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Chapter Fifty-Seven: A War of Ice and Fire (Part 3)
Margaery sat at the edge of the iron throne, purse-lipped and tense, as the messenger delivered the news. "The King led the troops into Hardhomme himself, your grace. But the army of the Others was too great. No matter how bravely his grace fought, he was driven back by the legions of wights. Thousands lost their lives, only to rise again as slaves to the Great Other moments later. Nothing of the likes has been seen in thousands of years, your grace. And the King has not been seen since Hardhomme."
Margaery's hand had curled into a fist so tight her nails broke the surface of her skin. Next to her on the dais, Tyrion had tensed as he looked down at the man.
"Where is he?" she demanded, her throat constricted as she struggled to keep her emotions in check. Being this far from the war, the intelligence was limited and far from perfect but it was all she had to go on. It rarely made her feel better,
"We cannot say for certain, your grace," the man replied, honestly. There was no couching the blow uncertainty dealt.
"And the King in the North?" Tyrion asked.
"His grace was last seen retreating from Hardhomme," the man answered. "He survived the attack, but nothing else is known of his whereabouts."
"And Daenerys Targaryen?" Margaery asked.
"Has begun burning the far north to flush out the Others, driving them into a wildling trap," he explained. "It isn't known, yet, whether it's been successful."
As soon as the messenger had been wrung so dry of information his pips began to squeak, Margaery dismissed him. Outside, the long night was as dark as ever it was. Unyielding, unrelenting, not even a whisper of dawn to be seen on farthest most eastern horizon. Now it seemed her royal forces were being reduced to human mince-meat and her husband savaged by mindless wights. Meanwhile, refugees from the war and the long night took ever more dangerous risks to reach what they thought was the safety of the south. Town after town had shut their gates to them, forcing them to stalk the roads and resort to thievery and banditry to feed themselves. Others crowded into boats, anything that floated, and risked the high seas to flee. Their bloated bodies washed up on every coast and beach from the Shivering Sea to Dorne, rising as wights to be burned in the fires that now blazed along every coast.
"You can't save everyone," Tyrion told her, that evening.
It wasn't indifference, it was just the truth.
"We should still try," she replied.
They dined together in the Queen's chambers, with Lady Frey whose father had finally died and whose brothers now fought over the Twins as if the long night hadn't reached the Riverlands. With Edmure Tully fighting in the North, their squabbles were threatening to spill over to other noble houses. It was just one more headache they could do without. Meanwhile, Tyrion was almost silent as he ate. A sign that something was preying on his mind.
"Your Grace," he said, setting down his knife. "You must consider what to do if the King doesn't return."
He spoke with the voice of the elephant in the room. One she wasn't quite ready to confront.
"Of course not," she stiffly answered, then faltered in her reasoning. "There is no need … not unless … not unless there's some kind of confirmation."
Tyrion was a model of gentle understanding, but it didn't quite couch the edge of his warnings. "With the world so disordered, the transition must be as smooth as we can make it. There is the question of the Prince's ruling council."
Margaery averted her gaze and began scrunching up a silk napkin. "Aemon is a baby, not yet a year old."
"Which is why the issue of his ruling council is so important," Tyrion persisted. "His Uncles are obvious. Ser Garlan and maybe Robb Stark, if he lives- "
"And yourself, of course, my lord," Margaery cut in, more harshly than intended.
Tyrion sagged back, somewhat, stung by the accusatory note. "I wasn't suggesting- "
"I know, I'm sorry," she quickly took back what she had said. "Forgive me, it's just so very overwhelming."
Roslyn bravely attempted to smooth things over. "Surely it is enough for now that we have a general idea of what the council will be. We need discuss it no further tonight."
Grateful for the intervention, Margaery retired to the privacy of her own rooms at the earliest convenience. She kicked the door closed behind her, dismissed Aemon's nurses and threw herself down on the bed to cry as loud as she liked. Emotionally spent, she sat up and dried her tears to let her steely resolve back in. As she sat there, she was aware of Aemon in his cradle, on all fours and trying to crawl through the bars. She got up to let him out, but in that second he gripped the edge and pulled himself up. He jabbed a pudgy digit toward her, as though pointing to her, or poke her in the eye – she couldn't quite tell.
