckon it'd be a pile of snow."
Daenerys looked over to the Wildling. His limbs twitched and glistened in their firelight. "What were you doing down here?"
The man's eyes shifted nervously. A bead of sweat fell from his nose. He was pale – sickly and yet heat radiated from his skin. The Wildling leaned closer when she spoke, tilting his ear toward her as though he struggled with her Eastern accent. "Roses..." He half-choked on his own words. "We grow them Winter Roses."
"Stupid cunts..." Thorne growled.
Daenerys shook her head. "I – don't understand?"
"T-t-t-the petals," the Wildling whispered, licking his lips. "We dry 'em an' put them near the fire – breathe the smoke."
"Does it give you visions?" Daenerys asked. The man shook his head.
"Keeps us warm."
"They farm Blue Winter Roses in the creases between valleys." Thorne explained, with snarls of displeasure. "I've had Rangers return an' say that they saw entire ice fields ripple like sapphires in the moonlight. It's a poison that tricks the flesh into feeling heat – drives the mad out into the cold, tearing off their clothes an' dying naked in snow drifts. A few of the Northern Houses try to use it when the cold becomes unbearable but it kills most who do – except a few Freefolk tribes. They come from the mountains. Poison is in their blood."
The man reminded Daenerys of the warlocks of Qarth and their blue lips except the deathly blush was in the whites of his eyes. He took them deeper into the tunnels, turning away from a rush of fresh air blowing in from the Lands of Always Winter until they stopped in front of a flat outcrop of ice where a thick, twisted Weirwood root churned diagonally from the floor to the ceiling before vanishing again. Wrapped around its bone wood were threads of Winter Rose, several with buds ready to burst. They smelled sickly bordering on putrid.
"Here..." The Wildling pointed to a segment of the tunnel floor which had collapsed and fallen into a cavern beneath. There was nothing that they could see standing at its edges except a black, gaping hole. "I show you," he added, sitting down on the edge.
They did not fall far. A second cavern beneath was filled with piles of rubble – ice falls, rock and slabs of black stone from Castle Black's foundations. Granite columns held up the roof, scattered thick around them like a forest.
Thorne's eyes widened as he stepped toward one of the support beams which was roughly made with the tool marks left raw on the surface. He waved his torch from side to side before stepping back, amazed. "We're in the old castle," he said, turning to the Queen, the Wildling and the Crow. "Men have been building over this thing forever. See -" he stormed over and stuck his sword into a discarded bag. Dust that had once been grain spilled across the floor. "The ground beneath The Wall is hollow. We've known that for years."
The Wildling nodded. "Freefolk use these places 'ter shelter when Winter's bad. How else yer think we survive?"
"I had wondered..." Thorne admitted.
"The are runes all over the walls… Some of us read the old songs. Here though – this..." He took them downhill where a shallow stream trickled at the edge of the cavern. Its soft vibrato of water wrestled with the shadows.
"Your Grace?" Thorne hissed in alarm, when the Queen stepped into the shallow water, transfixed. He moved to follow but her hand lifted ever so slightly to halt him.
Daenerys continued across the stream until she reached the middle of the water where the chill snapped at her ankles. It worked its way through her boots and seeped into her skin to no effect. There, on the uneven rock, she knelt into the cold, reached forward and placed her free hand beneath the current. Delving into the shallows her fingertips brushed the dome of a polished skull – and another – and another – all worn smooth by the aeons. Her gaze moved forward toward the source of the river. Holding her torch aloft she saw more white bone peeking above the water line. Bones upon bones. Killing fields. Death saturating the world beneath The Wall.
Unlike the terrified men at the water's edge, Daenerys felt the lingering breath of magic. There, scratched on a nearby boulder, the endless spiral of the sea gods and their eternal life beneath the waves.
"Sacrifices," she whispered, noticing the others stagger backwards, retreating from the water in horror. As they did so, the light from their torches dimmed giving the darkness a measure of strength. Her eyes closed for a moment and her mind filled with the faces of the dead. "First Men, Children, Freefolk – giants… Their throats were opened into the river."
