THE RUINS OF HARRENHAL – THE CROWN LANDS
Qyburn's charred corpse lay surrounded by rings of jet black river stones. Scattered among them were primitive rosaries created from hairlike roots wound through dragonglass beads. Their gruesome design was adorned by lines of copper-backed ants who had been tricked into thinking there was a corpse to raid by chips of blood-scented wood. They swarmed angrily, biting at the unyielding surfaces and giving off an acidic scent. Exposed atop Harrenhal's Widow's Tower, the moon cast long shadows through Qyburn's bones. Over the past week unseasonal rains washed away his flesh, channelling it through the joins in the stone, down the outer walls of the tower and into the marsh where it nourished the forest of Weirwoods.
What was left made for a grisly centrepiece...
There had been magic in the old bastard – enough to make Westeros shiver like a chill creeping down the continent's spine. The waters of the Gods Eye rose several feet under the Children's spell, lapping over the Kings Road where it revealed its true maroon hues. Qyburn's death summoned a sigh rather than a violent gasp.
It was not enough.
The gods required an offering with power. Normally the Children would go in search of a wood witch but the last one was taken inside the depths of the Winterfell crypts and her magic spent by untrained words on a crippled building waiting to be slaughtered in the snow.
Eventually they abandoned their perch on the tower to swim through the swollen lake. Climbing out onto the central island, the Children placed their hands upon the bone wood or sat down between the tangle of roots. When they opened their eyes their pupils were red and absent – staring into nowhere as their minds searched the faces of the other trees.
It was in the swamps of prayer that they found a cripple boy, dreaming with the others. The ancient hand of magic wrapped around his throat made the Children twitch with lust. They stayed in the vision, watching the Stark warg in and out of their time-woven branches. He moved with a Raven's wings, the fur of a wolf and human skin. Days passed – hours? Weeks… Who could tell. Dreaming in the living forest of the world knew no such divisions in time. They were immune to the first flakes of snow touching their skin.
All at once the Children screamed. Their shrill sent the Gods Eye's birds into the air in one great panic. Inside their minds they had felt the axe go into one tree and the flame catch hold of another. It burned and tore their nerves as if it were their flesh. The gods' grip on the world loosened with every felled Weirwood. It weakened their magic and their chaos, pushing them deeper into their subterranean slumber.
The Weirwoods were closing their eyes…
THE WALL – THE NORTH
"You – you – you can stop – running now – they're not – not – following – oh fuck – I'm – going to die..."
Edd gave up. He fell against the wall of ice and allowed himself to collapse whole-heartedly into its frozen embrace. His lungs deflated and throat closed, rejecting mouthfuls of air while his body shook uncontrollably.
They'd been running for hours, blindly following the pathway along the top of The Wall. For at least half that time the ancient deserting Crows pursued, dragged up out of their graves by the Night King during the opening hours of the fight. Edd could still hear their spears scraping along the ground… Unlike most of the dead, these creatures were perfectly preserved, drowned and frozen within minutes by their cruel Commander. They looked like real men, pale-faced and unblemished by violence. Very nearly alive.
Cub traipsed back for Edd, who was about as lively as a burned out stump. He tried to pry him off the edge but the man refused to let go. He'd lost condition over the months – now mostly bone poking out beneath the leather and fur. "We have to keep going or they'll catch up to us."
Edd shook his head. "No, boy. If those – bastards – wanted – to catch us – we'd – be – we'd be dead." He rolled around, back to the wall and slid down into a sad black puddle. "They're off after someone else. Poor cunts."
Cub narrowed his eyes at the darkness but Edd was right, there was nothing coming along The Wall except white curls of loose snow caught in the wind. The fog, which descended over everything during the attack, had moved off the Nightfort and drifted South into the woods, following the army like smoke marked a fire. It was many miles from their position, heading South along the King's Road. There were even a few birds out, clipping the evening sky.
"I really thought I was going to die." Cub admitted, crouching next to his Commander. Outside the Night King's reach it was slightly warmer with bits of moonlight cutting sharply over where they sat so that his Commander's face was half-set in light. "We didn't learn a damn thing. It was for nothing. They all died. For nothing."
"Oh, we learned," Edd assured the boy. "We know now that oil an' tar won't do shit. We know he's more powerful than Old Mormont said. Yer know what else we know? We know he's not a fucking Whitewalker. No unholy piece of shit magic can walk through tha' gate. No. That bastard King – he's a man. He's one of us. It wasn't just a story our grandmothers told us when the snows came down heavy. All men have weaknesses. All men want something. We need ter find out what that is. Or get someone smarter ter do it for us."
They were on the Eastern side of the Nightfort. From the ground they couldn't see anything except raw ice and that was a fucking blessing. After all the shit he'd seen in the last few hours, Edd would happily gaze at the boring expanse of frozen hell forever. That said, he'd noticed an unsteadiness to it. Slight gasps of movement. Edd no longer trusted the ground beneath his feet. The Wall was a brittle skeleton, falling to pieces beneath them and yet Edd felt safer aloft on its peaks than down on the ground with the dead.
Cub must have sensed it too because after another tremble underfoot he added, "We should keep on this way. The dead aren't at any of our castles so it'll be safe to trace our way to Eastwatch. Pick up supplies from the rubble. Meet up with the Queen's army. We'll be needin' food and a fuck-load of wine."
