SAMWELL

As he watched, a great piece of the Wall's façade detached itself, and came raining down on the stables where they had been mere moments before. Sam quickened his pace, following the vague light of Melisandre's torch. Just a little further, he told himself, just a little further. "Just a little further, Jon," he called out. But Jon did not respond. Either he could not hear him, or—

No. I will not believe that. Because if he is, we are all doomed. Sam stumbled forwards another step, then collapsed onto a deep pile of snow, landing on his arse with Jon's head lolling against him. He nearly sobbed with frustration, but then found his feet again, and turned to Melisandre, calling over the wind. "Where is it? Where's the tunnel?"

Then he realised the red woman was gone. The sunlight was gone too. Thick clouds descended overhead. Grey shapes emerged on the edge of his vision, ragged and tattered, shambling closer with every second that passed. Beside Sam's left leg, Ghost bared his teeth. Sam clasped shivering fingers around the hilt of his sword. They are here. Melisandre had left him, everyone else was fled or dead, and—

"Tarly!"

That's wrong, Sam thought, squinting at the approaching figures. The dead can't speak. He held his breath, and pursed his lips in cold, silent prayer, squeezing the fingers tighter, tighter, tighter—

"TARLY!" A hand grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him round. Tormund Giantsbane, the big wildling, frost in his already frosty beard. "Stop gawping, now, and let's get out of here!"

They are wights, he realised. Then Ghost growled again, and his senses returned. He picked up Jon's legs. "Help me carry him!"

Tormund took Jon's arms, and together they bore him across the remains of the courtyard, as snow and ice rained from the sky. Pieces of the wooden hoarding atop the Wall, and the scorpion defenses which Othell Yarwyck had spent so long building came crashing to earth. Men smashed themselves to red smears in the snow as they fell. The wind howled from the north, hurling angry hail against Castle Black's ancient keeps and shaking them to the foundation stones.

Tormund pointed. "The wormway!" The door was still open a crack. When Sam looked over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of fiery red silk and black wool. Melisandre was waiting; she had not abandoned him after all. She had brought his black brothers. Mother have mercy. And the Lord of Light have mercy too, I suppose.

They swarmed around him. Dolorous Edd's voice was in there somewhere and Mully's somewhere else, and Pyp's, and Iron Emmett's. They helped Tormund and Sam with Jon, and then, together in formation, they retreated back to the wormway. When he felt wooden boards and earth beneath his feet instead of just snow, Sam fell down and nearly wept. But he was a man of the Night's Watch, and he could not. He looked up just in time to see Tormund and Iron Emmett wrestling the great wood-and-iron doors shut. A final glimpse of the world outside revealed an avalanche coming down, a great wave of snow and wood and stone, and everything between, barreling towards them. If they had not found me, I never would have made it, Sam thought, breathing hard.

Then the doors slammed shut, and Tormund Giantsbane brought the bar down hard, putting four inches of ironwood and steel between them and the winter. Sam had no clue if it would hold, but all they could do was stand by the door – shouldering it closed, as if that would make a difference.

Dolorous Edd was the first to break the silence. "Were there any more out there?"

No one wanted to answer that question. But Sam found himself opening his mouth anyway. "I didn't see them. But maybe that was because I was so busy with…" He motioned towards Jon. Or, rather, Jon's body, completely still on the floor of the tunnel.

"He is dead," Melisandre said.

"What happened?"

Val's question was so absurd that Sam almost laughed. "To Jon? To the Wall?" He shrugged. "I don't know."

"We should take his body somewhere," said Dolorous Edd.

Mully stepped forwards. "The others are gathering in the Shieldhall."

And the Others are gathering above our heads, even now. They're probably crossing the Wall as we speak. But it was no good to dwell on things they could not change… and if the gods were good, if they had one ounce of mercy in the hearts, then the barricade of fallen snow between the wormway entrance and the world above might stop the wights from getting through, for now.