"The water runs from East to West, the length of The Wall..." The Wildling whispered. "Most places, the weight o' the ice collapsed onto it. We did not give it a name."
"If it ever had one, I am sure the gods forbid its memory."
"Please," Thorne implored her, "come out of the water."
"The Wall has been melting all this time." She followed the poisoned water West until a collapsed section of ice blocked her way. The cracks were only large enough for water to sneak through. These realms were not for men.
BENEATH THE WALL – EASTWATCH
Lorath awoke to the snatching claws of ice water against his skin. He rolled over, shifting from one darkness to the next until he lay on his back, surrendered to the whims of the gods. A sharp, broken rib pressed against his spine. Lorath grimaced and forced his damaged body to sit up out of the water causing the rest of his injuries to shriek.
His world was nothing. Endless and divine. The sound of water tumbling off his shredded clothes reminded him of the sea water making its way back over the violent shores of his island – the way it picked through the rock, driving the cracks deeper and sustaining the creatures that lived in the half-light.
"A man says the gods are bastards!" He gasped, the words breaking from his lips. Exhausted, he crawled on bleeding knees until he found the edge of the water and pulled himself up onto a slab of rock where he shivered uncontrollably. Lorath did not understand why the gods had seen fit to bury him in one of their mazes – or perhaps he was already dead and this was the torment of the coward and fool. Trapped in the perpetual riddle of his own mind…
Dying would be a grace but Lorath did not die. He drank the water and moved about blindly like a wyvern in the depths of a mountain range.
There was something else in the darkness with him. A sound. Almost like a stray gust of wind worrying a banner. With nothing else in his world, Lorath moved toward it, feeling his way across the void. Then, from nowhere, a slight fragment of light illuminate a wall of ice. Closer and that light reached out to him. Soon he could see the mess of ice and rock beneath him and the terrifying cracks above his head that had not yet broken.
He kept on crawling with hands numb and black at their tips.
Another twist in the passage and suddenly the world opened into a cavern with great black lake. From it surface rose flames, twisting violently as they consumed the volcanic gas bubbling to the surface. The warmth dragged Lorath across the final surge of rock and into the water where he willingly submerged himself for hours.
He did not see his audience lining the banks.
Reclined against the sides of the underground cave sat forty-odd soldiers with wolves beaten into their breast plates. Every single one had an iron sword laid across their laps as if they had submitted to their hopeless end. The warmth of the immortal fires had left their corpses as bone. Whatever they had been looking for they did not find it.
THE GREY ROAD (TO KARHOLD) – THE NORTH
Petyr Baelish's lips had a taste of oil and ash about them. Sharp limbs full of pine needles thrashed across his face whenever his horse stumbled on the edge of the path. What was left of the road scratched its way through war-worn terrain. Burned carts, scattered barrels and dead horses – all left where they'd fallen. The snow had buried the rest.
The men from Karhold had mistaken him for a nameless Crow. Petyr held their interest with vague promises to entertain their disgraced Lord Harrion Karstark with news of the wars in the North and the decimation of Last Hearth. The Karstarks were neither banished nor welcome at the Winterfell hall so they consumed his stories eagerly.
Nor are you welcome at Winterfell… He reminded himself darkly, with a wreak of self-loathing. Petyr had said the sacred words and made his vows to The Watch and yet he had no intention of shedding his soul for their idiot cause. It was a mask, nothing more, mocking their old ways with a set of dead eyes and lips.
While the men conspired over their meaningless slights, Petyr could not shake the image of the Targaryen Queen, her Mormont knight and their set of dragons. His heart trembled, though he could not tell if it was fear or fate rustling its wings. The only people who were going to survive the coming conflicts were the ones standing in the shadow of a monster's wing. There had to be a way back to her side.
"Shhhhhh-now..." Petyr tugged sharply on the reins of his horse as it startled, pacing side to side. The others did the same drawing the party to a stop on the cramped path. They were packed so tightly that the riders bumped legs and the horses nudged each other.