Edd was not enthused about Eastwatch. "Get eaten by Skagosi pricks?"
"The dragons will be there," Cub insisted. "Along with thousands of her men. You said we had to talk to Varys well, we don't have any horses and everything up this way is dead. Dothraki have plenty of horses, there might even be a ship. We go to Eastwatch."
Edd hit his head gently on the wall in frustration. "Bossy little shit." The Southern bastard was right. "Always hated Eastwatch and it's a long fuckin' walk. I don' think yer appreciate just how gods damn far it is. I might die on yer an' then what would yer do?"
Cub eyed the very obvious path along The Wall. "Well, I ain't exactly going to get lost. Cheer up," Cub offered his Commander a hand to help him stand but there was no way Edd could make himself move yet. "The castle was destroyed. You can piss on the rubble."
Instead of screams, the air filled with the Crow's shuddering laugh.
"How long will this take?"
"Best part of two weeks if we 'ave ter walk the whole bloody way. By then – by then we might be the last bastards left alive."
"Then we better make sure we've got a good view, eh?"
THE NIGHTFORT – THE NORTH
"There won't be anything left. You said yourself, thousands have lived in this place since the early wars. If there was something of value, it would have been burned by those wanting to hide the truth or sold by the poor that came after. Look at this place it's just – well, rubbish."
For a while, Jorah worried that Daenerys was correct. The Nightfort's rooms had been stripped bare more than once and most were lucky to hold a few pieces of rotted furniture. In some parts, looters had pried off the wood surrounding the window to burn in the fireplaces. This place had seen Winter. Jorah could feel it in every crack of its decaying walls. Not the Winters of his childhood. True Winter. Winter that froze people solid on their horses and caused the mountains to crack apart.
There were a couple of dressed rooms higher up in the tower where Crows had tried to make a bit of a home. Reindeer mats and fur bags for sleeping were left in the centre – a few pots near the fire, but most had been afraid of the upper levels of the castle and kept to the ground floor. Even the rats had died, curled up at the edges of the room where they became piles of bone.
Jorah walked beside a line of axes mounted on the wall. They were blunt, not much good for anything except leaving dents in a pine. "What about your dreams?" Jorah asked the Queen. "You said that you had seen parts of this place before – do you remember?"
"It all looks the same... An endless parade of miserable, stone caverns." She closed her eyes to summon forth a vision but they were not to be opened like the pages of a book. The gods gifted her sight when it suited them. "From what I remember, the room wasn't important – it was a ritual." Flashes of scene came and went like the glare of a stray sunbeam.
Daenerys caught up with Jorah and placed her hand on his chest. He eyed her quizzically. She was still quite a horrifying sight – blood all streaked down her face, through her hair and clothes – wet and rancid. Jorah tried not to think about the gore beneath them.
"When you were in Asshai and Quaithe drew those symbols on your skin – that is what this was like."
"The same words?"
"No. It was, a feeling?" She did not know how else to describe it. "There was a bird in a cage," she closed her eyes again, hunting for the sound of its wings against the cage bars. "Yes, I remember the raven. It screeched every time the woman carved into the Stark prince's skin. That doesn't help us, does it? The North is full of crows."
"I am not an expert in sorcery, Your Grace," Jorah admitted, moving away from her hand so that he could continue checking rooms. "But if the ceremony reminded you of something Quaithe did, perhaps we should ask her. She will be on her way North with the Dothraki and your Lannister pet. They'll have crossed The Trident and be somewhere near the foothills of the Mountains of the Moon. Their orders are to camp at Greywater Watch."
"What if – what if there's nothing to find here?" Daenerys added.
Jorah did not understand, returning to the corridor from another empty room. He was already thinking of the task ahead. There were armies to shift. Generals to organise. Battles brewing that he knew very well could not be won. Their supply routes were destroyed by the loss of the fortresses along The Wall and only the gods knew what kind of a mess had become of King's Landing after the ash had settled. Perhaps the flowery bastard had control of the city – or more probably the likes of Victarion were already eyeing off the easy pickings. Then there was those useless shits at the Citadel to sort out. Varys caught them keeping stockpiles of Wildfire for themselves despite it being paid for in full by Daenerys' coin. One of the many squabbles that together presented a cumbersome disaster if left unchecked. The creativity of men to screw things up in a time of war was endless.
The Queen's thoughts were twisted into the Nightfort. "Your Northern stories talk of the sacrifices the Night King and his white witch made to the Others. The blood magic that makes men fear this place. There's an ancient Weirwood door with a face to the gods that allowed a monster to step into the realms of man. Everything that you have told me of the vows and its legend seem to be false – or at least misconstrued by those who first left the story. What if it is the Nightfort itself that matters? You said it yourself, Jorah. This building is a thing of magic and horror. Perhaps he needs it for something? Unfinished business. We should destroy it..."
Jorah's lip curled into a smile before he had the chance to stop it. "Do you have a shovel on you, Your Grace?"
"I have a dragon," she insisted, quite serious. Her knight appeared to find her plans to destroy the Nightfort amusing. Even now the Mormont could make her feel like a quarrelsome child with a well-placed glare.
