JAIME

"Ser, you must wake up. Ser!"

Garrett Paege, calling his name, as if from far off. Jaime's eyes blinked suddenly open. The chamber, his bedclothes, the squire: all smelled faintly of sweat and snow. He glanced through the window. It was still dark: not full dark, but certainly not morning – not yet dawn.

"What is it, Paege?"

"Ser, they are attacking, ser!"

Stannis. Jaime rolled sideways, sitting up in bed. Paege was carrying a cup of wine in one hand and a bundle of clothes in the other. His face was red, half from running, half from the frost. "Where is the attack?" he asked the squire.

"The eastern gate, ser."

Naturally. It had not been the best question: the question of a mind still addled from sleep, or lack of sleep. Jaime stumbled to his feet and pulled his shirt on, then stood by the window and allowed the squire to button his jerkin while he managed with the trousers himself. There was no time for full armament, but Paege had been sensible enough to bring him his arming coat, which had enough padding to weather a few blows. He took Widow's Wail from its space beside the bed, more out of sleepy impulse than anything, and affixed his golden hand to his stump. We must not forget the most important part. As he rose to his feet and headed through the solar he caught a familiar, indescribable smell: Brienne, he thought, dizzily. It had only been hours since she was here in this very room.

Out on the ramparts, the first thing that hit him was just how cold it was. He expected a certain chill from the freezing temperatures, but this was a cold that hit you all at once; merely passing through the door was like walking out into a Northern winter. Jaime recoiled, feebly trying to bat the freezing flakes away from his face. "Dear gods," he forced himself to say; good, his lips could still move.

"Come on, my lord!" Paege pulled him on with one hand, while trying to suppress his violent shivering with the other. Jaime weathered a shiver of his own, then stumbled on in his wake along the walkway. Out here on the ramparts they found brave foolish men with frozen fingers trying to pluck their bowstrings and failing. A squadron of helmeted men-at-arms rushed the other way, their armour a-jangling.

In contrast to everywhere else, the armoury was a furnace, full as it was with far too many men in far too small a space. Jaime pushed through them, as anonymous as any of the soldiers, looking for someone of import. It transpired that they, too, were looking for him. Ser Benedict Broom and Captain Forley of the City Guard, each looking entirely ragged, rallied to him. "Ser Jaime," said Broom. "Forgive our slowness in calling for you. The queen's men told us—"

Jaime waved a hand. Despite his position as Hand of the Queen, Cersei had no intention of letting him wield his power unrestricted. Captain Vylarr in particular would accept her orders before he accepted Jaime's – Seven alone knew why.

"What are we doing now, sers?" he asked them.

Ser Benedict shrugged. "Frankly, it's a mess, ser. We told them to go out to the walls and ready their longbows, but – I am sure you have felt the cold."

Jaime was acutely aware of Paege's fevered shivering beside him. "I have."

"Unnatural," muttered Ser Benedict, with a shake of his head. "This cold…"

"While we chatter about the cold, Stannis's men could be halfway to our walls," said Captain Forley. "If we are to continue talking, I should prefer to do it from an ideal vantage. That is where we were headed when you interrupted us, ser." He strode past Jaime, back the way he had entered.

Jaime made to follow him, but then he remembered Garrett Paege. He rounded on the boy. "How long have you been out here, lad? You look like an icicle." Paege's face was red – truly red, especially his nose. His eyes seemed somehow unfocused.

He peeled back his lips to speak, haltingly. "I – it's all right, ser. I'm fine. I'll be fine. The cold gets more bearable as you go on."

"It's not." Jaime clapped him on the shoulder. "Listen to me, Garrett. You stay here. You go and sit down by a fire and if anyone bothers you, tell them they can deal with me." He pushed Paege back, almost roughly.

What was that? he wondered, as he approached the doors of the armoury. Yes, the boy has served me well, but hardly well enough to be worthy of such a… paternal response. Or maybe he was. Maybe you couldn't save your own sons, but you could always save someone else's.