"Mamamamamamama!" he squealed.
Margaery was all smiles again as she knelt to be level with him. "Say it again, my sweet. Say 'mama'."
The infant considered it for a moment. "Maaaammamamama!"
"Close enough," she ceded, picking him up.
He was heavy now, getting bigger every day. And still he hadn't seen the light of day. She remembered the story Old Nan once told Jon. 'When babes were born, and lived, and died … all in darkness.' She held him tighter, kissing the soft baby curls that stuck up in tufts from his scalp.
"Papa will be home soon," she whispered in his ear. "And when he does, the dawn will come with him."
Samwell Tarly shivered in his furs as he lined up the little glass vials of wildfire. But it wasn't the cold that had him shivering now. The glass vials were warm and even melted the snow around them, where he had them arranged in neat formations. It was the knowledge that, if he turned around, he would be looking right into the heart of winter itself. His formation of wildfire marked an unofficial boundary between the north and the lands of always winter, unexplored and uninhabited by any human being.
He had seen them more than once as he worked. Silent and elegant as they processed through the snow and ice, their skin as pale as the moon and their lean bodies shimmering like sculpted snow. Every time they came, he threw himself down a steep incline to hide, then peeked timidly from above the ridge to watch them pass by. Years ago, he killed one. But the memory of that small victory was far from sufficient to embolden him to try it again. He let them go, knowing they were headed straight into the clutches of the royal forces and three maturing dragons.
If he looked south, the skies burned orange and red, light reflected from the fires now raging on the outskirts of the Haunted Forest. Occasionally, he caught a flash of green as boulders set alight with more wildfire were hurled over the coast, so high they looked like shooting stars. It was the Tyrell fleet, or so he heard, attacking from the ruins of Hardhome or sailing past Storrold's Point and launching an attack from there.
All the while, for week after week, he and his fellows worked at planting the wildfire. It had been placed strategically at regular intervals for a hundred miles, with more of the deadly liquid drizzled in a neat line to form a link between the vials. When one went off, it would spark off a chain reaction.
Or… so he hoped.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Dolorous Ed scratched his head as he squinted at the jars in the snow. "They're tiny."
"Just one jar can burn a whole town," Sam promised him.
"But this isn't a town, it's just an empty wilderness," Ed pointed out. "There's nothing to keep it burning."
Despite his own flagging confidence, Sam refused to give up altogether. "It burns for the sake of burning, then the snow melts will spread it. So get out the bloody way."
They retreated to the side lines, hunkering down another incline in the land a good half mile from the nearest jar. A fine green drizzle marked the snow, which they used as the fuse. Sam's hands trembled as he struck the flint. So much so he dropped it and had to scrabble around in the snow to get it back. Once he had it again, he closed his eyes, cursed heavily and counted to three. Then he struck it again; he heard the spitting of the sparks catching afire and barrelled backwards out of the way in one fluid movement, making sure Ed came tumbling down the hillside with him.
So far, all the obsidian sword had come in useful for was setting things on fire more easily. And they burned everything they passed, decimating the northern wastelands and flushing out the Others, only for Dany to swoop down on Drogon and destroy them all with one breath of dragon fire. When the wights came, they huddled together in a box formation and advanced with fire, steel and obsidian, never breaking rank and never retreating. The disaster at Hardhome had left them better prepared and wildling guides marked out routes, and shortcuts and pointed out dangers lying hidden in the ice beyond.
The air was now heavy with soot and ash; smoke stung Jon's eyes as he led the way and it clung to his lungs like bitumen. All along the Silkwater, past the Thenns and into the wilderness beyond. Inch by inch, claiming the land back from the Others, but leaving a smouldering decimation in their wake. And the proper battle for the dawn hadn't even begun, yet.