"It will take more than a dragon to send this beast of a thing into the grave," he assured her. Mind you, the wildfire you've ordered from the Citadel might make a good start on if it ever shows up but-"
"-but..."
"This is magic. Old magic." He clarified. "I do not think that it would be wise to start tearing down pieces of the Nightfort before we know how it works. We may destroy the very thing we need. The fort is not going anywhere in a hurry. We'll send a small group of men back to keep an eye one things."
"Do you really imagine a Crow is going to set foot in this place with all his friends hanging in pieces from the ceiling?"
"Freefolk then. There'll be at least one Thenn left that can send ravens and enjoy the bloody view. They eat their own children if you let them."
After a few more hours of fruitless searching, they had no choice but to abandon the Nightfort none the wiser.
Jorah dragged Daenerys away from the tunnel when she walked toward the Black Gate. It tugged her toward it with an invisible force and that was never a good thing in this part of the world.
Viserion was rubbing his neck on a particularly ruinous out building, getting a broken board between is scales with a contented purr when they found him.
"I thought we were heading towards Winterfell?" Daenerys asked, as the dragon dipped its wing across the jet stream and headed East instead of South. "We must warn the Starks. I thought that was so obvious it need not be said?"
"Forgive me," he replied, "but there would be no point. Winterfell has had ravens enough in warning. Anyone left inside her walls is either stupid or duty bound – neither of those two will leave simply because we ask. And don't go entertaining any fantasies of taking on the whole army by yourself with a single dragon. Everything we know so far tells us that this bastard won't be easy to kill. Dragonglass and fire work against the wights – Valyrian steel for the Others but he is something entirely different."
"An ordinary sword may suffice if he truly is a man."
"If you die, Your Grace, or we lose another dragon, we might not be able to win this war. Winter has tried many times to take over the world. I do not want to be responsible for the final blow."
She tugged fiercely at his cloak, reminding him that she was the Queen who gave the orders and that he must win the argument, not merely inform her of it. "If we do not stop the Night King here and now, Ser Jorah, his forces will grow larger and then it might not matter what we learn – there'll be no stopping him. The best defence you lot thought you had for thousands of years and he swept through it like smoke. We know nothing. Nothing."
"We need to regroup what is left of your army," he insisted, more carefully this time. "To fight off an army the size of his, we'll need to pick our battleground carefully and keep the living away from his ranks until we're ready. He has magical gifts but weaknesses too."
"Water..."
"Yes, water – his army cannot cross it. He lost many thousands from his army at Bear Island when the fresh ice sheet collapsed beneath them. From what you told me, the skeletons do not do well in deep, soft snow either. Winterfell is, I am sorry, no place to make a final stand. I have sent the survivors of Bear Island and the Glovers to the Starks. They will restock and leave for the South. Hopefully others will join them. There is no better warning than the stories those people carry. Their eyes are poisoned with fear. If that is not enough to turn the Wolf, nothing will but Lady Sansa is hard woman, like her mother." A pained expression crossed Jorah's brow that had nothing to do with the sleet flying into his face. "I hate to say it but that pirate of yours might have been of some use. He had a way of whipping people up in his spell."
Daenerys had no idea what to feel regarding Daario. He was a desert she had crossed a long time ago and now its detail eluded her. Was it a thing of beauty or a mirage caused by the heat? "He walks a different path."
"He does not know if he is a Greyjoy heir or a reborn man. We will have to tell him that Asha and Theon are dead. Last I heard, Victarion was preparing a fresh attack on what's left of King's Landing. The two of them will come to blows eventually. If you want Daario to win, he must know that he is fighting for something greater than himself. Before, that was your vision of a kingdom but now – well, he was much changed when we last saw him."
"The squabbles of men," she brushed her hand over Viserion's scales. "There won't be anyone left for the Night King to kill."
"You cannot fight every war, Your Grace. The time is approaching when you will be called to choose. Allow the conquest of the Southern cities by a cruel bastard, or leave everything North of The Neck to join the ranks of the Night King."
"Alright alright!" She snapped at the air. Conquest and war was nothing like she imagined. It was so easy to lose sight of the game with endless problems opening up around her like festering sores. "I'm sorry," Daenerys added, when she caught her knight looking plaintively off into the distance. The dragon's wings rose and fell calmly either side of them. "You lost your home… Your people."
"My friend." The words choked out, but Jorah did not wish to speak of Dorin.
"...and I must look like something from Asshai."
Jorah returned his gaze to Daenerys. She was frightful indeed – a demon of death that quite literally showered in the blood of the realm. Her pale skin and dark bruises were ghoulish, aided by large patches of soot from the explosion at Castle Black. Bits of bone were knotted through her hair and if he tilted his head slightly, the starlight drew out the unnatural purple in the depths of eyes. "You look beautiful, Your Grace."
THE CLIFFS AROUND THE BAY OF SEALS – THE NORTH
Lord Baelish imagined a dramatic entrance. During the long days over bad roads with an unfriendly horse, he'd lingered on the moment many times – his return to Eastwatch. In some fantasies, he was dropped in a hail of arrows by keen-eyed foreigners, clutching his chest with great howls of pain – in others, he'd found a land of ruin desperate for his help, kneeling at his feet as though he were their messiah. To rule… Yes, he had thought of it many times. To be a king was a treasure he had both desired and remained wary of. For all the whispered cries of adoration there were thousand blades pressing into the flesh of anyone foolish enough to sit atop an iron throne.