This done, he and Ser Benedict headed back out to the wallwalk. Captain Forley had made his way to a tower. Now Jaime climbed up to join him in staring out over the wall.

He faintly remembered Brienne's words from earlier – something about a plan. What if they weren't on the walls? Ah. That was right; she had wanted him to send his men out to chase hers. But… if that was the case, then why were Stannis's men running towards them, not away? Unless they were going to reach the wall first—

"Where is the camp?" asked Ser Benedict Broom.

Jaime looked up sharply, and looked closer this time. Sure enough, Broom had a point. Stannis Baratheon's camp, once sitting a mile away and well within sight, had disappeared entirely into the fog. A mist which, now that he thought about it, had not been there hours before. And the mist was rising… pale blue mist…

"Why are there so many of them?" Jaime said. His voice seemed to ebb and echo, as if from far off.

Captain Forley squinted down a moment. "I count… hundreds. Maybe thousands. Is that so unreasonable? Stannis has thousands of soldiers."

"Yes," said Jaime, "but he is not such a fool to charge with all of them at once."

"Lord Commander." A voice came in from his right. Some captain he did not recognise. "Should we nock our bows?"

Jaime scowled. Something is not right here. But still he said "yes. Tell your men… tell your men to listen for my command, captain. Fire only when I tell you to."

The captain nodded and ran back down the wallwalk. Jaime squinted over the wall. Something is wrong, he thought again, but what is it? What…?

The first of the enemy ranks were drawing close. Their war-cries drifted up to him – only these did not sound like war-cries. Jaime knew the sound of fear when he heard it. With a war-cry you screamed it because you could. When you were afraid, you screamed because you had to.

But no matter.

"Nock!" he shouted.

He could feel Captain Forley and Ser Benedict beside him, shivering same as he would, though all three of them tried to hide it. He could see the spasmodic dances of the archers, trying in vain to stay warm.

"Draw!" he shouted.

He could see the tension in those bow strings, taut; he knew that some of them would not be able to let go if they tried. The enemy was coming closer; they had their weapons it, if the glint of steel was anything to judge by. But that glint only lasted a moment longer before the mist covered their back ranks, and headed towards the middle.

"Hold!"

There were men on horseback, too. That made no sense. You couldn't send your cavalry out like this before you sent your—

Now he saw it. It was so obvious he wanted to hit himself. They have no ladders. They have no siege engines. No trebuchets, no catapults, no scorpions.

And then:

They have no armour.

It was not true for all of them, but he could see the glint of steel swords from up here by torchlight, whereas he could not see the more noticeable glimmer of armoured plates. Not even the horsemen wore armour. And come to think of it, why were the horsemen carrying torches?

"Bows down!" Jaime shouted.

Some of them took that as "loose"; some of them had no choice but to loose, so frozen in place were their fingers. But those arrows were only a handful of hailstones in a storm. The rest looked relieved; they put their bows down and set to rubbing their palms together frantically.

Captain Forley turned to him. "Why did you do that?"

Jaime pointed over the wall. "They are not attacking. They are running. They are being attacked."

Ser Benedict Broom frowned. "But we did not send men out, ser."

"Not our men."

"Then whose?"

Whose indeed? And Jaime reckoned they both knew, but neither one of them wanted to be ridiculed for saying it. So he said it himself. "The army of the dead."

The army of the dead. Those words were the very essence of insanity. Yet when the situation was like this, it was even more insane to pretend it could be anything else. Strange how sanity worked like that. What was sane was merely a matter of perception. The madness of Aerys, and of Aerion Brightflame before him, could be justified by the same logic. Maybe, Jaime thought for half a second, they saw something that we thought was mad, and yet to them it must have seemed mad to think anything else.

It was not so with Aerys, he reminded himself. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat, he'd said. That had been done purely out of spite. And yet…

A madman sees what he sees.