"Not there," said Sam. "Not the Shieldhall. He deserves to… to rest in peace." The words felt strange, as though it were someone else's tongue in his mouth. Yes, rest. And tomorrow, he'll just get up, and everything will be back to normal, and—

"To his chambers," Dolorous Edd ventured. "No one will disturb him down there. We can still get to them through the wormways."

"They don't know," said Mully. "In the Shieldhall, they don't know what's happening. It's chaos down there."

"Someone has to tell them," said Sam, and then, realising that no one else would do it, and also that he did not want to be alone with Jon's body, he knew it must be him. Him, the craven, facing down an army of wildlings, Northmen and his own Sworn Brothers, half of them furious in their anger, half of them utterly terrified by what they had seen up above. He swallowed. "I'll do it," he said, first to himself, then more loudly. "I said, I'll do it."

"Good on you, Slayer," said Mully. Sam stepped away from Jon's body so Mully could lift one end of the stretcher, while Iron Emmett took the other end. Val followed them, and the three of them set off down the tunnel, their torches fading with every step.

"We'll get everyone into the hall," said Dolorous Edd, before departing with Pyp.

Eventually only Sam, Melisandre, Tormund and a few other brothers whose names he did not know remained.

"I'll come with you, lad," said Tormund. "You'll have to do the talking, mind. He's your crow brother, not mine."

"He was everyone's brother," said Sam. But not anymore. He's not anyone's brother any more.

"Aye," Tormund said, "I suppose he was, in a way. Without him…" Abruptly, he set off down the tunnel, leaving his thought hanging in the air. No one wanted to say it aloud, but they all knew that, without Jon Snow, the feeble alliance that kept them all alive was no more.

Maybe, Sam mused, they could pretend that Jon was alive, and not tell anyone what had happened. The Sealord's steward had done that once, in Braavos; he had pretended that his master was abed with some contagious disease, and had ruled for the better part of a year before anyone realised that something was wrong. But here, we need a leader, and desperately, and now. The corpse of Jon Snow could not lead them in the fight against the Others. Tormund seemed the most likely person to take over, but that still left the Night's Watch leaderless, rudderless in these times—

Sam put the thought out of his mind as they entered the Shieldhall. All at once he was assaulted by a wall of shouting, by stamping feet and the rolling thunder of men pushing towards the dais in their attempts to be heard. The very air stank of fear: that smell was ale drank too fast, and of sweat drying in the cold. Of fear, he thought. They are afraid. He would have to hide his own fear so as not to make those worse.

The raised dais at the front of the hall was unoccupied; this was for the Lord Commander and his companions, and none of them were there. Thus when he went up there, and stood in front of the hall, and called, "Everybody, can you just—!", no one heard him, or cared. They were too ensnared in themselves. "My lords, will you just—!"

"QUIET, ALL OF YOU!" Sam would never understand how Tormund did it, but when he let loose that roar, the noise in the hall gradually died away. "Maester Tarly has something to say!" he growled.

Sam winced a little. They were all looking up at him, furtively, not really wanting to listen, but somehow bound to it. "Well," he squeaked, then started again, "well, you see, it's about the Lord Commander—"

"Speak up!" someone called.

Sam cleared his throat a second time. Now, now, I must say it now. He closed his eyes and let the words tumble out in one breath; "You see, the thing is, the Lord Commander, Lord Snow, Jon Snow, well, he's dead."

He expected the hall to dissolve into whispers, or maybe shouting. Part of him wanted it to, and then he would be lost among the waves of conversation.

Instead there was silence. A thousand blank eyes stared back at him.

"He's dead," said Sam, again. "Jon Snow is dead. He was found above in the kennels, stabbed."

In the end it was the Greatjon Umber who asked the question, the question. "Who killed him?"

"We don't know," Sam said.

"Are you going to find out?" asked Tormund from his right.