It was only when he was airborne that he could see the extent of the fires. Miles and miles of burning trees and villages, even the odd town. He knew Hardhome was now reduced to smouldering cinders. But up high, the air was still clean and he could see the far north, into the Land of Always Winter, where the darkness remained stubborn. He was up there when the first explosion came. A flash of green briefly lit up the night sky, followed a moment later by another and another. Each explosion as deafening as the next, each flash of green as dazzling as the other until they all merged into one hurricane of green flames and sky-splitting detonations. It seemed to last forever and, even when the countless flashes and explosions ceased, the roar of the vivid emerald fires took up the slack.
The wildfire had done its job and Jon sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the Old Gods and the New as he directed Rhaegal downwards. Lying flat against the beast's back now, he dived headlong into a vast army of Others already fleeing the blast furnace their home had suddenly become.
"Dracaris!"
Dragon fire merged with wildfire as Rhaegal roared a sea of flame over them. Drogon was black, solid and huge against the sea-green skies as he crashed in from behind a bank of clouds, joining the fray with Dany on his back. Although riderless, Viserion knew exactly where he was going as he plunged into the heart of the wildfire, screaming at the fleeing Others and incinerating them and their dead horses. The combined power of all three dragons would have been enough, but the soldiers below rained down arrows made from obsidian and great boulders were crashing into the middle of the pitched battle that broken out below.
It was then, as he watched Robb leading his host into the heart of the Others' formation, that he realised he needed to be down there. Rhaegal could breathe fire without him perfectly well, he realised. And he had always been a swordsman, fighting on horseback.
Robb had never fought with Ice before, but he wielding the ancient greatsword in both hands as he charged into the heart of the battle. Aegon came up behind him, with Dawn drinking in the light of the fires. Both blades cutting and thrusting trough the bellies and chests of the creatures attacking them from all sides.
"Are you all right?" he called over to the cousin he didn't know he had.
Aegon was breathless and his face smeared with blood and soot, Dawn propped against one shoulder. "Perfect, your grace!"
"Good," he called back. "Let's get this over with!"
The heat of the fires was intense now, melting the Others before they even lunged their swords in for the final kill. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood and faced the frontlines of Others still marching toward them. Their piercing blue eyes still bright against the green and orange of the inferno killing them quickly.
Sansa ran her hands along the walls of her chamber, staring at them almost in wonder. The leaks had stopped, seemingly of their own accord, that morning. Now the warmth was flooding back into their castle and providing precious heat. Arya had noticed it first, as she walked barefoot from her bed to the bath house below. The stones warmed her cold feet. At first, Sansa hadn't dared believe it, but now she felt it.
"It's time," she said.
"For the dawn to come again?" Arya asked, wide-eyed.
It had occurred to her the night after they interred their mother in the crypts. It made her sad, at first, to think of her mother buried so close to the awful Great Other. But then she remembered what Robb had said about it. That it was the most powerful that it had ever been and was taking over the whole crypt because night was its darkest and the Others were on the move. Well, if the soldiers were winning now and warmth had returned to Winterfell, then winter must surely be falling again.
"Bring dragon fire," she said. "We're going into the crypts."
Although Arya looked at her as though she had taken leave of her senses, she followed. Within the hour, they were picking their way down the levels. Through old doors that rusted away, clambering over fallen masonry and crawling under collapsed columns.
"We don't even know where we're going," Arya said, holding up her burning torch.
"There's only one way we can go," replied Sansa.
She opened one final door, revealing an open chamber with a stairway leading into a great bowl in the earth. Lying at the bottom of the bowl, clinging to the lowest roots of the weirwood, was a thin mist. It looked little more than the residue of a morning fog. Weak and insubstantial, Sansa could see the runes carved into the floor beneath it.
"Arya, look," she said, no longer afraid. "It's almost dead."
"How do we seal it back in?" asked Arya. "Robb said there were spells and we don't know any magic."
"The Children will come back and do it," she said, hoping it were true. "They speak the Old Tongue and they read runes."
There was no one there now, but what remained of the Great Other. An insubstantial mist. That was all.