And now Jaime Lannister, mad or no, was seeing the army of the dead in pursuit. There was only one thing for it. "The gate," he said, first to himself, and then more loudly, "we need to get to the gate."

Ser Benedict frowned. "Ser?"

"We need to get to the gate," Jaime told him, more firmly this time. "And open it."

"And…" Ser Benedict frowned. "And let them in?"

"Yes." He had to explain himself, of course. To Ser Benedict, and to Captain Forley, who looked like he might kill Jaime any moment. "You know what's out there, don't you, ser?"

Ser Benedict's breath caught. "I-I do, my lord."

"Then tell me how it is acceptable in your eyes to leave those men our there to face it alone."

He had no answer to that, as Jaime had hoped. But as he was moving past, Captain Forley stepped out into his path. "And what if they get in after you've let all of Stannis's men through, Lord Commander? What if they swarm Lannisport, and kill us all? What then?"

"Then we die," said Jaime. There was nothing else to say.

Captain Forley considered for a long moment, then let him pass.

Taking the archers in hand, they set off along the wallwalk, back towards the main city gate on the eastern side. The mist drifted in further and further. Very soon it was threatening to overtop the wall.

"The queen will not like this," Ser Benedict Broom said, when they reached the gatehouse stairs.

"No," said Jaime. "I imagine she will not."

He sent Ser Benedict up to secure the gatehouse towers, while he and Captain Forley went through into the main room. And there, inevitably, he found Captain Vylarr and twoscore Lannister guardsmen. "Ser Jaime," said Vylarr. "I thought you would be elsewhere."

"I am sorry to have taken you by surprise," Jaime said. "Captain, would you do me the honour of opening the gate?"

The captain did not move. "I cannot, ser."

"Forgive me, Vylarr. It would seem that I did not make myself clear. Open the gate. That is an order."

"I have orders of my own, ser," said Captain Vylarr. "Queen Cersei has said—"

"—all manner of things, I do not doubt. Well. Now I am saying something. I am saying 'open the gate'. And you will."

He became vaguely aware that the men following him might not really be his men at all. Captain Forley seemed too gruff and angry to ever be suppressed by Cersei, but it was not impossible. His doubts were alleviated, however, when Forley barked out an order of his own. "Do as the Lord Commander says, Vylarr. Before I decide it will be much easier to gut you."

A long silence passed. Then Vylarr frowned, turned to his men, and said, "stand down. Open the gates."

Jaime turned to Captain Forley. "Get Ser Benedict. Tell him to open the other gate, on my authority. Watch over it, and close it if the dead start coming through." That done, he went to watch as the winch chain was lifted, inch by painful inch. Through the narrow slit windows of the gatehouse he could see men rushing ahead of the mist. Myrcella is somewhere out there, he thought, and Brienne, and the rest of them. "I am going downstairs," he told Vylarr. "If you touch the gate before I tell you to, I will kill you myself."

He half-expected Vylarr to look mutinous, but the man looked more relieved than anything. Jaime realised that he did not believe in Cersei's way either.

As he was going down the stairs, Jaime encountered Ser Benedict Broom, ascending. "I hope you know what you are doing, Lord Commander," Ser Benedict said as their paths crossed. And as the first of Stannis's men came running through the gate, Jaime hoped he was right.


Author's Note of Mild Disappointment:

Ugh...

This is the first chapter I've written for KOTN where I can't say I'm too pleased with how it turned out. There was meant to be a big dramatic confrontation with Robert Strong, but it was, in a word, quite boring, and it was taking AGES to write. So I've cut this chapter short on a weird sort-of-cliffhanger/anticlimax, and we'll pick up again with Jaime very soon.

Fortunately, things are probably going to pick up after this. Chapter 44 is a bitch, but 41 and 42 are almost complete, and 43 is nice and manageable.

Anyway, apologies if this seems a little unsatisfying. Hopefully by the time the story is finished, its more awkward moments will have been buried in the midst of everything.