Andrew

The ridge slanted sharply from the earth, a long fold of stone and soil shaped like a claw. Trees clung to its lower slopes, pines and hawthorn and ash, but higher up the ground was bare, the ridgeline stark against the cloudy night sky.

He ran up back to the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Wolfswood opened up into a vast and cold empire of trees. The smell of earth and trees was heavy in his nose. He could make out the scents of pine needles and acorns and half a dozen other earthy scents. Had his sense of scent always been this good?

He could feel the high stone calling him. Up he went, loping easy at first, then faster and higher, his strong legs eating up the incline. It felt different now than when he ran with two legs. He had been fast then, climbing and leaping and vaulting across buildings, running along narrow beams and above sloping stone roofs but now he was faster. A silent wind passed through the branches as he raced by, making the leaves rustle in a sweet melody. He could hear the wind sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one another, even the sound a pinecone made as it tumbled to the forest floor. The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the good green world.

Gravel flew from beneath his paws as he gained the last few feet to stand upon the crest. The moon hung above the tall pines pale and round, and below him the trees and hills went on and on as far as he could see or smell.

He was strong and swift and fierce, quiet as a ghost and quick as a lightning bolt, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him.

Far below, at the base of the woods, something moved amongst the trees. A flash of grey, quick-glimpsed and gone again, but it was enough to make his ears prick up. Down there beside a swift green brook, another form slipped by, running. Wolves, he knew. His little cousins, chasing down some prey. Now he could see more of them, shadows on fleet grey paws. A pack.

He had a pack as well, once. He felt a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness. He sat on his haunches and lifted his head to the darkening sky, and his cry echoed through the forest, a long lonely mournful sound. As it died away, he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow.

These woods belonged to him, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. A grey stone hall had been his home once when he was with other half, the man half but the forest is his home now.

The wind shifted suddenly.

Deer, and fear, and blood. The scent of prey woke the hunger in him. He sniffed the air again, turning, and then he was off, bounding along the ridgetop with jaws half-parted. The far side of the ridge was steeper than the one he'd come up, but he flew surefoot over stones and roots and rotting leaves, down the slope and through the trees, long strides eating up the ground. The scent pulled him onward, ever faster.

The woods were darkening all about him and then he heard the sound.

Stark

The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for the voice, for a glimpse of the human intruder, but there was nothing, only...

A weirwood.

It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up forming a vast wide net of weirwood roots. The tree was big compared to other weirwoods he had seen, bigger than the one in Winterfell and Starfall, and it was growing still as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. A red eye looked at him. A white root was in the place where the other eye should have been.

He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and man, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.

The old powers are waking, the weirwood said. The giants have woken up from the depths of earth and the songs of wargs fill the cold air. The old powers are waking. Dead men walk and the trees have eyes again. Remember who you are. Remember.

Suddenly he was surrounded by darkness. He heard a woman's scream in the distance.

Andrew opened his eyes at once, sitting up.

Another dream, Andrew thought feebly. It felt as if he would never get free of them. And coming to Westeros had only made it worse. This one was much different than the others he had. He was a wolf in his dream and there was a weirwood with some man's face. It had said something about giants and wargs and trees.

Warg? Did he mean me? Andrew wondered. Skinchangers and wargs belonged in Old Nan's stories, not in the world he had lived in all his life. So were direwolves and dragons yet they roamed around the world and Andrew himself had seen a direwolf. He had a pup when he was a boy at Winterfell. A quiet pup with fur the color of pure snow and eyes the color of blood. Andrew had nursed the pup back to its health with the help of his mother after the pup's mother had died saving him and his mother. He had named it Ghost for the white wolf had never made any sound. He weaned back to health quite soon and used to follow him wherever he went.

A part of him yearned to see the wolf. The boy in him wished that the wolf was his, but something else said that the Targaryens would have killed it the moment Winterfell fell.

And the tree told him to remember, to remember who he was. He didn't know what he meant by that. His mother had said the same to him once, the day she sacrificed herself to save him. Who am I? Andrew wondered. He is not a prince now, not an assassin or an innkeep, he never knew who he is anymore. What did his mother tell him? You're Andrew Stark, hailed from the line of Gods and Kings. He had forgotten that once but he would never forget that again.

From the way the light had shifted, Andrew judged that he had been asleep for four or five hours. The woods and wolves were gone. Andrew was back again, down in the damp vault of some ancient watchtower that must have been abandoned thousands of years before. It wasn't much of a tower now. Even the tumbled stones were so overgrown with moss and ivy that you could hardly see them until you were right on top of them.

The Sword of the Morning still hung in the south, the bright white star in its hilt blazing like a diamond in the dawn. The fire he had put up last night had died out. Andrew stroked the fire back and put the remaining catch of the last night over the fire, two rabbits and a pair of small silvery trouts.

The Tower was a good place for him. No villages near, the woods are full of game, there's fish in the streams and lakes and rabbits in the woods and no one is ever going to find him there. It served best to stay hidden until he reached Winterfell and the tower was near the castle but well surrounded by trees.

