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Every Loyalty

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Chapter XV:

What Remains

Part II

It was getting harder to breathe. The stench of burning rotten and decaying flesh filled his nose. With the sheer amount of bodies crowding at him, spindly fingers grabbing at his arms and reaching for his face—it was too much like the battle against the Bolton army, and yet so much worse. Jon could barely see a foot ahead in the mass of fighting men and Dead. The sight of blue eyes flashing in front of him guided his sword, but he could feel himself being pulled down, sharp teeth biting into his ankle, nails into the flesh of his thigh.

A boney hand grabbed his wrist and shoulder, pulling his sword down so another could glance at his head. He nearly wasn't able to duck in time, but those hands continued to pull him down into the snow and hard cobblestone.

He only just caught the glint of a knife aiming to gouge his neck, until a growl and a set of powerful canine jaws closed over the weapon and the hand that held it, wrenching it away. Jon watched in wide-eyed shock as Ghost closed on the Wight's jugular, ripping its head clean off.

Tormund was there next, setting fire to the remaining parts with a torch. He passed it on to another Wildling before he gave Jon a hand, helping him to his feet.

"That's one loyal beast," Tormund remarked.

Jon inwardly agreed, rubbing one of Ghost's ears affectionately. He frowned to see the other ear missing a chunk of flesh and fur. Finally though, he was able to see Grey Worm now that the wave of Wights were being pushed back by the other Northmen and Wildlings. The Wights that were able to escape them were moving fast across Winterfell's inner courtyard. If they kept on at that speed, they would reach the Great Keep soon enough.

"They came from the Crypts." Jon grimaced.

Tormund echoed his thoughts, "They're heading for the Keep."

"They smell the others," Grey Worm said.

Dread coiled in the pit of Jon's stomach. If those things were able to pry open the doors of the Keep, everyone who was taking shelter there would be slaughtered. Women and children, the old and the sick. Sansa, Larisa and Will…

Grey Worm wore a grave look that probably mirrored his own; Jon knew he wasn't the only one who had someone to protect.

He took a short breath, steadying himself, then met Tormund's gaze. "Follow them."

"Aye, you keep going," Tormund nodded. He rallied his men to join him and soon took off in the direction of the Keep.

Jon and Grey Worm took their remaining men and continued onward, past the armory and the kitchens. It was a bloodbath of dead, men and women still fighting for their lives, while Wights tore at their own limbs to get to those who were trying to take refuge behind fallen support beams and crumpled parapets.

Jon could see the gates before the Godswood. It was close, but as ever, not close enough. Daenerys was soaring high above them, Drogon's fire laying waste to the east side of the battle raging on the other side of Winterfell's walls. That was likely where the White Walkers were trying to enter the Godswood. Or maybe they were already inside, on their way to Bran.

Gritting his teeth, Jon fought his way toward the gates. Already the wave of Wights was growing stronger, somehow more numerous as they raised from the ground.

The Night King was close. That was the only explanation, unless his command reached this far from the other side of the castle walls. Either way, they were running out of time, and Jon's men were falling one by one.

Grey Worm's hand on his shoulder made him hesitate. The other man held tightly to his bloody spear.

"Go!" Grey Worm was forced to shout over the cacophony of the battle and their men dying around them. "Go to the gate. We will hold them."

Despite the deep hole in his gut, Jon nodded. He clasped the other man's arm once, in respect for the warrior, and a friend.

When he eventually reached the gate of the Godswood on his own, he looked over his shoulder to see the Wights clamoring to scale the iron spikes. Their bodies were gouged, one by one, until the spear was snapped in two.

It was all too fast. Willem was thrown backwards by people fleeing the onslaught of Wights when the cellar doors burst open. He might've hit his head on the dusty ground, because the next time he opened his eyes, Larisa was there, calling out to him. Only he couldn't exactly hear her at first. Her face was frantic, but her words were garbled and lost to his ears. It wasn't until she was yanked away from him that the terror churning his gut registered.

Despite the ringing in his ears, he raised himself and urgently tried to focus his vision. When he found his sister, he didn't have time to think. He leapt from where he lay and sunk his sword into the Wight that had her pinned to the ground. It continued to turn his stomach, but it was also satisfying to feel the dragonglass blade sink into its writhing body.

By some miracle, his aim was true.

The creature clawed at its dead heart, but finally fell limply. Will scrambled to his feet the best he could, kicking the body over at the same time that Larisa desperately pushed it away from her. He grabbed her hand and helped her back onto her feet.

"What now?" he asked, his eyes wild, "Where do we go?"

"This way!" Tyrion called out to them. Sansa was with him, along with Varys and Missandei.

Will followed after them, until he realized his sister was hesitating.