His strange, morbid fictions were all he could do to keep the horrific memories at bay. There were times, when he let his mind slip, that he returned to that cage with the oil and the flame. The soft swaying of the world outside his bars… It was his hell. The creak of metal. The smell of other people screaming. It sank down on every corner of his mind, driving him mad until he forced his palms against his temples and moaned.
The road they took cut straight through to the coast and then hugged it, meandering around grey cliffs where thousands of gulls pestered the horses, flying alongside their pathetic caravan of misery only to shriek and snap. Often, the path found itself pressed between rises of unstable rock and the open sea. Salt spray covered them, making everything a misery. Even the passionate fire of their emotional loss weathered away as the survivors of Karhold crammed themselves into caves during the night until they ended up morose corpses, shivering against the stone with blank eyes.
Petyr almost enjoyed the repetitive swell of the tide crashing into the shore. Its howl was hollow by the time it worked its way through the meandering ocean caves. Drunk men staggered into the darkness to piss. If they returned, Baelish ventured in with a small bag to collect small grey crabs for the pot. He was fast, a souvenir of a childhood lived along the foreshore of The Fingers. The sea never really let you go. He should have known that it would find a way to drag him back into its embrace.
A vicious squall trapped them for several days.
The storm raged outside with waves exploding high up the savage walls until the sea broke through and washed in on their camp. They moved everything to the edges, sat themselves down and waited in the din like birds confined to the nest. Their horses were restless and starving. One broke free and galloped toward the spray. Petyr watched it vanish into the storm with stabs of lightning flashing it into silhouette.
When they awoke the next morning, it was to an endless partnership of blue – above and below. The grey stone pathway remained soaked through but the storm was dead. There was a frayed strap of leather caught on the cliff beside the cave – the last they'd see of the escaped horse.
Their party made it safely down out of the cliffs and onto the wide gravel trade route heading toward Mole's Town. Petyr looked to his right, across the bay where the island of Skagos slumbered as a great humped beast upon the water. Ice bergs surrounded it, bobbing in an almost-frozen water that reflected milky pastels. The Queen's fleet were dotted in the deeper passage between the island and the shore where the sullen green channels flowed fast. Even further in the Northern waters, Petyr saw the lazy white curve of the lands beyond. Pieces of The Wall had tumbled into the bay but dragged their heavy arses on the ground, not quite moved by the current. They lingered as glistening outposts – blueish and adorned with gulls.
There was nothing to do in Mole's Town but raid the destroyed village. Regular snowfalls had already begun to bury its buildings with everything three feet deep. It took several men working together to force the doors on the Inn. Inside they found the corpses of whores locked in each other's embrace, long dead. Ice grew across their blue skin as if they'd been frozen between heartbeats. Above, slithers of ice hung from the iron candelabras, trapping the remains of candles inside their bizarre shapes like the innards of jellyfish.
Petyr hated the silence – always roughened by a howl of wind.
The coastal path to Eastwatch was impassible. A tsunami of ice, rock and bits of ship drowned the low-lying landscape weeks ago and then turned immediately to ice. The horses wouldn't walk on it and the men couldn't stay on their feet for five minutes between them so there was no choice but to head inland and approach the castle from the trader's road which added half a day.
By the time Petyr and the Karhold survivors ran into a patrol of the Queen's men on the outskirts of the ice fields surrounding the ruins of Eastwatch, there was a complete and total disinterest in violence. He didn't know if it was the cold or the sheer enormity of war – either way, the faces of living men were enough to sate the dying embers of their fury into nothing more dangerous than sullen glares.
They were rounded up by the Queen's guards and marched toward the water where huge pieces of black stone from the castle were visible in amongst the ice blocks. Petyr scanned the shivering crowds for Skagosi. There were none but their island was once again dotted with cooking fires. It seemed they had returned home and begun a trade of wood and seal fat with the Southern squatters – an accomplishment considering Skagosi were like Ironborn, preferring murder and theft.
When they stumbled over the polished rock at the edge of the water, a dragon thrust from of the bay with a shower of water and thunderous roar. It spread out its wings, letting loose rivers as it flapped hard, driving itself into the sky with its tail snaking behind. Dragons… They were a thing of awe. Even Baelish had to admit there was an unrivalled power in their scales that no idle king could wield with either wit or words. He watched it circling around the cliffs for a while until it crawled into some invisible hide.
"Trust yer to still be alive."
What Petyr had mistaken for a fisherman, picking his way along the chaotic rubble of the shore, lifted his head and smiled with a set of dark Stark eyes. They were surrounded by half-dead skin that made Baelish pause a moment. "Benjen..." He could scarce believe it. "You – you look like the cheap end of Fleamarket."
Benjen wore a bear skin over his Crow cloak and knee-high fur boots with nails in their soles which allowed him to stride confidently over the ice. He carried a wicker basket with slender, silver fish and a rod. His sword hid in his layers but there wasn't a man there who dared raise a blade to the dead Stark for fear of what the Old Gods might do. "Same to you, my friend." Though the endearment was drawled. "Last time I saw you, you were getting cut to bits o'er a Riverlands girl."