"Yes. We should. We have to. We—" A thought came suddenly to him, and then, without really thinking, he said, "Whoever killed him… whoever it was, they are probably still here. At Castle Black. Maybe even in this room."

"Why, though?" That was Alys Karstark. "Why would they want to kill him? He… he was…"

He was the only one holding us together, Sam thought, and that is why he had to die. "I don't know," he said, "but I think we can assume that whoever killed him is working with the Others." The moment the words came out of his mouth they sounded insane, but when that hiss settled over the room, he knew that he was not alone in thinking that. "Whoever killed him is our gravest enemy, especially with—" He made a vague motion.

"—with the Wall coming down," said Tormund.

"Well," said Sam. "We don't know that the Wall's come down. Not all of it, at least."

"You saw it yourself, Tarly."

"Yes, but if it had all come down, we'd be dead. The tunnels aren't strong enough to hold all the weight of the ice and snow. I reckon about half of it has fallen, no more. We're still buried, but we can dig ourselves out, I think." And face whatever waits in the world above. He imagined the army of the dead marching south in their thousands, as they had at the Fist of the First Men, the wights staring onwards blindly as they passed over the splintered wreckage of the Wall.

It was best not to dwell on that which he could not do anything about. Quietly, Sam turned his attention back to the hall.

"The letter," called Lady Maege Mormont. "The letter from Winterfell arrived just before Lord Snow died. Is it fair to assume that his murderer and Euron Greyjoy are working together, then?"

"Aye," said Sam. "And with the Others, too. We face enemies to the north and enemies to the south, and enemies to the west at the Shadow Tower, and soon there will be enemies to the east; Cotter Pyke has described the dead descending on Eastwatch-by-the-Sea."

"So we're surrounded," said a familiar dour voice. Dolorous Edd had returned to the hall. "Oh, bloody great."

"B-but," said Sam, "the Wall coming down might have done us all a favour, actually." He found himself stammering, but strangely unable to stop. "I mean, if it's buried us here, it may have buried the other castles along the Wall. The wights will have to dig through all the ruins to reach us." It was a feeble hope, but it was all they had.

"How long will they take getting here, d'you reckon?" asked the Norrey, him of the prodigious beard.

"Hours," said Dolorous Edd.

"Weeks," said Sam.

"Weeks," said Dolorous Edd. "I mean weeks. Maybe even months, you know. Or a year. They're slow moving, these Others."

There was some muffled rumbling from the hall. "The snow's going to keep falling," Sam went on, raising his voice now, "so if we can get out on top, we have some time to prepare fortifications. Palisades, maybe even a bit of stone, boiling oil and hoardings and pitch and fire arrows."

"A lot of fire arrows," added Edd helpfully.

Othell Yarwyck spoke up from further down the dais. "I'll get my builders to it." And Edd said that he would get the stewards to checking the larders and clearing out the above passages. "Well," he said darkly, "we've no lack of snowmelt, and we've enough turnips down here to last until the Others kill us all. Shame Hobb's still around, though. Couldn't he have died instead of Lord Snow?" Three-Finger Hobb told Edd to go and fuck himself.

Sam was beginning to think they might have it all settled when little Lyanna Mormont spoke up at her mother's side. "And what of Lord Snow?"

"My lady?" Sam said.

"You say that he was killed by someone at Castle Black, but as I see it, you have no clue who that might be. Which means there is a traitor among us, who will betray us all to the Others without a second thought. That is something we cannot allow."

"Well," said Sam. "We don't know yet, but—"

"The little girl is right," Tormund cut in. "Someone here murdered Jon Snow. One of you. And we can't just put that aside."

"One of the Northmen, no doubt," said the flint-faced wildling called Alfyn Crowkiller. "The free folk understand the risks—"

"Take that back, you rogue," said the Greatjon. "I remind you, these are Northern lands on which you and your pack of savages have settled. If it were not for our generosity –which you do not deserve – you would be rotting in the wastes beyond the Wall right now." He gave a hoarse laugh, and turned his attention away from Alfyn to the hall entire. "It is obvious that the culprit is among these wildlings. Some revenge for an old injustice, no doubt. And now they have doomed us all."