"Garda!" she called, and grabbed the hand of the older woman who worked them in the kitchens. He had never seen her look so frail and afraid.

"Quickly, come on," Sansa pressed. She was halfway up a narrow staircase at the back of the cellar that led upwards, and seemingly out of this hellhole. She held out a hand of support to Larisa.

After a moment's hesitation, she took it.

"What about the others?" Will asked.

"Keep moving," Larisa hissed. She grabbed his sleeve to make sure he kept up with them on their way up the stairs. Soon enough, they were breathing headier air on the main floor of the Keep.

"Is that a fire?" Sansa asked, her voice lowered in a whisper. The smell of burning was unmistakable. Regardless, they kept moving down the hall to find the right path to exit the tower.

"I don't suppose that was their idea of smoking us out," Tyrion dryly remarked, but it didn't manage to hide his fear. "The guards were carrying torches…you know, before they were devoured."

"We'll be among them soon if we don't find a way out," Varys noted. "The fire may be close, but they are closer."

"Wait," Missandei stopped them just before they were about to turn the corner.

With the hallway so still, he could hear the sound of steps falling quickly on the stone floor, getting louder, and closer.

"Go," Sansa said, guiding Missandei and Larisa in the opposite direction. Will was the only one with a weapon and training enough to use it. He stayed behind them all, his sword drawn to protect their backs. He turned to look back.

Blue eyes stared back at him.

"Run!"

Will's shout carried. The sounds of inhuman snarls and hisses followed as he sped into a sprint, grabbing his sister's hand to make sure she kept up with him. Eventually, the hall split in two ways, and before he knew it, he had pulled Larisa straight while the rest of their group had veered left.

With the Wights so close behind, there was no time to go back—only to fairly skid to a halt when the roof nearly rained fire over them. A portion of it crumbled down, in large pieces of rock and burning wood.

Will stared dumbly as the Wights recoiled at the flames now licking the walls on either side, the debris in the center barring their way forward.

"Willem!" Larisa grabbed at his shoulder.

The fire was spreading.

Snapping back to his wits, he followed her down the corridor, taking a sharp turn, then another, and another still until his surroundings blurred in the corners of his eyes. He thought they must be on the east side of the castle, but he couldn't be sure of anything. His heart was pounding in his ears. Smoke was filling his lungs, and it was growing hotter.

Then he saw the window.

"Larisa, stop!" He took her hand, unintentionally yanking her back a few steps. She was pale and wheezing for breath, her hair wild. But she caught onto his thoughts as her brows furrowed warily.

"Tell me you're joking," she said.

Will squeezed her hand once. He let her go, only to try and raise the window pane. It didn't budge.

"Damn it!" he growled.

Larisa nudged him out of the way. Her heeled shoe was in her hand, though dimly he wondered, when had she taken the bloody thing off to begin with?

She used the small heel to strike the glass—three times, and it finally cracked. Will held her back from continuing. He could hear the Wights again, and by the blanched look on her face, he knew Larisa did too. What would reach them first, the Dead, or the fires?

He took the hilt of his sword, covered his eyes with his free hand, and broke the glass away.

"By the Seven, why didn't we think of that sooner?" Larisa said, but she still heaved from her efforts, coughing from the smoke growing thicker around them.

Will climbed on top of the window sill, his sweating palms slipping only once before he regained his balance. He stuck his head out along with his shoulder and sucked in several breaths of frigid air, then peered over the side. There was enough room on the other side for them to edge carefully along the ramparts to the main bridge.

Then he paused, meeting his sister's gaze.

He could hear Wights, moving faster, as if they had a scent.

"Here, I'll help you up," he said, a touch of dread in his voice. Larisa still looked reluctant. She tried and failed to hold in another cough; it was becoming unbearably hot.

He held his hand out to her a bit farther. "I'm not leaving without you, so you better take my damn hand!"

She hesitated, nervously looking over her shoulder. Will was slow to follow her line of vision, but he saw the way her face changed to one of panic. He couldn't hold onto her. Not her hand, or even her sleeve. She moved faster, pushing him out of the window.

"Go!"

Larisa watched her brother for what felt like a fraction of a second. She'd wanted to make sure she hadn't pushed him clean off the side of the tower, but there was no time left. She was forced to flee the burst of fire that nearly singed her skin.

Then the ground disappeared beneath her.

She fell, down the short flight of stairs. But she must have found purchase on something while grabbing madly at the wall, because she was able to slide to a stop along her side. She didn't feel any pain when she forced herself to her feet and continued down the steps. Perhaps it was the fear of death that kept her going, or the fact that the smoke was beginning to make her delirious.

She was wandering in the dark, of what used to be the main hall. Jon had been declared king here. She had begged him for her life. For her brother's life.