Baelish's scars burned at the mention.
This time, Benjen winked. "Snow over the ice…" He assured the small man, who had clearly been through his own kind of hell. "You and I were children. The world has cursed us since then. Did yer come by Karhold way?" He added, seeing the company Lord Baelish kept. "No-" Benjen held his gloved-hand hand before Baelish could offer an answer. "We'll talk inside. Bring these poor looking creatures with you. I'll make us all something ter eat. This lot," he leaned in conspiratorially, nodding at the stranger looking members of the Queen's army, "they've been cooking up each other. Not very appetising, if yer ask me. Though – who knows, eh? Maybe Southern folk have taken to Eastern delicacies..."
Baelish stumbled forward as that hand slapped him enthusiastically on the back.
THE CRYSTAL PALACE – THE NORTH
"Not bad, eh?" Benjen led Baelish down to the water's edge where the largest pieces of The Wall had collapsed.
It was a forest of giants. Chunks of ice larger than the Hightower and as wide as the Dragon Pit lay shoulder to shoulder with shadows, crevasses, overhangs and waterfalls of snow scattered between them. Every few minutes, a deep growl filled the air.
"That's the ice, rubbing against each other as it settles," Benjen explained. "First week after The Wall fell, yer couldn't get near the place. We lost many men to ice falls and tidal waves. There are bones under there that'll never be found. But now? See the way its locking together? Soon as the cold weather came through and the snows fell, it stuck that shit together. Quite alright, now. Mostly."
Mostly. Baelish was petrified standing in its shadow let alone the prospect of venturing inside the wreck which was clearly Benjen's intention.
In the end, Baelish was given no choice. He followed Benjen over the black stones on the shoreline which were more difficult to walk on than he had anticipated. Not only were they awkward shapes that rolled about underfoot, knocking together in a racquet – the tide froze after it receded making the gaps between them slippery. His left was quickly absorbed by the presence of an enormous piece of The Wall. The monstrous block reached the full original height but had slid off through a crack and now lay slightly angled toward the water, leaning over where they walked. As they came closer to it, Baelish felt the cold radiate off its surface.
He paused for a moment, inches away. Like felled trees, the ice had fine lines of varying shades of blue, grey and white dividing its soul. Instead of extending outward as a stone dropped into a pond, the colour bands worked their way up the height.
"This way, Lord Baelish." Benjen prompted.
Together, they walked around the façade. Hidden from view on the other side, was the mouth of a river trickling out into the bay.
"What – how…?"
"We were just as surprised as you," Benjen assured him, encouraging Baelish to walk onto its flat banks which were made from the same stones as the rest of the shore. It was shallow at the mouth but slightly above than the high tide mark. Steam lifted up off from its surface which was at least twenty metres to the far side. It was difficult to tell exactly, with its edges blending off without proper definition.
Baelish ventured another couple of steps so that he could see properly. The smoking river was coming out from a gap beneath The Wall, both narrowing and slightly deepening to calf-height as they followed it away from the bay.
"How long has this been here?" He asked. "I have never read about it in any reports or histories of The Wall."
"My guess?" Benjen replied. "Forever. There have always been stories passed among the Freefolk about the river beneath The Wall where the bones of forgotten wars lay at rest but most of us assumed that if it had ever existed, it was destroyed when construction began on The Wall. Now? Well, you will see inside. Most of us have come to believe that it runs all the way under The Wall. If the river is real, the perhaps the sub-ice lakes are too. And all the rest..."
"The water is warm..." Baelish almost purred as they were forced to step into its waters. The blocks of ice encroached from both sides turning the gentle banks into rises of white that had melted inwardly into curves along the water's edges in a wave form. He observed the damage to these fallen pieces of The Wall. The work of a few weeks had left deep scars. "You'd think a few thousand yeas of this would bring the whole damn thing down."
"If it were ice, I'd agree with you but this, Lord Baelish," he held his free arm out in adoration, "is magic." Ahead, the ice formed a triangular-shaped cavern drowned in shadow. The black opening howled ominously as the ocean winds licked along its edges. "The White Woman's cunt – a few have taken to calling it." As they stepped into its mouth, Benjen added, "Officially, this is the Crystal Palace. Or at least, that is what I prefer. Better in here when the storms hit than in those tents pitched out on the ice. We've bee moving the whole camp inside. The river keeps the air warm and the ice keeps out the gale."
"Aren't you worried it'll collapse on top of you?" Baelish certainly was. He could barely go a step without looking up into the darkness. All around he could swear the ice was creaking, like a ship rolling on the surf with its rudder in a reef.
"Better ter die that way than frozen solid out there, black limbs and blue eyes. Trust me. I've seen enough of that."
Inside, the banks of the river returned only here instead of loose black stone, it was made of smooth sheets of rock, tortured by some distant hell. There were were rugs, pots and men everywhere – most of them foreign. An outpost of civilisation had clustered itself around small fires that dotted through the darkness of the cave like stars wandering through the night.
They waded out of the river and then climbed over the slippery rock to one of these fires.
"Sit, Baelish," Benjen insisted, placing a hand on his shoulder. He shoved the small noble down onto a mat to dry. Benjen un-shouldered his basket and handed it to the camp cook. "Men like you don't normally survive when Winter comes but then, you're not the soft Southerner you appear… Are you?"