Frozen ropes groaned. Corpses swung beneath, tied from the thickest branches. They decorated both sides of the road in various states of horror. Some had been half-eaten by wolfs while others were near perfect save for the layer of frost on their skin. Dozens of them.
A Karhold man broke into shrieks. Most wailed. Others abandoned their horses and flew at the corpses, grasping at the dead flesh with pained screams almost inhuman to Petyr's ears. Women and children. All of them. Every single body.
Feasting crows startled, cawing irritably at the men. The mess of death clung to the wilderness. It was a fabulous orgy of Northern hell, like something out of the maesters' tales.
The trouble with being feared is that you forget what fear really is... Those words kept coming back to him, every time a little stronger. The gods were teaching him a lesson, as he had taught others. They need not bother. He was already bloody terrified.
He dug his heels into the horse and trotted up to a body not crowded by mourners. She was a young woman with long, crimson hair and a figure he'd have paid a fine piece of coin to put in his whore house. Her neck was broken by the rope but her eyes remained open, staring into nowhere.
"We have to burn them," Baelish proposed, cupping her cheek in his palm. The men from Karhold had the bodies of bears encased in steel but the will of soft-noblemen. "Trust me, men of Karhold-" Petyr raised his voice, knowing that it was only his black veil of the Watch that gilded his order, "you do not wish to see what happens when the dead king comes for those you have lost..."
"Did he not already do this?!" One of them shouted, angrily slicing through a frozen rope. A dead child fell into the snow, hitting it like a rock.
Baelish shook his head. "No, good sir..." He voice drawled onto the crisp air, as the man fished his child out of the cold. "If this tragedy had been the work of the Others from beyond the great wall of ice, there would be no bodies for us to find. I have seen one of the army's generals lift flesh from the snow and pry open its eyes. He commands them to fight, binding your dearly loved to his will. This is not him but he can smell death and he will come for them."
"Y-you saw the dead king?"
"No," replied Baelish, sensing a lick of power on the air. They hung on his words. "I held a sword to his general's throat and felt him tumble into snow… That is what they are – death, magic and nothing but snow."
The group moved on, stopping only to pile bodies into pyres and set them alight.
Karhold had been sacked from its eastern flank.
When Petyr and the remaining men reached the edge of the town beneath the fortress they found survivors crawling out from hiding to pick through the ruins of their home. Parts of the castle were alight, smouldering in the sunset while the vegetable fields were littered with bodies, this time of the men who had fought and died among the crops.
"Skagosi..." One of the riders spat on the ground.
The Skagosi corpse turned Petyr's stomach. He could not shake the horrors of Eastwatch and the barbarians defending it with their malformed bodies and serpentine eyes. "They are starving in the North," he said, to hide his fear. There was no coherent reply. The men of Karhold were decimated, if not in flesh – in soul. Behind them, parts of the castle fell away, scattering stone over the mud. The recent Northern wars had damaged its defences beyond repair otherwise the Skagosi savages never would have made it over the battlements. Karhold was an old wolf taken down by hungry pups.
These people were of no use to him at all.
Petyr found the Lord of Karhold, Harrion Karstark strung up and flayed across the wall of his own castle with a veil of black blood painting the stone. They'd taken his heart and lungs to eat. The bastard deserved it for marching against Winterfell on the arm of a Bolton.
He sought warmth near the embers of the collapsed granary. The circular stone tyrant gave Petyr a measure of protection while its wooden structures transformed throughout the afternoon into glowing mounds at the centre with flames dancing out as they consumed the structure. It had been a long time since he'd felt the pleasure of warmth and yet it was only days since he'd feared the brush of fire and the agony of death in that cage for the amusement of savages. It was always this way between the fire and ice at the edge of the world.
As the night came, the survivors of Karhold amassed at the broken gates. Their horses were weighed down with weapons that clanked in their poor latchings. Not only the men – the old and the sick too. Surviving women and anyone who could hold a sword. They chanted ancient, bloody words and drank the last of the wine, steeling themselves for the slaughter to come. By the end of it, many staggered next to their steeds, struggling to find the reins. They were a realm away from the Karstarks Petyr had watched storm the battle fields around Winterfell.
