Fires were lit several places on the battlefield, illuminating an otherwise darkened sky. Northern winds had picked up, carrying with them a suffocating smell of roasted human flesh. It settled over Winterfell like a thick coat of stink making eyes water and throats burn.
The enemy had spent the past hours finishing off the fatally wounded Bolton and Karstark men, and now they were burning the bodies along with their own fallen soldiers. The moans and pleas of the abandoned men had reminded Ramsay of his failure, and he felt relieved when they were silenced for good. Some had screamed for their mothers, others for their gods when enemy steel pierced their armour and found their hearts, sending them into the eternal pit that was death's dark abyss. After the merciful purge, all that remained were the loud crackles of angry flames drowning out all other sounds of the world. The sickening sweet stench of men's melting fat made Ramsay gag, so he covered his nose and mouth with a sleeve trying to minimize the intake of the foul air surrounding him on the rampart.
The giant had been close to the gates when it had fallen, face first into the ground. Like a colossal, grotesque porcupine it lay displayed with hundreds of arrows and spears piercing its corpse. Around sixty wildlings and the bastard himself had gathered around the fallen thing in a circle holding hands, some crying even. Ramsay snorted as they broke out in a foreign tongued song, apparently honouring the abomination with the hideous noises escaping their throats. When the singing finally ceased they lit the giant on fire, and the smoke covered Winterfell in a heavy, stinking fog once again. From his place on the wall, Ramsay watched with a vindictive scowl as Jon Snow rode across the now scorched field, dropping out of sight beyond the northern tree line.
Having made camp at the edge of the woods a few miles north of the castle, the enemy was settling in for the night. Ramsay could make out their small fires in the distance and his thoughts shifted again to Sansa. The triumphant smirk she had given him when the knights of the Vale had made their surprise attack from the flank haunted him still. She had turned the game around on him gaining the upper hand, and he could tell even from afar she knew, that he knew defeat was imminent. He had underestimated her grossly, thinking she was making empty threats and letting herself get carried away on the spur of the moment. At the parley he had been amused by her anger, knowing he would have her back in his bed by nightfall and with a whole new list of ideas to try out on her.
What are they planning? He gritted his teeth feeling a headache coming on. Will they return to Castle Black? Or try out for the Dreadfort? It seemed like the two most obvious tactics the Starks would choose under their current circumstances. "Call on the Maester. Tell him to send a Raven to the Dreadfort; the men must get ready for a siege". Ramsay pondered for a second, then added, "if they should fail to defend the castle, my orders are to burn it to the ground." "At once, my Lord." The soldier next to him left in a hurry. They wouldn´t survive the winter out there...it would be madness.
Stannis had tried such tactics and failed. The Baratheon army had been so easily cut down, weakened as they were after months of starving and freezing in the waste lands. "Like slaughtering pigs in a pen", Roose had said, and he had indeed been right. The old stag himself was found frozen and beheaded in the woods, causing Ramsay to feel quite saddened by his demise. He would have made the ultimate trophy; a king skinned alive and hung from the walls of the Dreadfort as a morbid banner reminding the people of the North who was their new supreme sovereign. The victory had been a gift handed to his House by an arrogant, foolish man too busy believing in witchcraft to actually study his opponent, and although he had initially thought it would be as easy getting rid of the Starks as it had the southern cunt, Ramsay now suspected differently. Jon Snow was a northerner after all; he would most likely refrain from making the same fatal mistake the Son of Fire had made in his inexperience with winter warfare, leading an army of exhausted men into the barren, unforgiving plains of the North.
Without uttering a word to his men Ramsay left the wall. The anger still untamed within him had not subsided in the least since morning when he had been driven off the battlefield. He knew he had to get some release to clear his mind, so he went looking around for someone to inflict pain on. In the kitchens he spotted a redheaded girl cleaning a stack of plates from the evening meal. The copper hair, long and flowing, reminded him again of Sansa Stark and without further need for justification of his action other than the colour of her locks and the rage it brought forth in him, he grabbed the girl hard by the upper arm, drilling his fingers into the soft flesh there. Startled, she looked up at him, dropping the plate she had been drying of. She was young and not altogether hideous which was good enough. "Come with me!" he sneered and dragged the girl towards his chambers.
Inside he threw her on the bed amongst the furs. Climbing on top of her shaking frame he ripped the dress open, making her small bosom spring from the shredded cloth. The girl was sobbing hysterically. "M'lord! M'lord! Please!" He slapped her face and bit her neck and chest. She squealed and convulsed in return, bucking like a wild animal caught in a trap. Releasing himself from his breeches he thrust violently into her, savouring the pain stricken expression on her face as he scratched, bit and fucked her without mercy or concern.
At dawn he let the girl go. A bloodied mess she was, face swollen, bruises and welts from his fingernails and teeth all over her body. She was limping, covering herself with rags from the dress. There was a little blood trickling down her legs. She had been so damned dry and tight that Ramsay had almost hurt himself fucking her. He smiled watching her go and waited until her hand reached for the door before he spoke." I expect to see you again tonight after dinner. Be clean and undressed when I return". The girl did not turn around but nodded her head slightly." Yes, m'lord". She closed the door silently behind her, and he heard the tortured sob she had been saving for when she was alone and out of earshot escape her lips prematurely in the hallway outside. Ramsay folded his hands behind his head, stretched his legs and smiled at the ceiling.