Baelish unhooked his sword and shrugged out of his heavy travelling furs. He'd lost weight during the last month, giving his cheeks a skeletal hollowness that aged him ten years. There were scars, dried blood and yellow bruises all over his pale skin. Only his silver mockingbird pin remained pristine, pinned to his tunic.
"Decades at The Wall – edge of the world – beyond the reach of kings and their games… What happened to you, Stark? You look like death."
"Half death, maybe." Benjen admitted, telling Baelish the story. "And so," he finished, "now I can feel them, the dead. When their master calls it echoes in my mind but he has no power over me. I am learning to see this half-life as a gift. If I know when they're coming, I can help the living alive."
Petyr could not help his gaze wandering East, into the depths of the river. The fires lit up fractions of the cave – a limb of ice here, a pale shadow there… Through the centre ran the shallow river with its steam rising up only to condense and run down the walls. It created pools in the rock which were visited by gulls, terns and any other bird brave enough to dart between the men. "And the dead – are they nearby now?"
Benjen shook his head. "No. A few days ago the feeling left me entirely. There's been no ravens but I reckon they are all on this side of The Wall – heading South. I've organised hunting parties to travel North of the Wall, around into the forest to hunt while we can. The seals have moved on and our supplies are running low. The Freefolk are anxious. They want to be out there, stockpiling food for the Winter."
"What about the Queen?"
"No word yet," Benjen admitted. "But that dragon of hers has been crying for days."
Petyr closed his eyes. Yes, he could hear it now – a soft, mournful whimper running under the chaos of the wind.
THE LAST RIVER – THE NORTH
The world faded from view, hour by hour, succumbing to gathering blizzard. At the northernmost tributaries of the Last River, its wandering figure curled through the Southern edges of the Frost Fangs. They were murderous ranges of steel-edged rock, tossed and thrust into bluffs, peaks and ridges that harboured unsteady glaciers.
Jaqen H'ghar kept to the centre of the frozen river, traversing it with a stick in one hand as a third leg and his free arm swinging, propelling him forward. The imperfections in its surface gave him enough traction to remain upright – far easier than the waist-deep powder left through the valley that had nearly entombed him in a wet, freezing prison.
He was wary of every slight sound. Whispers built into tremors that made the ice sheets suspended high up in the mountains – shiver. It had been many centuries since he'd heard the mountains sing to each other – the winds bouncing from one side to the other, grooming the surfaces smooth.
The last hours worsened, quickly deteriorating into a gale of ice that bit into the thin sliver of skin on his face left unprotected. Jaqen eyed a protective alcove a few hours ahead but the wind was strong enough to push him backwards along the ice, making it impossible to go any further. He searched for some hope that the storm would break soon but the surrounds were darkening in a false night.
With no choice, he side-stepped right until he stumbled onto the bank and straight into the waist-high powder. He gasped at the sharp clutch of freezing wet around his body. Jaqen tossed his stick forwards into an exposed patch of rock hidden behind a cliff and then used the thin scattering of exposed pine trunks to pull him forwards. The snow collapsed behind him, covering his tracks where it was further buried by the heavy downpour of snow. It would take no effort to pause and be swallowed whole.
He forced himself to make the distance – finally striding up out onto the rock shivering uncontrollably. Inside the alcove, there was just enough room for Jaqen to curl up into a ball to preserve heat. All he could hear was the screech of wind across the rock – somewhere between a whistle and howl. The souls of the North screaming, that's what they used to call it in the old songs. In front, the forest and river vanished into a perfect white-out. If there was an avalanche now, he wouldn't hear it until the monster swallowed him whole.
Jaqen ducked his head down into the safety of his furs to stop his eyelashes from sticking together. The wet snow on his clothes had frozen into ice. He welcomed the extra protective layer to keep out the wind.
He did not know how long he remained folded at the back of the alcove, barely discernible from the other boulders. The next time he looked up from his hide, a fresh arm of ice had formed along the side of the mountain, extending out in the direction of the wind like a great fin with sharp spines. It blocked out the worst of the blizzard, giving Jaqen some space to sit and observe the storm. Conditions improved enough for him to make out the shadows of the pines in silhouette. Many had snapped in half under the strain. Others swayed violently whenever the gusts swirled.
Terrified that he might freeze in place, Jaqen dragged himself upright and shifted backwards until he rested against the rock wall. He rubbed his hands together viciously, willing a bit of hot blood back into them. Life drained from flesh as the temperature dropped. His face was numb and the lower half of his body, stiff.
In his preoccupation, Jaqen did not notice figures appearing in the snow, trekking slowly through the trees and down the frozen river. They were travelling South, in the opposite direction to him. First, there were only half a dozen but by the time Jaqen noticed them on the landscape, they numbered in the hundreds.
The Queen's army? Jaqen thought, followed quickly by possible survivors of the Westwatch slaughter he'd heard Lady Lyanna Mormont discussing with Sansa Stark. He scrutinised them through the blizzard. There was something wrong about the way they stumbled – heads tilted back and limbs held loose against their body. Living men felt the cold. They drew their arms across their chest for protection and dipped their heads downwards, to keep out of the wind. These creatures felt nothing. It was as if they were…
...dead.