There are people in the woods, foresters, hunters and wood cutters but none troubled him here though. The Glovers are mostly on the other end of the wolfswood, but they used Wolfswood for hunting and timber and other things. Then there are Wulls in west of the mountains along the Bay of Ice, Harclays back in the edge of the hills, and Knotts and Liddles and Norreys and even some Flints up there in the high places all along the mountains. His father's mother's mother had been a Flint of the mountains. Once they had gone up the mountains to visit her family.

Standing from a peak of the mountains, his father picked him up in his arms and showed the wide vast lands of the north. "Look at that, Andrew," he had said, showing him around. "Home. Not just Winterfell, whatever path you take from here, north, south, east or west every road leads to home."

When his father had held him in his hands, Andrew had felt all of it as home but without him and mother it didn't feel like home.

Perhaps the mountain clans could be of help. His great grandfather had married a Flint and they are family to him. Theo Wull was one of his father's friends. Buckets, they used to call him and he was always friendly. Buckets was their sigil, Andrew knew. Three brown buckets on a blue field, with a border of white and grey checks. Lord Wull came to Winterfell once, to do his fealty and talk with his Father. And there's the Knott and the Norrey and the Liddle too. All of them were trusted men of his father. Trusted men of your father, he thought then, not you.

Even the Boltons used to roam the woods freely. Bolton hunters and other troubles. So far Andrew had managed to stay hidden away from everyone. No one knew he was there and if they did they never bothered him. Only once did he encounter any of the northern people in the woods, when a sudden burst of freezing rain sent him looking for shelter. It was then Andrew had found the tower there. When he entered it, Andrew saw the orange glow of fire farther back and realized he was not alone. "Come in and warm yourself," a man's voice called out. "There's stone enough to keep the rain off both our heads."

He offered him oatcakes and blood sausage and a swallow of ale from a skin he carried, but never his name; nor did he ask theirs. Andrew figured him for a Liddle. The clasp that fastened his squirrelskin cloak was gold and bronze and wrought in the shape of a pinecone, and the Liddles bore pinecones on the white half of their green-and-white shields.

The Liddle took out a knife and whittled at a stick. "When there was a Stark in Winterfell, a maiden girl could walk the kingsroad in her name-day gown and still go unmolested, and travelers could find fire, bread, and salt at many an inn and holdfast. But the nights are colder now, and doors are closed. There's dragons in the wolfswood, and flayed men ride the kingsroad asking after strangers."

That was a surprise for Andrew. "Boltons?" he asked the Liddle.

"The Bastard's boys, aye. The bastard is trying to prove himself to his father to be his trueborn heir by trying to hunt the brotherhood. And I heard some talks of a certain dead man freeing an entire castle." He looked at Andrew and at Frost along his back. "As to Winterfell," the man went on, "it's not a place that anyone would be going. The Dragon Prince rules there. Hardly does a good word ever come out of the castle." He poked at the fire with his stick. "It was different when there was a Stark in Winterfell. But the wolf king's dead with his queen and pup, and all that's left us is the ghosts."

"The wolves will come again," Andrew said solemnly.

"And how would you be knowing, boy?"

"Just a feeling."

"I never knew the king myself," the man said, "but he was a good man, everyone knows it. All that's left of him are some good words and his ghost."

It warmed his heart to know that his father and mother are remembered in the north. I am left of him, Andrew wanted to tell him. I am his son, his own blood. The Starks are not dead, I'm here. Me, Andrew Stark, I'm still here.

They spent that night together in the tower, for the rain did not let up till well past dark. When the fire had burned down to embers, Andrew let himself to sleep.

When he woke the next morning, the fire had gone out and the Liddle was gone, but he'd left a sausage for him, and four oatcakes folded up neatly in a green and white cloth. Two of the cakes had pinenuts baked in them and two had blackberries. Andrew ate one of each, and still did not know which sort he liked the best. When the Starks are back in Winterfell again, he told himself, he'd send for the Liddles and pay them back a hundredfold for every nut and berry they fed him with.

He left the tower by noon when the sun came breaking through the clouds. Andrew knew that he was only a day's ride away from Winterfell. He had seen and known enough about the castle and now the only thing remained was to take it back.

He chewed of the cooked rabbit strip as he rode. The meat was not cooked perfectly but it served enough.

The last ray of sun vanished behind the top of the trees. Twilight filled the woods. It seemed to grow colder almost at once. Andrew slowed his palfrey to a walk. By then both he and the horse were damp with sweat. He dismounted, shivering, tugging his jacket close. A bank of melting snow lay under the trees, bright in the twilight, water trickling off to form small shallow pools. Andrew went to one knee and brought his hands together, cupping the runoff between his fingers. The snowmelt was icy cold. He drank, and splashed some on his face, until his cheeks tingled.

The horse was well lathered, so Andrew tied her to a nearby tree and decided to walk the rest of the way.