Having Blackfyre back in his hands felt better. It made Jon feel like he was getting somewhere and doing something as he plunged through the lines of fighting men. It was hot, sweaty and dirty work, but he could never lead from leagues in the air. Certainly not during the final assault on winter itself.
He was so close to the Others now he could see the sparkling blue of their eyes and smell the acrid stench of them evaporating in the fires engulfing them. Farther and farther back they were pushed, back into the Lands from which they had sprung. Without their armies of wights they were as good as useless and now the heat was too intense for their malignant magic to work. He could see them trying to raise the dead and then falling back in near panic when it failed to work and dead stayed dead. All they could do was fall back into the Lands of Always Winter, where Sam's trick with the wildfire lay in wait.
It burned still. It was all burning, cutting off their way home except through the high mountain passes. But it was still too soon for that and he carried on cutting a path through the Others, aiming for their horses as much as them, forcing them into the fires.
Hours passed. He didn't know how many until the fighting stopped as swiftly as it began, when it suddenly occurred to them that there were no more Others left to fight. Jon neither saw it happening nor saw it coming. Fighting men stood there in big groups, panting and gaping at each other with vacant looks on their faces. Realising it was over, some dropped to the ground in exhaustion. Others just wandered off into the wilderness like late night drunks staggering homewards.
Somewhere in the distance he still heard the clash of steel on ice, as the dregs of the Others were quickly despatched. But even that soon died away, settling into a silence broken only by the endless, crackling fires. Jon's chest hurt from breathing in smoke, and he coughed like never before until he hacked up a lungful of black, acrid sludge. Bent double, he felt a firm hand patting him firmly on the back. He looked up to see Mance Rayder and the red head regarding him closely.
"That was some fight, that," said Mance.
Jon laughed, even though it hurt his chest. "Aye, you could say that."
Their clothing was all burned and Mance had an open cut above his left eye. The red head's hair was even more vibrant against her soot blackened skin. She was still extremely beautiful, though. Or so he thought.
"I don't know about you two, but I need a drink," she said. "A real drink."
"Not a good idea," Jon called out to her retreating back. "Not alcohol. You need to rehydrate properly- "
"You know nothing, Jon Stark!" she called back, without so much as a backward glance.
Robb was half-way up a mountainside when Drogon crashed to earth. The beating of his wings sent up a snow shower that cooled him nicely after days spent in the seven hells below. But it also knocked him off his feet and he fell, face first, into the fresh falls. A soft landing, at least. Only when Dany was close enough to kiss did he roll back over again. He could see her hair shining silver in the pale moonlight, her lilac eyes reflecting the stars as she lay at his side and looked up at the skies,
"We made it," she said. "We all made it."
"Gods be good, we'll never the see the likes of it again," he replied, pulling her close to him. "Did you see me stick the obsidian sword in that big Other's face?"
"Sorry, I must have missed that," she laughed.
Robb smiled wanly. "Well, at least he went out with a bang."
With Drogon warming them, they dozed lightly in each other's arms. If they had stayed awake, they could have watched the fires far below them slowly fading into embers. But, when Robb did awaken again, he watched the heavens closely. One by one, the starks winked out and faded as the night grew old and pale.
"Dany!" he whispered, urgently.
"Hmmm…" she stirred, but did not awaken.
He repeated her name, louder this time. "Dany, look."
She opened her eyes and looked to the east. The breath hitched in her throat as she turned back to Robb and kissed him.
Queen Margaery opened the shutters slowly, letting the early morning light creep into the chamber for the first time in a year. Never had she been so happy to see the sunrise and a single tear rolled down her cheek as she looked out over the capital city. In the room behind her, Prince Aemon cried in fear at the new and unknown phenomena in his life.
One by one the people left their homes, before a great flurry of them rushed into the streets to greet the day. The bells of the Great Sept of Baelor rang out moments later and Margaery bounced her son on her hip, soothing him as he took his first proper look at the world around him. He pointed his finger at the window, his little brow wrinkled in confusion.
"Dawn," she said. "It's the dawn."
Thanks again for reading; reviews would be lovely if you have a minute.
Coming up next is a tying of loose ends followed by a "fifteen years later" epilogue.