Jaqen's body went rigid in shock. He shrank against the wall, attempting to hide slightly behind an outcrop of rock and ice but there was no cover in the alcove and the entire army of the dead was walking by, less than twenty feet away.
What a fool he'd been, thinking that he would be the one to track them – to follow and watch unseen. He'd done it many times to armies of kings, queens and savages but the dead? Trapped against a storm and unable to run, he'd last seconds against their attention… Regardless of the hopeless state, Jaqen withdrew his ornamental sword. There was no room to wield it properly and to be honest, he did not trust his arm to lift its weight so he clutched the blade to his chest as a prayer.
"Have you come for my name?" He asked his Faceless god. "After all this time, is that what this is?"
Jaqen correctly guessed that the dead would make their passage through the pass in the Frost Fangs. Dead, magical or otherwise, the Night King was an old Stark and they were a cautious breed who were raised to keep their armies out of sight and away from open fields where they might be ambushed. This country was rough and dangerous – a challenge to survive let along host a battle in. Never did Jaqen imagine that they'd move this fast…
They were now as numerous as the trees, turning the scene in front into a shifting forest of shadows. He hands shook where they locked onto the sword – a beautiful thing made of Valyrian steel that Varys has given him many longs months ago in Braavos in exchanged for a name that still breathed.
The sound of the wind shifted, changing notes.
A crunch of snow.
The creak of ice.
Jaqen's eyes snapped open – met by a pair stained blue, shallow and shattered by pieces of ice.
A Whitewalker blocked the entrance of his cavern. He stared directly at Jaqen with what the assassin imagined must be amusement. Alone and shivering, he must have looked like an injured animal with his leg caught in a trap.
Jaqen scrambled to get to his feet but in his haste and with stiffness set into all of his limbs, all he managed was to fall awkwardly to the side and slam his shoulder into the rock. He grimaced, rolling about with pieces of ice cracking off his clothes like glass. Eventually, he made it to his knees – gripped onto a bolder and finally dragged himself to an unsteady standing position with his back against the rock.
The creature waited, making note of every weakness and injury in his prey. This Whitewalker looked younger than he'd imagined. His skin was made of folds of ice, pressed together and set with ash. Though it should be solid, the creases moved with the supple bend of Spring. This one was slender too, with a bare chest and silver material draped around his waist, held in place with pins made from green glass. Amber beads were woven into the design, sitting on the grey like drops of burning dew. Instead of a sword, it held a double-edged spear with leather straps forming a crude grip in the centre.
The tip of the spear tapped on the stone surface as the Whitewalker shifted its weight. There was no cry of help to its kin.
Jaqen felt a little bit of blood run down his legs. The moment of warmth was superseded by sharp stabs of muscle brought back to life. He straightened, brandishing the unusual weapon. It had ludicrous unicorn silk tassels tied to its handle and caught even the faintest beam of light with a perfect, unblemished surface. The Valyrian text embossed in the steel was darker than normal taunting with words that gave him no pleasure.
Truth is death.
The gods had waited a long time to pull out the chair at the feast of the dead. Jaqen was not ready to take his place among the wretched. There was no depth to which he would submit his corpse while the dream of his old world lingered, unavenged. Even now, the taste of smoke lingered on his lips. He'd stood upon the Fourteen Flames as their bodies shuddered atop a sea of fire. Valyria nestled in a sunbeam, trapped between the black claws of the ranges where rivers molten rock flowed in place of water. Behind, the endless chip chip chip of picks in one of the great mines died away. The chasm ruptured. Slaves screamed in the darkness. His own chains rattled where they hung from his wrists, neck and ankles. His purple-eyed jailer turned as he did to watch The Doom unfurl its leathery wings upon the world – violence and magic dancing together.
Jaqen shook his head fiercely, bringing himself back into the present. He wondered if that same surreal calamity was what he'd recognised in the jewel-like eyes of the Whitewalker. Were they creations of hell or simply an unnatural birth of magic and catastrophe? What did it matter… It had come here to kill him.
He gripped the handle of Truth with renewed vigour. If it was possible for one of those creatures to express emotion, it might have been surprised by the unlikely surge of strength breathed back into the man. It took a step forward, bending its body so that it could duck into the alcove where both shoulders grazed the uneven ceiling and an upper arm brushed against stone. These encounters released a strange sound on the air, like pouring broken glass over the sand.
There was enough height from Jaqen to stand but there was barely anything to spare. The Whitewalker was much taller and had to slump like a wolf digging its way into a warren. The work of an assassin was silent – a mastery of shadows and whispers. To face death, sword to spear… His borrowed magic was nothing to the rigid layers holding this creature together. They were of the deep regions of time.
"Valar morghulis..." Jaqen purred, through thick frosts on his breath.
The Whitewalker responded by twisting his hand and flicking his spear up in a swift spin – intent on splitting Jaqen vertically from cock to throat. Nasty way to go. Jaqen swung his sword, deflecting the ice weapon. The steel and ice screeched at each other. It was Jaqen that gave the final shove, causing the ice weapon to slip off. No matter, the Whitewalker simply repositioned himself, careful not to move within striking distance of the Valyrian blade. It was no fool, recognising the danger.