Idiots, thought Petyr, refusing to move from the fire. He knew what they planned. They would ride in fury to seek their revenge on the Skagosi. That course was for grave worms. The savages had joined the ranks of the Queen's army and a dragon would make short work of a charging cluster of drunks. Northerners had never learned when to run from a fight. That is why in all their thousands of years they failed to take the kingdoms of the South. Everything to come was stupid, pointless noise but there was nothing Petyr could do to stop them excising their rage.
After they were gone, the ruin fell into a lull. The moonlight struggled against the burning village. When the flames branched over into the densely packed homes, the thatched roofs produced towering fingers of unholy red cinders that swarmed across the air. Petyr could hear an infant screaming but when he tried to approach, plumes of smoke sank to the earth and smothered him – pushing him back to the edges of the village coughing and crying at the filth in his eyes. The shrieking stopped and Petyr was left with the crackling of death.
Alone at the fringe of the world.
Petyr looked over to the torn banner, ripping back and forth in the wind. The Sun of Winter – a black sea with a silver star and all its tendrils branching out. All the Houses had their stories, each one a pool of misery. He didn't have a story. Out here, in the empty spaces of the realm, he wished that he had something to cling to more substantial than his cloak.
WHITE HARBOUR – THE BITE
"Fuckin' smug doesn' suit a bear o' a thing like yer."
Dacey kept her smirk as she sipped another cup of rancid beer. Tormund was propped up against the opposing wall, wedged between the table and the window where a stiff breeze crept in with the evening tide. It was full of fish drying from yards of string strung out across the streets outside. Still, the Wildling King had as much colour as he skin could bear and the full return of his health, if not his good humour.
"Don' know why yer so pleased anyway," Tormund added, playing with the handle of his mug instead of drinking what he suspected was poison. "Now tha' I ain' dead, yer'll 'ave to put up with me fer longer. Can' believe it can yer? All this way we came only now we 'ave to go back. Dragons..." He finished with a disapproving growl.
"I have been thinkin' about that." Dacey admitted. "We should keep goin' South, ter King's Landin'."
"What the bloody hell for?" He narrowed his eyes at the waning light behind the bars. Every day that set felt like they were inching closer to the night. "No Targaryens or Starks that way. Only fuckin' Southerners. All the shit tha' need killin' are North."
"No, you're right," Dacey agreed, but she remained unsettled.
"Don' go all quiet on me," he protested, unnerved by her eyes staring into the depths of her drink. "Bears an' their goddamn silences. Yer like bloody snow drifts, yer are – smotherin' the good cheer o' a room. What do yer wan' with that smokin' piece o' rubble of a city?"
Dacey hated how he itched at a point refusing to let it drop. Perhaps that was the secret to his survival against the odds, persistence to the point of nausea.
"Why 're yer gettin' up?" Tormund stood as she did.
She leaned over the table, hushing against his ear. "I ain' sayin' it in 'ere."
Outside the early dusk was crisp but calm. The waters of the river were pulling in, sliding over the muddy islands clogging up her throat. There were lights dotted all the way out toward the ocean where the fishing boats packed themselves thick and eager. Tormund and Dacey took one of the stone pathways that meandered around the marsh. It was alive with clouds of insects and the wild thrash of life unfamiliar to Northern eyes. Both of them lingered curiously as the path turned a corner and they were gifted a view of the night sky dipping into the water with its river of stars, dimmer than in the North as if there were a fire at the Southern end of the world – a land of flame and fury.
"Varys is in King's Landing." Dacey finally explained.
"Yer brought me all the way out 'ere to talk about a spider? Not exactly a secret, is it now? Even fuckin' Wildlings know where tha' cunt is."
"Tormund," she used his name, which was rare enough to cause the Wildling king to pass a second look at her, "he is a very dangerous man. More so than yer know."
He seemed to understand, inhaling with a definitive nod. "Yer wan' ter kill 'im, then. Right."