"You doom us all with your whining, old man," said Alfyn Crowkiller.

"I'll not have my honour challenged by a savage—!"

"Says the one who wanted us to abandon the Wall altogether and march to Winterfell." Alfyn's face contorted. "Is your loyalty to us, or to this squid king?"

"Don't you dare question my loyalty, you oathless—"

"Quiet!" shouted Tormund. "If you squabble any longer, I'll bang yer heads together!"

"I'll question whatever I like," said Alfyn.

"I said QUIET!" Tormund rose above the other's shouts. "We'll never get anywhere like this. So shut up, all of you. Like it or not, free folk and crows got to work together now. I'll have none of this—"

"And who put you in charge, old man?"

For a moment there was quiet in the hall. Then, near the back, someone stood up. Sam squinted and saw that it was Morna, she of the white mask. "I do." Alfyn turned to face her, and began to speak, but she cut him off. "Tormund had the most votes in the Lord Crow's count. Not enough, but I had the second-most, and if you add Tormund's votes to mind, that will carry him over half. Yes, I should lead the free folk. And when we hold this election again after the war is over, I will. But I know when something's bigger than me. And we could do worse than Tormund Giantsbane, Alfyn. Gods forbid, we might choose you—"

"Woman," growled Alfyn over the titters of laughter. "You do not hold any power—"

"I agree with her," said Val, who must have snuck back into the room. "Tormund should be our leader. Aye, we might not have all wanted him. But it's better than being dead."

Then a third voice joined. Sam recognised Sigorn, the Magnar of Thenn. "You give me back Thenn when this is over, old man," he addressed Tormund. "You leave us in peace, and we have a deal."

Sam noted that the wildling seemed somewhat sullen. But then he saw that he was sitting next to his wife, Alys Karstark, and he reckoned she had been rather more willing than Sigorn had been. But if the Magnar had second thoughts, there was nothing he could do about it. All around him the other wildlings were making their pledges, and by then, Tormund was assured of their support. He would not be King-beyond-the-Wall as Mance Rayder had been, and the free folk would not kneel, but he would be followed nonetheless. Jon would be proud, Sam thought sadly.

"And what about the Watch?" asked Pyp. "Jon's dead, we need someone of our own."

"There'll have to be a choosing," said Edd.

Sam shook his head. "There's no time for a choosing. We have to make up our mind, and fast. We need a leader quickly, before they get here." He took a deep breath, expecting to be met with tumultuous shouting. "Does anyone want to volunteer?"

The silence in the room was even more dead than when Sam had told them of Jon's death. It was not just that no one spoke, but no one seemed to breathe. Sam looked round the room, but no one would meet his eye, not Dolorous Edd, not Mully, not Othell Yarwyck or Iron Emmett or Pyp or anyone at all. And could you blame them? Who would want to be Lord Commander when the Wall was falling down, when the last man to hold the post had just been murdered, when they would almost certainly be the final holder of that post when the Others overran Castle Black?

We have to choose someone. Even if they do not want it. With nothing else to do, Sam turned towards Iron Emmett. He had been First Ranger after Alliser Thorne, and the Watch needed a fighter in the days ahead. "Emmett," he began. "Would you—?"

"No. I'm busy training the lads, besides. First Ranger's duties will only grow and grow."

Resignedly, Sam moved on to Othell Yarwyck. He was not well-liked after his attempted betrayal of Jon, but the First Builder had been on the Wall for near twenty years. "First Builder, mayhaps you—?"

"Not for me, Tarly. Lord Commander's gotta know how to speak and rouse the men. But the First Builder don't have to." He sagged back in his chair.

