CHAPTER 2: JON

Snow scattered in the wind like fragments of frosted glass, charging against bare skin in cutting bouts. The day was nearing an end it seemed, and still they were no closer to finding the missing rangers, who had left Castle Black almost a moon ago. Jon snow dragged his feet over the heavy snowdrifts, hunched under bags of food and waterskins that grew increasingly heavier with every step he took.

'I think we ought to make camp for the night, Jon,' Tormund stated, flatly. Even with his sizeable stature and natural affinity for the merciless bite of the climate north of the Wall, his footsteps lagged under the weight of his own supply bag.

'Camp where?' Jon dismissed him, fixing his eyes on the haze of white ahead of him, pulling the bag higher on his shoulder with a grunt.

Tormund gritted his teeth. The prospect of a Lord Commander was still new to him. Of course, the wildlings had followed Mace Rayder for a time, but at the end of the day they were still free to leave if they so wished. Follow their own rules. Live as they pleased. But Jon was right, there was no shelter to be found anywhere in sight. In any direction, all that remained of the world was white. White washes of whirling snow, obscuring the horizon like a curtain, masquerading the sun, the sky, the ground. Everything.

'I don't think I can walk much farther Jon,' Sam whined from his left. His cheeks glowed a deep shade of red, his brown eyes awash with tears of exhaustion that he tried desperately not to let fall.

Jon stopped. Enervation scorched his muscles and tore at his resolve, but he could not let it show. He pressed his lips together in a brooding frown, locks of coal black hair brushing over his eyes in snow-dusted waves. He took a moment to assess his miniscule rescue party. Samwell Tarly, his longest friend, but a shameful coward and dismal swordsman; Dolorous Edd Tollett, an experienced Ranger, but a better jester than anything; Tormund Giantsbane, the red-bearded ex-wildling, perhaps the most ruthless fighter of the group, but still an area of suspicion for many men of the Night's Watch given his previous allegiance during the Battle of Castle Black only a year ago. The rest of the party consisted of a small handful of young boys who had taken the black after wildlings raided their villages, leaving them orphaned. They were young, and keen to prove their worth by volunteering for some petty rescue mission no one really seemed to care about. Surely, they regretted the decision now.

'Who knows when we'll find shelter next?' one of the young boys chimed in, his voice cracking as he spoke.

Jon nodded. Doubts flooded his mind. Had he lead his friends on a suicide mission? What had he been thinking, leaving his post to search for a group of twelve rangers who were most certainly dead. Or worse.

Tormund seemed to see past the stony mask of Jon's face to the building anxiety beneath. 'We've been heading in a straight line northwards. If we turn east there should be a forest only a couple of miles away. Maybe we can find some dry wood. Start a fire,' he offered.

Sam groaned at the suggestion of more walking.

Night threatened its disorienting darkness through the cascading sheets of snowfall, firing streams of red over the darkening sky to the west. They had started the journey with seven horses. Now they had one. Jon and Tormund had taken on the fast-emptying saddle bags, and the meat had provided them with some excellent meals along the way, but continuing on foot, their pace had slowed immensely. Tormund knew the land well enough, Jon supposed. It had been his home until little over five months ago. 'Then we head east,' he nodded.

Calm as ever, the sky showed no indication of there ever having been a storm. Memories of ice tearing through the air like a torrent of jagged stones were nothing more than transient nightmares.

Jon settled against a tree stump, taking over the watch from one of the orphan boys. Under the shelter of the thick forest canopy, the earth was dry and bare, through still crystallised in beads of silver ice that gleamed under the milky wash of moonlight seeping past the climbing foliage. The air was silent, save for the occasional whistle of an icy wind drifting through the trees.

A voice stirred in the darkness. 'You're not as bad as you think.'

Jon scanned the forest with heavy eyes, though he recognised the voice instantly for its raspy tone. 'And what do you know about being Lord Commander?'

Tormund shifted from the shadows, the ground crunching under his heavy footsteps. He lay his crudely-constructed long axe over a knee, taking a seat on a low tree stump. 'Your people told you not to let the wildlings through the Wall. But you did it anyway.' His eyes were wide and wild in the dim light. 'I can admire that.'

'That's the opinion of a Wildling.'

Tormund's fingers seemed to tighten about the hilt of his axe.