This time it came at him with the weapon held at chest height – jabbing and stabbing at Jaqen, who was forced to roll himself from side to side and flinch at the impact of the ice spear against the stone. Several times it speared his fur, sticking him in place. He swatted away the weapon with his sword but every action weakened his reply. The cold and days travelling made him easy pickings for any half wit with an axe. He feared that the only reason he wasn't dead yet was that the Whitewalker was curious.
When the spear came for him again, Jaqen used his hand, aiming for the shaft behind the double-edged blade. His thick fur-lined leather glove wrapped around it, taking a firm grip. The weapon let out a steady hiss at the intrusion and a moment later it burned through to Jaqen's skin with unbearable cold. Regardless, he held fast. His other hand lifted the stubby Valyrian sword and cut across the ice spear's shaft. Crack. Blue veins appeared along the fractures. The Whitewalker tugged sharply, trying to shake Jaqen off the other end of his weapon but the spear snapped apart leaving them both holding a piece.
Furious, the Whitewalker slashed at Jaqen's sword with the remaining end of his spear. The brutal retaliation came so fast that the next thing he saw was Truth bouncing across the ground, disappearing behind a bolder. Jaqen dove for the sword. Another thrust from the Whitewalker stopped him. The ice from the broken spear had eroded a hole through the leather on his palm. Pain clawed at his nerves, dragging out a shriek from the usually stoic assassin. It was muffled by the thickening storm front – dragged away and buried with the rest of the creatures being murdered by the passing army.
The Whitewalker stepped right into the cavern, determined to end the fight. Unable to stand the agony, Jaqen tried to drop the broken spear but the ice clung to his naked skin beneath the glove, sealing it together. His instinct was to shake it off but that only made his flesh tear and re-stick. When the Whitewalker swiped at him with what should have been a final blow, he was forced to re-grip the weapon. They crashed together – the Whitewalker smacking the broken piece out of Jaqen's hand along with a veil of pink blood that left a splatter over the ground.
Jaqen lost his balance. He fell to the ground and shuffled backwards, colliding with the wall. There was nowhere to go. He was unarmed. Unable to stand. Skin ripped off his hand. Ice in his veins.
Fearing the end, he kicked out his legs as the Whitewalker came in for the kill. It was a childish whim – an untrained hope. His boots clocked the Whitewalker in the shins and, to Jaqen's great surprise, set the creature off balance. Whether it was the awkward height of the cave or the unexpected action, the silvery monster stumbled into the bolder like a common drunk.
Jaqen took his opportunity and kicked again, aiming for the shin. This succeeded in taking the creature's legs from under it. Angrily, the spear was swung at Jaqen but only the harmless shaft slammed against his thigh. Renewed, Jaqen picked up a large, sharp rock about the size of a newborn's skull. Now on his knees, the assassin lifted it above his head with both hands and brought it down hard on the only part of the Whitewalker within reach – its knee – which shattered instantly, half severing the limb leaving a grisly display.
The creature wailed in some unheard note that rattled the curve of freshly laid ice at the edge of the cave. They are not used to the pain, Jaqen realised, but they are capable of feeling it. That meant that they belonged to the realm of the living. His mind wandered amid a haze of exhaustion, idly wondering what sort of thing they might be. Were they like the Deep Ones, come from some unreachable corner of the world?
His thought were cut short when the Whitewalker drew a fist and punched the left side of Jaqen's face so hard that he spat out a tooth before he even registered the blow. Another one knocked him around, blurring his vision. His arms flailed out in a desperate attempt to keep the Whitewalker at arm's reach while it remained determined to wrap its hands around Jaqen's throat.
It was close now and for the first time Jaqen realised that the creature was breathing, ever so softly. Jon Snow's account of Hardhome suggested that a single touch of Valyrian steel to its flesh would send it into a powder but the sword was beyond his reach. Was it possible, he wondered, to kill a Whitewalker with his bare hands?
He decided to try, bringing up a knee to his chest. It was a hard kick, close proximity and right in the middle of the frozen thing's bare torso. The creature got the air knocked out of itself. The impact jarred, shoving it backwards into a rough edged boulder that gouged a long chasm diagonally beneath where the creature's ribs would have been if he were a living man. A mist of white dust poured from the wound, immediately caught by the currents of wind circling around the cavern.
This gave the Whitewalker pause. He looked down at the injury as if it had never seen a piece of itself shed to the wind. Jaqen forced his body to lunge forward, haphazardly grasping for the injured leg missing from the knee down. From there he was able to wrestle the confused Whitewalker onto its back. Jaqen crawled onto its chest, pinning it down with his weight while he used the rock again, smashing it first into the Whitewalker's shoulder and then again into the centre of its breastplate.
By now it was shrieking. Its cries cut through the air but as they were a mimic of the Winter ice – they went entirely unnoticed in the blizzard.
Again and again, Jaqen hacked pieces of it away. Injuries a man could not sustain, until there was only half a Whitewalker severed from its legs with a lifeless pile of snow nearby, uncoupled from magic.
Jaqen kept the terrified face alive after breaking both its arms. Then, he leaned down toward its face and stared into the crystal orbs. It eyes shifted frantically – pupils collapsing and expanding. Such wondrous eyes that magic bestowed. The Dragon Queen had beautiful eyes too, though a different shade hell.
