Melisandre - The morning of the battle

Melisandre stiffened, her spoonful of gray porridge falling, unheeded, to the table. The other men seated at the table with her paused, glancing her way to see her staring blindly across the room. When nothing else happened, they returned to breaking their fasts, well used to her odd ways by now.

Then she slammed both hands to the pitted old wood, and flung her head back as her eyes rolled up. The men looked her way again, and Davos scrambled to catch her as she lurched off the bench, convulsing. He lowered her to the floor, and she gripped a fold of his tunic.

"Get them," she hissed. "I have much to say."

"Who?" asked Davos, but he knew.

"Snow, his sister… the Maid… the Wildling… all of them."

Davos nodded at one of the men, who rushed off to fetch those who were needed. He shooed the rest of them from the room, and the last one out had to brush by Jon Snow as he hurried in response to being summoned.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, his eyes on Melisandre's twitching form.

"Where are they? They must come," she demanded between shallow breaths.

Sansa arrived soon after, Sandor and Brienne trailing her, Tormund trailing Brienne (to her chagrin).

Melisandre calmed but for some trembling, and Jon and Davos helped her back onto the bench.

"I have had a vision," she announced to the assembly. "From the future. From later today."

"What is it?" Jon sat next to her, leaning forward, eagerness in every line of his face. "Tell us."

The ruby at her throat pulsed, and then light shot from it toward each of them, striking their foreheads, making memories bloom behind their eyes.

Jon

Jon opened his eyes and found himself in the thick of battle: horses and men screaming, bleeding, dying. Arrows pelting down a deadly hail that had him wishing he had a shield, so he plucked one from a nearby corpse and forged ahead.

The Night's Watch soldiers around him were falling, one by one, until only Edd and a few others remained. They hacked, they slashed, but it seemed as if the Boltons had an unending flood of sword-fodder; for each they cut down, there were more, and more, and more.

Jon had sustained some minor wounds— a cut here, a slash there— but nothing too worrisome until one Bolton man managed to slip his sword under Jon's wearying arm and between his ribs.

Ah, that's fatal, Jon thought. He knew it, could tell that something important had just been rendered wide open. He'd felt it before, after all. Still, he fought on. Even after he fell to his knees, he hacked at legs, and when he was flat on his face, he stabbed at feet. Anything.

There was a dull ringing in his ears, but over that, louder, more piercing… a roar like the ocean, and the smell of sulfur…

With one last, monumental effort, he rolled to his back, and through the writhing mass of struggling fighters he could see the sky overhead, blue blue blue, and bisecting it, a beast from myth spat out a gout of flame just before everything went black.

Brienne

Brienne was impressed, greatly impressed, by Tormund on this day. His battle prowess was indisputable, and his grim determination to remain by her side had saved her multiple times. He'd even cracked a few jokes to keep her spirits up when she had seemed at the brink of despair before rallying.

And never, never had he lost that expression of devoted wonder in his eyes every time he looked at her. If anything, it had grown. Her irritation at his relentless pursuit had melted into a fierce ache of frustration. That she should now, at this eleventh hour, find a man who saw under her homely face, past her over-tall body with its small breasts and narrow hips, beyond her unfeminine prowess with a sword… And there was no time, no chance, to do anything about it! Bitterness flooded her mouth.

She had paced herself as best she could, but this had been hours of non-stop fighting. She had little more left in her. Whatever remained, she wanted it used to guard Sansa.

"I'm going inside," she called to Tormund, who nodded and followed as she beat her way into the yard and up the stairs, walking backwards as he protected her. But he was weary, too, and a spear got past him to find the join of armor at her waist. A huge wet gush down her leg told her that something important had been hit.

Tormund sliced the spearman in half, but the damage was done. Brienne heaved herself up the last few stairs and through the doors. He followed her through, then slammed them shut and barred them.

"No," he said, upon taking in the puddle of blood at her foot, his eyes wide with dread. "No."

But he was wounded, too.

"Tormund," she breathed in horror, her gaze fixed on where his furs blossomed red at his thigh.

He glanced down. "Ah, hadn't noticed that." They shared a long, fraught glance of resignation, and on Tormund's part, thwarted adoration. A loud bang on the doors shocked them free of it— the Bolton men were breaking them down.

"Press on the wound," Brienne ordered him. A wave of dizziness wracked her, and she listed against the wall. Tormund ignored her command, using his free arm instead to hoist her upright and haul her along with him toward the hall where Sansa waited.

They stumbled in, finding Melisandre out of her head in a corner and Sandor brandishing his sword while Sansa peeked over his shoulder.

"My lady," Brienne gasped, falling to her knees before using Oathkeeper to push herself upright once more. Blood streaked her face and throat, and her foot was soaked from the steady stream down the dark metal of her armor. Next to her, the Wildling's furs were more red than brown, and he released her to clasp his free hand to his thigh in a futile attempt to staunch the blood geysering from it. Brienne's strength failed her at last, and down she went, rolling to her back.

Tormund half-fell, half-dropped to her side. "I'd have married you, you know."

She reached out a hand toward him, and he took it in both his own.

"I'm sorry," she said, and a trickle of crimson dribbled from her mouth, across her cheek. He wiped it away, tenderly, even as he toppled to his side next to her. "For wasting time. I misjudged you."

"You figured it out in the end," he coughed, trying to laugh. With a mighty effort, he heaved himself up to loom over her, pressing a hearty, smacking kiss to her lips. His own came away stained red. "There, we're married. Damned shame I never got to fuck you."

Brienne coughed out a laugh of her own. "A romantic to the end."

He mustered one last wild grin, then dropped his face to new wife's shoulder. Brienne managed to bring up her hand to hold his head against her.

A great crash sounded as the doors gave way at last. Footsteps thundered down the hallway.

In the corner, Melisandre's chanting gained volume and speed.

Brienne's hearing was fading, but there was the twang of a crossbolt, and she could have sworn she heard some distant rumble of thunder.

Tormund gave one last shuddering sigh. Brienne's hand fell, limp, from his head to fall to the floor.

Sandor

Footsteps thundered on the stairs, down the hallway. Sansa stared in horror over Sandor's shoulder, her hands clutching at him.

"This is the end," she panted into Sandor's back.

The Bolton men were upon them. They spared a scant glance at Tormund and Brienne, dying on the floor, stepping over them in confidence that they would soon be gone, if they weren't already. One brought up a crossbow and aimed it at Sandor. He spun around to face Sansa, taking her in his arms. If he were to die, he wanted his last sight to be her face.

He lowered his lips to hers, sick with rancor that his first time kissing her was also his last. She kissed him back, desperately, and then the crossbow bolt skewered him to her, throwing them back against the wall. Sansa's eyes rolled back as they slid to the floor.

"Oh," she whispered, as if surprised that dying would hurt.

Rage and despair and futility and loss, and, and just everything, everything ever, flared up in Sandor until he was mad with it, until it felt like it would burst from him. That tiny spark of hope, for a home and a family and a future, died with a sputter.

Sandor's vision narrowed in an instant to a tiny pinprick before blackening altogether.

In the corner, Melisandre's chanting gained volume and speed.

Blind, dumb, their blood mingling around the bolt locking them together, and then there was a roar from above that shook the keep's walls. Sandor's hearing failed, and there was nothing.