'I didn't mean-' Jon sighed. 'I just mean, the opinion of someone who benefited from that decision. Some of the men at castle black still see me as a traitor who let the enemy through our gates when we had little food to get us through the winter as it was.'

The Wilding grunted in response.

Silence ensued from the building tension. Jon found himself shivering, though he felt no colder than he had previously. The idea of the Wildlings being 'the enemy' began to seep back into his mind, and he became very aware of the propinquity of Tormund's blade adjacent to his head. 'Was it wrong of me to leave my command for some petty mission over the wall?' he continued, simply to fill the silence.

'If your so called "men" can't survive a few days without someone telling them which direction to piss in then they're no better than babes wailing out for their mothers. I say fuck 'em.' He nodded along as he spoke. 'What, you think they're waiting back there for you with their swords ready to cut off your head?' He laughed under his breath.

Jon turned away, his face awash with distress. The Westerosi were not like the Wildlings. He had left them in the capable hands of Alliser Thorne- whose leadership he trusted in, but whose allegiance he had grave doubts about. For all he knew there really was a mutiny waiting for him when he returned, just as Lord Commander Mormont had suffered only a few years past.

'I never thought I'd see the Wildlings unite under another Southerner after I watched Mance burn,' Tormund lowered his voice to a rough whisper, 'let alone break bread with the Crows.'

Jon breathed out his tensions slowly, a smile finding his eyes.

'But you managed what no man has ever been able to do before.' He dug the heel of his axe into the earth, leaning against it as he stood, and trudged back over to where he had been sat in the shadows before.

The last horse whinnied and scuffed the ground with a scrawny hoof. And then the night was silent again.

'Jon?'

Jon Snow blinked awake. Sam's pale, round face came into focus. Worries and guilts came back to him in painful waves as his mind adjusted from the blissful inertia of the dreamworld.

'Jon, please don't blame yourself,' Sam pleaded mournfully.

'What?' Jon scrunched his eyes up, propping himself up on an elbow. And then he saw it. Froze. The air left his lungs. His throat tightened.

Past the ice-cold ashes of last night's fire, the rest of the party were stood gathered around something on the ground. Or rather, someone.

'It's not your fault, Jon, he chose to come with us,' Sam was still comforting him in a friendly voice somewhere past a million muffling walls of solid stone.

'We have to burn the body.' Tormund broke him from his daze, jumping straight past mourning and landing at pragmatism's door.

'He was a man of the Night's Watch,' Jon rose from the ground, his voice commanding and sincere, though his eyes held nothing but sympathy. He was just an orphan boy, looking to prove himself. And I lead him to his death. 'We need to build him a proper pyre; give him a eulogy.'

Sam nodded, to his right.

Edd crouched beside the body and slid the boy's eyes shut.

'We need to start heading back to the Wall or we'll be next,' Tormund growled, leashing the tone of his voice, maintaining an air of reasonableness.

'Don't you people have any sympathy?' one of the other orphan boys exclaimed, tears flooding his hollow cheeks, his watery brown eyes wide and child-like. 'It's not fair!' he wailed.

'Death's not fair lad,' Tormund softened his voice, standing up straight, reaching his full height.

'He was my friend and you want to forget him and walk away?' the boy screeched. He was a gutter rat next to Tormund- gaunt and shabby, mousy brown hair and freckled cheeks, barely thirteen. But he didn't care in that moment.

'No, we're going to build a pyre, we're not leaving him behind,' Jon intervened, nodding over to Edd, who stood, moving to collect wood to build the pyre.

It was a pathetic thing, really. They stepped back as the spindly twigs ignited beneath the body. Jon stared fixatedly at the boy's face: eyes closed as though he were asleep, white hair blackening in stray streaks of flame. His face reminded him somehow of his younger sister, Arya. That same thin, fox-like visage engulfed in the fire. I ought to have stayed at the Wall, he knew. How could his people ever come to trust in his leadership if he wasn't even there to lead them?

'Alright, the body is burned enough, we start walking.' Tormund stooped, collecting his bags from the ground.

The brown-haired orphan boy narrowed his eyes, shadows dancing over his face as the fire crackled before him. 'We haven't said the words yet,' he hissed, looking up from beneath the shadow of his lowered brow.

'Words mean little to the dead, boy,' Tormund drawled, callously.

Jon intervened, 'It's the way of the Watch.'