A broad smile cracked across her lips. He was so quick to do her bidding without a thought to reason. "Steady your sword..." She placed her hand firmly on his chest. "He is as useful as he is dangerous – an' the only one left livin' who knows what happened at the close o' the dragon wars. We may have need of his counsel."
"Mance used ter say," Tormand did not move her hand but took great care with his next observation, sensing her flinch, "that the only use fer a man like that was food for the trees."
Her hand still on his chest, Dacey replied, "Mance said a lot of things – not all of them true."
"Yer knew 'im fer five minutes. I put up with that bastard fer years."
"Sometimes I wonder if Mance was a dream," she admitted quietly. "He broke through my cracks but yer right – I didn' know him as well as you."
They followed the path to its natural end and took up a seat on a piece of ruined wall to watch the evening fold in. Stories of the stars flowed across their lips, each one dragging the words of their ancestors into daring patterns. Freefolk and Northerner, their tales were the same. Dacey asked him about the unchanging sky abut Tormund insisted that the traders of the Southern seas had set their eyes upon new gods.
"If yer go far enough, nothin' is forever. All o' it – it's change," he said, shaking head head. "Nothin' lasts in this world, not even the gods. I've read all their stories. From them first bastards ter now. Our world is gone… The whole Freefolk empire. Only stains of our funeral pyres left on the ice. They'll be gone too. Buried. When the Winter snows come."
Dacey shifted slightly closer, if only to angle her head better to see the moon. "Except Mormonts."
Tormund choked back a laugh. "Except them fuckers."
Sailing back out into the sea was different.
Tormund kept to the lower decks, sleeping off the last of his illness or trawling studiously through the few books kept by the captain. Dacey caught him once or twice, hunched over a table in the lantern-light with a scroll unravelled in his paws. Aside from his size and wild look, he was as serene as a maester in the citadel.
Whenever Tormund saw her at his door he'd growl but she was well used to his harmless bark. On the third day when he raised his voice she instead beckoned him above deck to see The Fingers touch the sea.
Vicious cuts of rock protruded from the grey water. Like knives, they laid against each other, folded and pushed by violence. Dark, steel-like surfaces shone as mirrors wherever the sea-spray wet their faces. Dacey tilted her head backwards to her shoulders in order to take in the scale of the Vale of Arryn's mountainous terrain. Its pillars of rock were the smallest of their siblings. Behind lay a chorus of choppy peaks covered in snow so tall that they were almost mistaken for clouds. Forever. That's how far they appeared to wander.
"A sea of knives..." Tormund shook his head, then spotted dozens of settlements latched onto the sheer cliffs. Like insects, the people of The Vale lived in the shadow of the great mountains. "Not even the dead could get to those buggers..." He hissed.
Dacey frowned and looked again at the sprawl of malice.
"True..." She breathed. "No one has ever conquered these lands." No one. Not ever. A fresh slap of salt spray hit her in the face. Dacey did not flinch, her attention already captured by the ravenous world laid out along the water's edge. She ducked away from the rail and scampered across the deck like a panicked field mouse, knocking over things as she went.
Tormund watched her retreated perplexed before returning his gaze to the surges of rock. Steam rose off their flanks, hissing against the relentless scratch of the waves against the hull.
Soon after, Tormund was forced to grip the ship's rail as their ship lurched sideways, crossing the current before heading into the mouth of a broad river fed by snow drifts. He could see the waves flatten into tightly packed, fast moving ripples that mimicked the endlessly shifting scales of a snake, sliding back and forth escaping the mountainous valleys hemming it in tightly on both sides. Heavy blocks of ice cleaved off the peaks on both sides, smacked against the jagged sequences of rock and then fell into the river with deep booms that could be heard even above the chaos of the open sea. These icy deaths were followed by dribbles of snow that made the Mountains of the Moon appear to cry silver tears.
"Such a place," he shook his head, keeping a tight hold as the ship wrestled with the warring currents, "what sort of man makes his home in the throat of the gods?"
"Small, frightened men." Dacey replied, standing beside him. "And their lord." She nodded up to the castle in the distance.
"We're going ter see this lord? Bugger won't let us through the gates..."