Sam turned his attention to the third of the Watch's high officers: Dolorous Edd. "Look, Edd," he said, "you're damn depressing, but at least you know what you're doing. You were on the Hardhome ranging, and you saw the Fist and Craster's, and you understand the running of the castle better than anybody." When Dolorous Edd did not speak, he continued. "Now, there's no time for a proper vote, so I reckon we should just shout the names, and whoever's name is shouted the loudest—"

"—so long as that name isn't Edd," said Edd. "Lord Steward is bad enough, thank you very much. No, the name I'll be shouting is Sam. He was Jon's best friend, he was the first to kill a white walker, he can read – which puts him above half of us – oh, and his name's easy to shout."

Sam stared back at him. Me? Really? "Well," he said, in a moment of giddiness. "I'll do it if I have to."

Why did I say that? he instantly thought. But by then it was too late. Edd was chanting his name, and so was Iron Emmett, and then Pyp, and Mully, and even Yarwyck. Not because they wanted him as Lord Commander, but because they didn't want to be forced into it himself. As the shouts of "Sam, Sam, Sam!" grew louder and louder, the only thing he could think was, can a maester even be Lord Commander?

In the end, it did not matter. He thought of the flood of arrowheads that had signalled Jon's elections, the flood of stones spilling out of Aemon's kettle and all over the hard black benches, and the Old Bear's raven flying out and around the hall, screaming "Snow! Snow! Snow!" from the rafters. And then he looked around, in this same hall, this place that was so much fuller than it had been on that cold autumn night, and yet so much more empty. "Sam, Sam, Sam!" he shouted, and when the moments of madness had passed, there it was: the fact laid down bare. He was Samwell Tarly, and following some impossible twist in the story, he was the 999th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

The meeting broke up after that. Most of them in the hall retired into the wormways, trying to find their own sleeping-holes and empty rooms in the castle to make their beds in, or joined Othell Yarwyck in trying to clear the snow that blocked the wormways. Sam, still half-dreaming, made his way out through the back entrance, accompanied by Tormund. As they made their way down towards Jon's chambers where they had laid his body, he heard a voice from his left. "Lord Commander, Lord Commander!"

Sam turned. "Lord Ramsay," he said.

"My lord. I hope I am not interrupting you unnecessarily, but I feel it is my duty to inform you that you have my fullest support in these trying times."

"Thank you, my lord."

"There will be those who seek to undermine you, but… well, Lord Snow and I had our differences, but we always had a common understanding that this threat was bigger than either of us."

"Thank you," Sam said again, unsure of what else to say. What would Jon do now?

Ramsay nodded. "I wish you good fortune, my lord."

Sam returned the courtesy and walked past him. What Ramsay had said was true, he supposed. He did not hate the man as the Northmen did, but he did not like him either. But whatever his personal feelings, he would have put them aside for now.

Outside Jon's door they stopped. "I had best get back to the Shieldhall," said Tormund. "If you are in here, someone needs to be in there, making sure…"

"Yes." Sam nodded. "I… Tormund, do you think… do you think…?"

"Do I think that you'll make a Lord Commander?" said the wildling. The friendly tone in his voice diminished. "I don't know. He would have been better. But he's gone."

"Yes," said Sam. "He would be. He was. But like you said, he's gone…"

"He is." There was nothing more to it. Tormund turned to go.

"Tormund," Sam said, a little choked. "When they get above, tell them… they need to build a pyre…"

The wildling nodded. Then he turned and headed off down the corridor. Alone, Sam pushed open the door and entered Jon's chambers.

The body was laid out on the table. The body. It was such a cold, uncaring term. After all the years they'd shared, from that first day in the training yard, to this dark lonely night here, Jon was just a body. And… "The last time I spoke to him, we argued." That stung, even now. "We never argued. Or was he alive, when I came into the kennels…"

"He was lost by then, Samwell," said a brittle voice. Sam might have been shocked by Melisandre's sudden appearance, but he'd grown accustomed to things like this. But what did surprise him was the sight of her: the usually rich and fiery red of her hair and lips had darkened to wine, and her rings and silks no longer shimmered. More than that, she had a heavy red mantle around her shoulders, as if she were truly cold.