'The Wildling isn't a member of the Watch,' the boy retorted.

Tormund jerked his arm suddenly, and his axe aligned with the boy's throat. 'Watch your tongue.'

'Why take offence? None of the Wildlings made the vow. You're not-'

'I won't have you sneering down on me like that.' He stepped towards the boy, the blade of his axe meeting with his neck. 'These eyes have seen a hundred wars- how many have yours seen?'

'You can't have seen a hundred,' Sam laughed anxiously, his eyes darting over to Jon across the pyre.

Jon sighed. 'You're not a Wildling anymore, Tormund, you-'

'I may have walked through your gates. I may have bowed to your rules. But I will always be a Wildling.' Swinging the saddle bag over his shoulder, Tormund turned his back on the clearing, making his way back through the forest.

The orphan boy breathed heavily, looking to Jon with accusing eyes. 'I thought you were about to let that brute run me through!'

Jon avoided his eyes. The body was scarcely more than ash on the pyre.

'Are you going to say the words, Jon?' Sam whispered.

A moment passed. Jon nodded, his eyes fixed on the fire. 'His… His name was…' The crackling of the fire consumed the low murmur of his voice.

Sam winced, the silence lengthening. 'Jon?'

'I don't know his name,' Jon confessed, painfully. 'I… I'm sorry.' His apology was monotonous and unconvincing.

'Perhaps I'm the only person in the world who does then,' the boy choked. 'And now his watch has ended.' Tears melted down his face, orange waves of light festering in the hollows of his cheeks. He turned slowly and dispersed from the group, heading into the think line of trees.

Smoke billowed from the fire as the wind picked up, casting waves of ash into the air like black snowflakes twirling in the sky and coming to land in the dirt. Already, the sun had climbed far above the trees, enveloped in a sheen of steely fog.

Two of the orphan boys remained, stood beside Sam, their heads drooping like sunflowers that have lost sight of the sun. They were quiet. Jon had hardly heard them say ten words between them since they left the Wall. He knew not their names.

'I'm sure the greatest leaders of all time never knew the names of all their people,' Sam smiled, pity rounding his eyes.

'This is different, Sam!' Jon snapped. 'When I lead this ranging party, I took responsibility for lives.' His voice softened. 'We're leaving, come on. I won't be responsible for anybody else's death out here.' Shouldering his bags, he closed his eyes, letting his face fall slack; emotionless.

The Wall loomed ahead. Hundreds of years of ice towered higher than any structure known to man rising up from planes of snow and stretching as far as the eye could see. The evening was beginning to turn, and rest and good food were mere minutes away.

'I wouldn't look so glum, Jon. You went to greater lengths than any other Lord Commander would to look for a couple missing rangers. No one can exactly blame you for returning unsuccessful,' Edd spoke the first words anyone had spoken in hours. 'Maybe Alliser can, I suppose. He did tell you not to go. I suppose-'

'That's enough, Edd.' Sam raised his eyebrows. 'We all volunteered for this. We all knew what we were getting ourselves into.'

'That's not the point, Sam,' Jon exclaimed. A member of my party died and another two are missing. How do you think that's going to look when we step though those gates?'

'Half those men can hardly count to eight- they'll never notice the difference,' Edd joked, reassuringly.

The low rumble of the horn sounded twice from the top of the Wall. The sentries had caught sight of the returning rangers and signalled for the gate to be raised.

'Just be glad they can count to two,' Edd mumbled, 'else we'd be dead in the snow within the week.'

'Ignore him, Jon,' Sam rolled his eyes, a smile crossing his face.

Jon paused at the gate. The portcullis clunked to a halt at the top of the large archway. The tunnel was dark. Silent. 'Something's wrong.' He squinted through the darkness. 'There's no one here.'

'There are probably brothers waiting just the other side of the tunnel,' Sam offered.

'Aye, there might well be.' Jon raised his chin, resolute.

'You can't mean-'

'I left a man who hates me in charge in my absence. I let a Wildling-hating boy venture back alone to rally those who told me not to let the Wildlings past our gates. I'm returning unsuccessful. I'm returning to a mutiny. You'll turn yourselves over to them if you want to live.'

Sam shook his head, fear growing in his eyes. 'We… We couldn't-'

Jon stepped forth into the shadow of the narrow passageway.