"He calls himself Warden of Winterfell with a Stark as his Queen. Old words carry weight in these parts. Mind yer, his father was a cunt."
Tormund felt the heat ripple off the rocks as their ship entered the Snakewood Tail. Though its breadth was easily a hundred metres, the dwarfing height of the ranges closed their tiny boat in, casting the water into darkness all day expect an hour at the height of noon. They crept through one of these shadows. The collapsing ice drifts drew wary glances from the crew who watched each monstrous block in case it fell and dashed their ship to pieces.
"There are only two ways into The Eyrie – from a narrow mountain pass off the Kingsroad or this – by water ter Heart's Home castle an' into the goat tracks that scratch up the back o' the mountains. Armies must take the first road. Beggars, thieves an' traders try their luck on this one."
"It's a fuckin' monster o' a place," Tormund warned. "I seen better lookin' death traps in the North."
"That army of dead things is coming for us. You an' I both know that wall o' ice ain' going to hold much longer. When it comes down, how long do you think our castles will last? How many hours do you give even the greatest of the forts? Not one of them would make the night. Our cities with their towering walls – what are they to creatures of bone? Tormund, we are goin' ter need some place to fall back to that we 'ave half a chance of defending. The Eyrie is the roof of the world. What is it?"
"Don' yer see?" He replied. "When Mance dragged us out o' the North it was on the promise of sanctuary. Yer Southerners an' yer black castle, they were the hope tha' we chased – tha' we died fer. He believed it – my king."
For the first time, Dacey did not turn away from the whisper of his name.
"An' now yer say, 'run 'ere'..." He raised his arm to the sky and all its violence. "Then where? Where do we run when the mountains fall to dust an' the dead come for us at the gods' feet? When all the realms o' kings are gone – what happens to us?"
"You're right..." Dacey replied, taking a step closer to Tormund as the ship shifted beneath them. There was a wildness to him that no amount of lamplight and tavern living could dampen. He was a creature of the Winter snows – broad and draped in furs like some grand sentinel of the snow. "The world is getting smaller. I used ter sit in the great hall an' listen to the stories from knights and their men – from travellers an' merchants. I thought the realm was endless. When I travelled beyond The Wall I believed it possible to walk off the edges of my maester's maps – to slip into worlds neither dreamed nor seen. It was Mance that taught me that our world is meaningless if there's no one alive to share it with."
Dacey raised her gloved-hand to his cheek, pressed hard enough to flatten his beard against his skin.
"You are their King."
"This realm has too many fuckin' kings..." He growled.
"Kings and Queens that fight themselves and the dead." She dipped her head slightly before adding, "But who will fight for the people? Who will keep them alive while the rest play at thrones?" Dacey used her hand to turn his face toward the mountains. "We don't need those false crowns to tell us what to do."
Tormund's response was to cover her hand with his, holding it there. He was a king. Leading people to war was easy, leading them into hiding tore something else out of his heart. Every scrap of honour would die before the night set in. He knew he had to let it die. "Yer been out in the wild too long – that's your problem."
"I thought I had given up on the realms of kings," she confessed, "but there's no escape – is there – from our kin?"
They could see the towers of The Eyrie crawling along the top of the ravenous peaks which were as cold and harsh as their rocky cousins. It rose impossibly from its dwelling. The Wall was an immensity but this castle clung to the Giant's Lance like an ice sheet. Falling away to one side were slender, white Tarthian marble columns set together like ribs protruding from a corpse.
"Hear tha'?" Tormund breathed, as the hollow shriek of wind boomed down through natural caverns in the rock. The Mountains of the Moon were screaming.
Exhausted, Dacey laid her head down onto his chest. As he closed his arms around her, she listened to the screams on the wind.
CASTLE BLACK – THE WALL
Thorne and his Crow gripped hold of the Queen's wrists and then heaved, pulling her out of the subterranean chamber. A strange hissing crept over the air and stopped them dead.
