The oversized pony fidgeted nervously; hooves tiptoeing and muzzle occasionally snorting. It didn't seem to matter how frequently a horse came into controlled, peaceful contact with a direwolf, the big deadly things inevitably spooked any equine beast, from doughty donkeys to well-trained war horses. Lohgun yanked hard on the reins to steady the garron. He looked down at Ghost who sat between him and Jon Snow's mount. Taking note of the attention, the direwolf lifted its head to direct accusing eyes, practically glowing red in the darkness, up at the Badger. 'What? I'll look at you whenever I damn well please ya overgrown mutt,' he thought. Red eyes kept staring at him, challenging him. The hackles raised on the back of Lohgun's neck. Instinctively a primal growl throbbed in his chest and throat.
A long tongue popped out from between powerful canines to lick one side of Ghost's snout. The direwolf sighed and lay all the way down on the ground, choosing to ignore the man's posturing.
Jon chuckled. "He's not a puppy anymore Lohgun. You can't intimidate him."
"I'm the fucking Badger," he snarled. "I'll gods damn intimidate anybody or anything I want to!"
"Touchy tonight, aren't you?" the young man pointed out more than asked.
Lohgun looked away, turning his head to watch as the Lord of Winterfell, 'Gods can it be true?' he thought, still thunderstruck by the notion, and his Lord's companions started to trot away from the column of horsemen led by the eagle banner of the Mallisters and over to his column, spread out behind the chained giant banner of the Umbers. Watching the Direwolf banner follow close to young Robb, Lohgun's mind slip back to two nights past, when he first learned of the young man's unwanted inheritance.
The wildling groaned. His head, neck, and chest ached; while his mouth felt like a desert, home to tumbleweeds. He blinked. 'What's a tumbleweed?'
"You're alive," an emotional voice gasped.
"Of course I am," he muttered weakly, slowly peeling back an eyelid to see Jon Snow, sporting an inches long gash down the right side of his face, staring weepily down at him. "I'm the fucking Badger; too stubborn to kill, bub."
The boy clenched his bloodshot eyes tight. A laugh and a moan tried to gurgle out of Jon at the same moment, resulting only in a flow of mucus to gush from his nose. The eyes unclenched. Tears flowed. Agony writ clear on his face.
"Wh … wh … what?" Logan stammered, mind slow and foggy through the steady beat of pain. Then the last images he remembered before passing out in the battle floated past. Jaime Lannister. A blooded Robb. 'Robb!' Adrenaline coursed through him. "Is Robb ok? Tell me! Tell me Robb's alive!"
"Yes, yes," Jon nodded rapidly, flinging tears and a few drops of blood on to Lohgun. "He was barely touched in the … in the fight." Ghost stepped out of the dark and buried his face in Jon's armpit.
"Then who?" he asked perplexedly.
The boy sniffled hard, drawing some of the slime covering his upper lip back into his nose. "Ffffff … father," he wheezed.
"Ned?" The world spun. His heart fell. His senses faltered. His insides turned into a vacuum, all hollow. "But … but, Ned's in King's Landing," he said numbly. "How?"
"The captured Westerlanders … from them … they … they heard it yesterday. That little shit Joffrey," Jon sputtered. "He … he …" the eyes clenched tight again, trying to hide from the heart ache, the impossible loss, "cut off father's head. Ohhhhhh. Ohhhhh," the boy wailed.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Rage, overwhelming rage, and torment too, rushed in to cover every fiber of the stunned, hurt man's being. "Aaaaaaahooooooooooooooooo!" Lohgun the Wildling howled. "Aaaaaaahooooooooooooooooo!" the Badger of the North bayed.
A moment later, Ghost tilted back his head and opened his mouth. "Aaaaaaahooooooooooooooooo!" the direwolf yowled, joining the wild cry of grief.
"Aaaaaaahooooooooooooooooo!" cried Grey Wind.
"Aaaaaaahooooooooooooooooo!"
"Aaaaaaahooooooooooooooooo!"
"Aaaaaaahooooooooooooooooo!"
"Aaaaaaahooooooooooooooooo!"
Not knowing why, all the wolves of the Whispering Wood joined the mournful, angry, vengeance filled salute to Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, Beloved of the Old Gods, Honor Personified. Winter was coming. Joffrey Lannister just didn't realize it yet.
"Lohgun?! Lohgun?!"
"Hunh? What?"
"You alright?" Jon asked.
"Of course I am," he snarled angrily.
Jon's lifted an eyebrow and a corner of a lip in wry amusement. "Cause you're the fucking Badger?"
"Damned right, cause I'm the … ," Lohgun's snarl turned into an embarrassed grimace. "Oh fuck you, boy!"
Jon laughed, and then put on an exaggerated posh, southerner accent. "Seriously my Lord Tumbledown, I called your esteemed name several times and you failed to answer. I worry for your knightly virtue in the coming melee."