Off in the trees, the distant scream of some frightened animal made him look up. Some predator had found some prey. Andrew looked around, searching for any predator be it man or beast. The woods stayed silent and the only sound was a rush of wings behind him as an owl took flight.

He was away from his horse when he heard the sounds: horses, and coming towards Winterfell from the north. It only meant one thing, men from Winterfell. He thought to run back to his palfrey. Could he outrun them? No, they were too close, they'd hear him for a certainty, and will catch him before he reach his mount.

He moved behind a thick stand of grey-green sentinels. He listened to the sound of hooves growing steadily louder as they trotted briskly down the kingsroad. From the sound, there were five or six of them at the least. Their voices drifted through the trees.

"Look at here." The horses surrounded him. Six they were and each rider with the black and red cloaks.

"Who are you?" One of them asked. "What are you doing here?"

All of them were mounted. It was not easy to fight multiple mounted men at once. "I'm a humble merchant from the sea, men," Andrew told them. "I mean no harm."

"Merchant from the sea?" the one behind him took Frost from him and threw it to the first one. "What business does a seafarer has in the land? What kind of humble merchant wears a sword."

The one who held Frost unsheathed the blade and held it in his hand. The blue blade glinted in the twilight.

"A fine sword," he said and touched it. He touched the blade and took his hand back as if he had touched fire. "Shit, it's freezing." He threw Frost down and drew his own sword from the sheath and the sounds of five other swords scraping against the scabbard echoed it.

"You're from the Brotherhood, aren't you?"

Andrew looked at all of them surrounding him. He still had his hidden blades on but he could only take out three of them before they could strike back. And if they did he could not fight them in an open combat with his hidden blades. Without Frost he could not hope to defeat three mounted men.

It is wise to play the innocent now. Andrew raised his arms above his head. "I'm not who you think me to be," he told them. "I'm just a merchant and that sword is for Lord Bolton. I was ordered to get it from an armorer in volantis. I'm just doing my job."

"Gods be good," another voice broke in. "I know you. Seven hells! You're alive. How is that even possible? You're supposed to be dead."

"What is it?"

"It's Stark's son. It's him"

All the eyes were on him again, this time with a complete look of surprise.

"He's dead. You've just gone mad with fear of Eddard Stark's ghost."

"I know a face when I see one," he pointed his finger at his face, "and I've seen it before I tell you."

"Aye," another croaked a laugh. "Next time tell me that the ghost of the King in the North is here." They all laughed at that.

"Quiet," the one who threw Frost down said. "We'll bring him to the Prince and let him decide what must be done to him."

It was then he knew that this was going to end ugly. He was about to drive his hidden blade to the one near him when he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye.

He glimpsed a pale shadow moving through the trees. Leaves rustled, and the shadow came bounding out of the dark, so suddenly that all the horses startled and gave a whinny.

The white shadow leapt. Man and wolf went down together with only the man's scream and no snarl or growl of the wolf, rolling, smashing into the ground. Two of the horses reared and fell down before their riders could regain control of them, trapping both the men under them. Andrew flexed his wrist and drove the hidden blade to the knee of the man near him and then his throat in quick succession. Of the remaining two, one came for him and the other went for the wolf.

Andrew ducked and rolled through the charge of the man and picked up Frost from the ground. When the rider wheeled his horse around and came for the next pass, he was ready. He leapt away from the sword and slashed Frost at the rider's throat. The horse ran for a distance and stopped as the rider slowly fell from the saddle to the ground with a lazy thud.

The direwolf was already on the other man, bearing him down. He fell back on the snow with a lazy thud and a shout, flailing wildly with his sword. The direwolf darted in after him, and the white snow turned red where he had fallen.

The sixth man removed himself from below his horse and ran from the carnage . . . but not far. As he went scrambling up towards the trees, the white wolf bounded after the running man, hamstringing him with a single snap of his teeth, and going for the throat as the screaming man went quiet.

And then there was no one left but the wolf and him. His white muzzle was wet and red, but his eyes burned a bright red, the color of blood which was spilt all around.

Andrew breathing grew harder and his heart beat faster. The wolf bounded towards him slowly. "Ghost?" He turned toward the wolf, and dropped his sword. The direwolf came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. The direwolf broke into a run. He was a lot bigger than he had been when he last saw him as a pup, and the only sound he made was the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath his paws. He never makes a sound, Andrew remembered. Silent as a ghost he came and Andrew waited for him wondering whether he should be afraid or happy about seeing him. When he reached Andrew he leapt, and they wrestled amidst brown grass and long shadows as the stars came out above them. "You are alive and you remember me," Andrew said when Ghost stopped worrying at his forearm. The direwolf had no answer, but he licked Andrew's face with a tongue like a wet rasp, and his eyes caught the last light and shone like two great red suns.

He had never thought to feel happiness in his life after Joy died but he was more than happy to see this old friend of his. "Ghost. I missed you, pal."