"Let go..." Daenerys commanded, wriggling out of their hold. The Wildling leaned over the edge of the hole, forcing his torch down to light the darkness. The halo of fire rippled out like a lonely star all alone in the universe. The Queen's eyes expanded to black, dragon-like orbs. There it was again – a scratching in the water, bone grinding against stone...
She snatched the Wildling's torch and returned to the edge of the stream. The riverbed shifted. It was the bones. They rustled like dried leaves. Her chest clenched and her heart doubled its uneasy tempo, thumping relentlessly in her ear. She remembered this. Necromancy. Daenerys had met its practitioners in temple at Asshai. Its whispers once uttered never truly died. They were a poison that clung to the underside of The Wall, festering in its roots. How ancient and cursed these dark places truly were... She could feel the air feeding off her magic as if it had slept all this time and now – stirred.
A severed hand tore out of the water and wrapped its cold joints around her ankle.
Daenerys shrieked, dropping the torch into the stream where it extinguished. Darkness suffocated the world as the dead hand tightened, painfully crushing her flesh. She stumbled backwards and clawed at the bank, dragging her body away as the waters came alive with corpses reassembling themselves with all the mismatched pieces. There were no blue eyes down here, only empty skulls. Every scrap of humanity stripped bare.
They're all dead, Daenerys reminded herself, even the ones with flesh and smiles.
"Your Grace! Your Grace!" Thorne dropped into the hole with his torch. He found the Queen frantically kicking her leg near the edge of the river. Behind, dead men were rising out of the water. The magic that bound them was not as strong as the dead his Crows had seen beyond The Wall but they were able to stand all the same. Perhaps it was because they were very old and the magic scarce or – or… Thorne eyed the Queen again. Perhaps it was her magic calling the darkness to life.
Thorne smashed the base of his sword against the hand around the Queen's ankle, shattering the bones to bits with a sharp cry from the Queen. He immediately swung his obsidian sword, slicing through the first of the corpses to emerge from the stream. Its touch dismantled the corpses which scattered back into the water. More awoke.
"Hurry!" He growled, pushing her roughly toward the waiting Crow and Wildling who grabbed her arms and dragged her off the ground. Thorne took a few of the strongest creatures down before he realised that they were resurrecting faster than he could manage. "Fuckin' cunts!" Thorne spat at the hollow-eyed bastards. A giant's skull twisted in the water, drawing bones toward itself.
"Commander!"
"Aye, I'm coming..." He surrendered his position. Thorne climbed out of the hole. The creatures pursing were sluggish. "They'll be through that," Thorne added, leaning over the darkness. "We 'ave ter get back to the entrance and seal this shit off."
Daenerys slumped against the tunnel wall, moaning at the pain in her ankle where Thorne had cracked her bone. Tears caught the edge of her eye. It had been a long time since she'd felt the sting of her own injury. Quaithe's blood magic must be suppressed under the curse of whatever this was or – or Jorah was... Strong arms grasped her shoulders and picked off of the ground. Swung over Thorne's shoulder she watched the narrow tunnel retreat to the flicker of their receding torchlight.
It was a difficult run. Daenerys kept her arms out, pushing herself away from the walls of the tunnel whenever the Commander lurched or slipped.
They did not stop until they were through into the main castle and the tunnel door was latched in place. Thorne immediately shouted for his Crows who flocked into the cramped room, eyes wide and frightened by the gravel in his voice. He commanded them to bring wildfire and soon barrels were tentatively poured onto the floor, coating it in a green lake. Torches forbidden, the surfaced fluoresced on its own, giving off just enough light for Daenerys to see the old door shaking.
"That will not hold for long," she breathed.
"How many bones would yer say were in that river?" Thorne asked, eyes fixed on the trembling wood.
"Hundreds..." Daenerys breathed.
He nodded. That's what he thought. "Your Grace, go back to yer dragon. Mount the black bastard. If anything dead comes out of Castle Black I want you to burn this fucking piece of hell to the ground – yer hear? The Wall does not fall here."
Daenerys shifted aside as a Crow carrying the last barrel of wildfire shuffled past them, brushing shoulders with her soft furs that stank from the black water.