"Worry about your own ugly hide, squirt." He pointed at Jon's face. "And that's really ugly. Be sure to have Riverrun's maester look at it after we bust our way in."
The Bastard of Winterfell gently stroked around the angry, sewn up gash on his right cheek. "Well you know ugly, Badger. Though I was thinking I'd grow a beard to hide the scar."
"That'd be better," the wildling agreed. "And a lot better than what Harlon Cassel, Owen Norrey, Dorren Flint, and Patrek Mallister got; may the Old Gods watch over their souls."
"Or Theon," added Jon.
"Aye, Balon Greyjoy won't appreciate discovering he has a one armed son, now will he?" the Badger said sardonically.
Jon snickered before saying, "Nor the Lannisters, when they find out the Kingslayer has no hands at all."
A grin shown on Lohgun's face. "A pity my claws did so much damage to his golden forearm that the barber had to make it a match to the one Robb lopped off. However will he be able to take a piss, do you think?"
Ghost growled and got to his feet.
"Ahh, it appears Lord Brax's camp is realizing something's up on the other side of the Tumblestone. Let's hope the old fool does something stupid." 'Be safe Blackfish, be safe,' the wildling prayed.
The commander of the western camp besieging Riverrun did in fact meet the Badger's expectation of what the gentlemanly art of war could accomplish. In the dark, on boats of undoubtedly dubious construction, while wearing heavy armor, the mailed fist of Lord Brax's knightly forces committed the unforgiveable sin of trying to cross a swift flowing water into the face of strong opposition. Idiots! Alas, whoever was left behind in charge of the half trained levies and remaining, sane men-at-arms had already started to form up his troops in a shield wall behind the ditch marking the outer edge of the encampment.
The few fully plated lances available to the Northerners led both columns charging to barrel into the Westerlanders before they could set themselves to receive. Perhaps spooked by the thousands of beating hooves around them, or maybe driven by the instinct to find and cut out the weakest of the herd, both Ghost and Grey wind peeled away from the strong column Robb led and sought their own place to attack and rend the enemy. 'Good idea,' the Badger thought, and he too nudged his mount out of line and into the no man's land between the column of Northerners and column of Riverlanders eagerly rushing forward. Blond haired Shooty, his mountain clan born squire, promptly followed and soon after that his three score Tumbledown Tower fighters.
The crash of armored destrier against shield wall generated a huge din. Parts of the first two lines crumpled. The third, and weakest, bent, but mostly held. Riders, horses, and spearmen toppled to the earth, choking the field, ditch, and battle lines with debris. With both columns, the mounted warriors following behind began to pull up and slough off to the side of the column or risk entangling themselves with the fallen. Progress forward slowed and even stalled in places, especially as Westerland reserves rushed to close the breakthroughs.
But not in the middle, Grey Wind and Ghost, despite their size, snuck heads beneath and between shields to savage poorly protected limbs and cause panic among the smallfolk turned warriors who never imagined such terrifying creatures existed in the Seven Kingdoms. Adding to that beastly mayhem, the Badger flung himself and his claws into the mess, choosing in his passionate need for vengeance to forgo his curved swords so that he might more personally experience their deaths.
Claws tore flesh, sliced open boiled leather armor, ripped apart shields, caught spears and polearms seeking to skewer him. The direwolves slashed bellies, spilled guts, broke bones, and tossed men like chickens. The stabbing swords and hewing axes of the Badger's loyal collection of northern black sheep methodically, remorselessly rained down death on those in the middle unwilling to flee. Soon more and more northerners joined the impromptu assault. Lohgun flashed a feral, satisfied grin when he spotted Robb and Jon, brothers, side by side slashing at the edges of the widening gap in the line.
"Da-da-dummmmmm! Da-da-dummmmmm!" Creeeeeeeaak! The portcullis to Riverrun stirred. Horns blared from the Gate Tower of the impressive castle. The Tully's wished to come out and take their pound of flesh before the Lannister banner's collapsed completely.
But of that the Badger hardly noticed. Blood lust flowed through his veins. His wounds, gashes quickly reduced to mere cuts and cuts turned to pinpricks, slowed him not a bit. A halberd swung over the top of a foeman caught the claws on his upraised right hand, snapping off the unarmored bone from two of them. The Badger howled his anguish and climbed like and animal over the foeman, leaving behind a punctured face and skull, in order to come at the polearm wielder. Claws flashed, blood sprayed, Lohgun licked his lips, enjoying the taste. Scores of men now broke and ran in defeat, all the easier for the Badger to now chase and slaughter.
"Yield!"
The hand swiped, slicing through flesh and veins and cartilage. Now only blood bubbled out of lips that a second before had begged for mercy. His fury drove him on and on and on. They killed Ned. They would know no peace, but death.