Now it was a shambles—upturned tables and broken chairs, forgotten mugs of ale and cracked bowls. If she remembered right, there was an entrance at the other side of the room, one more long corridor, and then she could be free. She would brace whatever madness laid beyond the walls of the Great Keep, if only she could escape them.

I will not die here. I will not—

She held in a gasp, but flinched badly when the sound of loud scuffling echoed. From where, she didn't know.

Tears found their way down her cheeks and neck as she stumbled forward. She only wore one shoe, but finally, she remembered Jon's dagger. She slid it from out of the bodice of her dress and unsheathed it, holding it with both hands. Coming to the last hall, she took a steadying breath that still shook, along with her hands. She peered around cautiously, but saw nothing there.

Nothing, save for the open doors of the tower, and the light of the moon.

With everything she had left inside her, she made a final run towards the doors, and her freedom.

Something stiff and cold grabbed a fistful of her hair. Then her arm and ankles, and only her hands instinctively reaching out kept her face from cracking on the stone floor. A scream tore from her throat as those claws pulled, yanked, and dragged her into the dark.

Her nails scraped the ground, but couldn't grasp anything. Her voice, reverberating off the walls, no longer sounded like her own.

And then it was gone. The hands of Death that gripped her vanished, and she was still on the ground. Her ears finally registered the screams of dying Wights, the glancing of metal through air and flesh, and a man's bellowing. "Hahaa! Come on, ya damn bastards!"

Larisa saw his flagrant red hair before anything else, but she was paralyzed, either with fear or relief.

"Ey, Missy, are you gunna peel yourself off the floor, or do I got to carry you?" Tormund asked.

Dimly Larisa knew she was crying. She wiped hastily at her eyes. But while her voice failed her, she was at least able to smile weakly at him. She took his offered hand, yelping when he hefted her into his arms, as if she were no heavier than a sack of wheat.

"This is no place for a lady to die alone," he said. His boots made large strides toward the large doors of the keep. He briefly held up her forgotten dagger with his other hand. "You may not be kissed by fire, but you're a little scrapper, aren't you?"

She would have answered him, but as they stepped across the threshold of the Great Keep and into the night air, Larisa had never been so relieved to see the dark, clouded sky.

"Thank you, Tormund," she said. Her voice was still coarse with smoke that had filled her lungs.

"Don't go singin' my praises yet," he warned. They both looked ahead.

The Dead were coming over the hill.

Jon reached the heart of the Godswood, only to find Theon fallen at the base of the weirwood tree. He was breathing, just barely. Jon looked past the trees and found Arya, battling the White Walkers where Theon's Ironborn had fallen.

The Night King was making strides towards Bran, who stared back at the being with knowing eyes.

Instinct propelled Jon forward, his Valyrian sword in hand. He deflected the blow that would have ended his younger brother. He saw recognition in the Night King's blue gaze. Disdain, with the slight upwards curling of his lip.

It's not over yet.

"Don't you dare give up!" Tormund's voice startled Larisa enough to keep her wits about her. She stood on her own with Jon's dagger in hand. She had managed to kill a Wight on her own, but it was insignificant in the grand scheme of what they faced. They were surrounded, and though some of the Wildling's men had escaped the Great Keep to join them, they wouldn't last much longer.

The Dead were climbing over Tormund by the droves, grabbing at his sword that continued to cleave them like a butcher's knife. He'd told her to stay close, but her arms were shaking, and he couldn't continue to protect her along with himself.

A rotting hand grabbed her neck like a vice. Another grabbed her wrist, bending back her arm until she was forced to drop the dagger. Blue washed over her vision, cold and piercing.

Then it all fell away like dust.

Tormund struck at air as the Wights around him dissipated into nothing.

Larisa stumbled out into the courtyard, falling when her legs finally buckled. Dead men and women littered the ground. The Great Keep was on fire in places, crumbled in many more. She still didn't know where her brother was, or if he was alive.

"Come on, Missy," Tormund said. He helped her up and allowed her to keep hold of his arm. They made their way toward the East Gate, where Northmen and Unsullied, Dothraki and Wildlings alike were slowly making their way back into Winterfell from the field of battle.

There they found Jon, being supported by Arya as he held his side.

But he was alive. When his brown eyes eventually found her, he smiled.

She managed one in return. You did something reckless, didn't you?

Larisa didn't care that all that remained in this place was watching her. She went to him, and he held his free arm open to her.

Arya stepped away, a small grin curving her mouth. Larisa didn't notice.

With tears in her eyes, she touched around the oozing wound above Jon's hip, noting with relief that it didn't look that deep. She touched his face that was covered in sweat and dried blood. Then, mindful of his injuries, she stepped into his embrace.