"How can you know?" asked Sam.

"The Lord knows—"

"So the Lord knew when Jon was dead." Sam swallowed; there was some bitter taste in his throat. "But he didn't know that he was going to die?"

Melisandre said nothing.

"Or he did. And so did you." He could not say where the accusation sprung from, but the moment he spoke it, he knew it was true. Of course she knew.

The red woman's lips moved very slowly. "Daggers in the dark," she said at last.

"You knew that this would happen?"

It was a question with only one answer. And Melisandre's lack of an answer was all the answer Sam needed.

"And now Jon is dead," he said. "Because of you, your Lord, and your blindness."

"I didn't know," Melisandre said. "I only suspected—"

"You only suspected. That's a damn lot more than the rest of us knew." His voice broke suddenly. "Why didn't you tell him? Why?"

"I warned him." She did not seem able to say more than three or four words at once. "I warned him. He did not listen. And I never thought—"

"No," said Sam. "You didn't think. Not once. And neither did I." If only I had stopped him that night. If I had told him more about the glass candle, I could have made him listen. "What did you do with the glass candle?" he asked.

"It is in my chambers."

"Have you tried—?"

"Not yet. I thought… I thought the Lord Commander."

"I am the Lord Commander now," Sam said. "Give it to me." He wanted to banish Melisandre to some distant corner of Castle Black.

"You do not know how to use it—"

"No. But I will not have you playing games behind my back. If I need you, I will call for you." Until then, be thankful that I am still mourning my friend. And do not give me a reason to tell the others what you have done. Or not done. He did not say the last part, because he was not sure how to reply if she reacted angrily. But he did not have to, because Melisandre lowered her head, and then left the room.

He stared down at Jon's body a while longer. They would have it washed and dressed, and until the builders managed to clear the heavy film of snow from above, they would keep the body in the underground larders; the cold would keep it from rotting. It was a strange thing to think of, trussing his friend up like a joint of meat. But they were all just that: meat. And the Others were descending to feast, and Euron from the south. There were enemies all around them, and no one had ever taught him how to cope with it all?

Kill the boy, he thought. It was the only lesson he had, though Aemon had never meant it for him. Kill the boy, Samwell Tarly, and let the man be born.

After a few moments, Sam became aware that he was no longer alone at his vigil. He looked up expecting Val or Tormund, but instead it was Ghost. The sight of the white wolf took Sam back to earlier that night, out in the snow. He would never have found Jon if the wolf was not howling. Ordinarily that would have been no strange thing; most wolves howled, after all. But not Ghost. In the years Sam had known him, Ghost never howled. Until tonight. For a while he stared into those bright red eyes, redder than any coals, yet stranger, somehow, not fire but… something else. He almost recognised the colour, but in the end it evaded him. Sam leant across, and ran his fingers through the pale fur on the wolf's ears, and down his snout. "It's alright," he whispered, wondering how much of that Ghost understood. But it wasn't.


First of all, I would like to apologise for the long wait you've all had to endure while waiting for this chapter.

Basically, I spent half of November preparing for an interview at Oxford, and about one week after that recovering from that harrowing experience. Then I managed to lose my laptop charger, and Google Drive and Dropbox both exhibited mighty fuck-ups, and the dodgy Chinese company that was meant to be delivering the replacement messed that up too (though really I should have done my research and realised the price was too good to be true, and just Amazon-ned it anyway). Anyhow, even though I finished this chapter in late November, I've only just managed to get it up now.

It's alright, I suppose, though there's nothing particularly special about it. Sam managed to become LC and... you know what, I don't really want to go in depth on this. I just want to get the chapter uploaded.