"Slowly now!" The Commander hissed, as the contents of the barrel dribbled down the steps then, as a group, they all walked backwards leaving a glowing trail ready for ignition. When they were done and the barrel empty, Thorne called one of his Crows forward. The man was withered missing half his left leg and most of his hand. Without a word, Thorne grabbed his shoulder and held on, looking him right in the eye as if imparting some ancient strength. Then he handed him a single candle.
Daenerys averted her gaze. She knew what this was. The last hope for a soldier to serve his cause and borrow some honour from the dead.
"Soon as the door goes."
"Aye, Commander."
"Give the gods hell."
This time, the forsaken man grinned – his mouth missing most of its teeth. "Aye Commander..."
Drogon roared. Enormous, dripping jaws sent a thunderous sound that shook ice free of the castle walls. Pieces of it smashed around Daenerys as she emerged from the building, striking her arms and face as she hobbled awkwardly on her injury. She tried not to think about the dead climbing out of the water in search of her or the feel of their flesh on hers.
"Drogon!" She beckoned, but the creature thrashed his tail through the loose snow sending a storm of it into the air. The wind caught the white cloud and sent it right across her face, smothering her in the cold. She coughed it out of her lungs and swore. Drogon reared up onto his back legs, shaking the ground as he opened his wings. One of them tangled an ailing pine. He snatched his claws back and ripped the tree in half as though it were a twig. Pieces of it fell across Daenerys as she cowered, splinters and pine catching in her hair. Drogon's paw smashed down scant inches from her. She did not flinch.
Behind, the Watchers on The Wall blew the great horn. Its wail echoed. Once. Twice. Three times… The remaining Crows were set into a scramble, joining those who had fled the interior of the castle and now raised their swords facing their home. The men high up in the ice dragged their vats of oil around to face inwards, preparing to lay siege on their own hold-fast.
Surely the door could not hold for long…
"Drogon get back here!" Daenerys screamed at her child in High Valyrian. This time the dragon turned. Tendrils of smoke dribbled onto the air as he cocked his head to the side. "NOW!" She added.
He approached, unfolding is wing so that she could crawl up the leathery surface onto his back, folding herself between his spines which grew by the hour. She did not dare take to the sky, fearing the explosion might frighten him. Instead she faced him towards the castle and, along with all the men of the fort, waited...
NIGHTFORT – THE NORTH
Cub sat beneath the Weirwood door that guarded the realms of men. It was a demonic thing, always shifting around in the darkness with its wooden sinew altering its malice. Today, he could have sworn its mouth had an extra curl of delight.
"How can yer stand it?" Edd asked, bringing the boy an old pitcher of Dornish wine from the cellar. Fuck knows when it was made – they drank it anyway. "Starin' at this bloody thing. Come back up stairs with the rest o' us."
"It's smiling..." Cub whispered, lowering his lips to the edge of the wine.
"What the shit does an old piece of wood want with smiling, eh?"
"The castle is not on our side," Cub warned. "That's all I know fer sure."
Edd approached the Black Gate, withdrew his sword and prodded its tip against the old Weirwood. Yes. He had felt it too. The castle had no want for the living. It was a dead thing and that it how it wished to remain – slumbering in its crypt of ice and ash. They were squatting in the house of vengeful, old gods.
"Nonsense..." Edd eventually lied. "This place is a cold, unlike-able bastard of a thing but it's no worse than where I grew up. All the same, eh? Up and down the fuckin' Wall." He grabbed Cub by the scruff of his jacket and pulled him to his feet. "Work out yer demons on that forest outside. Fires are gettin' low."
When the boy was gone, Edd crept up to the Black Gate. He brought his torch to the surface and watched as the flames scurried away from the surface, repelled by an invisible layer of magic. Not dead at all…
"I know what you're thinking..." Edd hissed at the face. "When them dead come 'ere." Another step closer. "But if yer fuck us over I swear to every god I can remember, I'll pour Wildfire over yer and set you alight. I don' care what yer do to me in the next life, you'll be dead an' that'll be that."
The Black Gate said nothing.
