Year 295 After the Conquest
Ygritte allowed herself to be swept along through the street, the free folk packed like animals trudging across creaking planks.
"All new residents, you are required to gather at the centregrounds after breakfast. All new residents, you are required to gather at the centregrounds…"
The voice droned on, tireless and all-present, repeating the same few sentences over and over until her ears ought to fall off her head. Ygritte imagined that if she found the man talking, she would punch his teeth in. But she couldn't, because the voice came from everywhere - as existent as the wind itself, pervading through the wood-and-steel canyons and alleyways.
False sunrays continued to track their presence, sweeping over their heads like the ephemeral gaze of a god.
The knife under her furs seemed to weigh her down terribly. It was cold steel, biting at her skin as if it was the lingering curse of the crow whose body it was plundered from. She did not know his name, nor was she the one to kill him. All she found was a body in a tree well, black and obvious from the white snow. It was a long blade - as long as her forearm - and it made her gait strange and awkward.
Ygritte forced herself to walk normally, however, painfully conscious of how she was anything but at ease. All it would take was a misstep, and the watchful eyes would descend upon their false beams of sunlight like vultures.
She kept her head low, and moved on.
Rattleshirt had been insistent on continuing with his mad scheme, and Ryk still sported a black eye and cut tongue from when the quarrel got dirty. The Lord of Bones did not look like much, but he was still a better fighter than them all combined - he had to be, to earn and keep his name and place beyond the Wall. And if there was one thing he had more than any of them, it was ambition.
The some twenty raiders in their warband stalked among the others, all battle-tested men and women who had fought with Rattleshirt in his war with Harma the Dogshead. The night had brought them a cover of darkness that allowed them to scout the positions of the high watchtowers - and they had come to realise that while they were watchful eyes indeed, eyes still couldn't see everywhere at once.
Avoid the passing lights, stay in the shadows. It was nothing new to an experienced raider.
Other than the watchtowers, there was another kind - steel all the same, but much smaller. Instead of men, they held aloft horn-shaped devices instead, which they suspected to be the source of the overbearing voice.
Ygritte mapped out their locations in her mind's eye. If things go awry, she did not want to be in their line of sight.
The free folk poured out onto the grounds before the Generator, the great beast almost quiet. When she first stood under it, the sounds it made were otherworldly - like a waking dragon. Now, she heard the thunderous rumble as nothing more than a brisk wind in the distance. Ygritte did not know if she had simply gotten familiar with the noise, or if the beast had truly slackened.
A man climbed up the platform before the Generator - a great bear of a man, with well-kept hair and a thin moustache which crawled into a fuzzy beard. He wore a long leather coat of a make she had never seen before over a plain ruffled shirt. Between him and them was a line of some dozen guards, all dressed in matching coats with their odd shortspears. She noted that only some of them sported the red-black armband.
Their eyes were so sunken their eyes were deep voids, and their faces almost sculpted from granite in how flat they were. Ygritte could feel the free folk shift nervously around her, some muttering to release the tension.
The man on the platform swept a gaze over them, before seemingly nodding in satisfaction. A second person stepped up, approaching from behind and whispering in his ear - a long-faced fellow with dead eyes - before stepping back.
"Alright!" the first man bellowed, his voice surrounding them entirely just like before, "Ladies and gents, I welcome you to New London! You may or may not have heard of me, so shall I introduce myself now? My name is Richard Aynesworth, the mayor of this fine city!"
What was a mayor? No, that didn't matter - Ygritte recognised the name, Aynesworth. She had heard it before, from Mance's party. That man was the Captain, she was sure of it. And the Bag of Bones was sure of it too, because she could make out their warband discretely shifting through the crowd to get to the front - as close to the platform as possible. Ygritte moved to follow, but a hand grabbed her shoulder.
"Stay close to me," Ryk muttered in her ear, "Something ain't smelling right 'ere. Ragwyle's sensing it too."
Ygritte froze.
"You've come a long way from your homes!" the Captain carried on obliviously, "And we hope you may soon find New London playing host to your new lives! It is a harsh world outside the Pit, and our city welcomes all with open arms. However, every man, woman, and child has a place in this city!"
The man raised a sheet of paper to his face, and squinted at it, "All of you must have been briefed by the clerks last night, and given a timecard. It is utterly paramount you do not lose it! Now, I will have myself bugger off, and let my good people take the stage. Each of them will explain their jobs, and if you find one to your fancy, have a talk with them afterwards!"
Aynesworth stepped back and began to walk off the platform - just as a knife sailed through the air and embedded itself deep into his back.
Someone screamed first - a grating shout of pain - and she did know who it was.
Rattleshirt bolted forwards, knocking down a guard and using their body as purchase to leap onto the platform. The raiders rushed out of the crowd, surging onto the line of soldiers and tackling them to the ground - salvaged knives of scrap metal flashing through the dawn cold. A veil of blood wetted the morning mist as the Lord of Bones buried a hatchet deep into the Captain and released a roar of triumph.
She could taste the panic. The crowd turned into a crush as men and women tried to escape, a total mass of writhing bodies and purpled lungs breathing out spumes of hot steam into the air, fogging over their eyes. And for some gods-damned reason, they weren't scattering.
Ygritte struggled to breathe, desperately clawing her small form out from the crush as the walls of meat and fur pressed in on her. She rasped in what little air there was, eyes mad as a hare's - and her lungs seized. She couldn't breathe, it was so dark - so murkily dark, and she couldn't see- she couldn't see- couldn't see couldn't see couldn't see couldn't see-
Two firm hands scooped her up by the armpits and lifted her arm, rough hides and leathers scratching at her bare skin as Ygritte was buoyed above the crush. She still couldn't see - her vision still nothing more than blurry figures and flashing shapes. Ygritte blinked madly, wiping at her face until she ripped the tears from her eyes, and even then it was still painfully unclear.
Ygritte fell in a muddy river once when she was a child - and it was the most terrifying experience she could remember. The darkness all around, not knowing which way was up or down, the cryptic shadows lurking in the depths. It filled her nights with nightmares for moons, and this was much like that.
"Breathe, girl!" that was Ragwyle's voice, "Breathe! Longspear, we need to get the fuck out of 'ere!"
"Aye!" Ryk's voice was hoarse and shallow, "Follow me!"
Ygritte raked in a breath, making this terrible whining sound that pierced her ears. But she continued nonetheless, her lungs fluting and cheeks purpling as she scraped in more and more air - until her vision started to clear. Ygritte realised Ragwyle had slung her over her shoulder and was powering her way out the crowd with the strength of a bull. It took all the energy she had left to raise her head - and find the Lord of Bones upon the stage, lifting up the Captain's decapitated head to the sky as his followers cheered.
Behind him, the Generator seemed to roar in terrible rage, flames bursting out like the eyes of a devil breaking through hell.
Ragwyle stopped suddenly, her shoulder digging into Ygritte's stomach and squeezing out her stomach. Ygritte puked, bile and breakfast spilling onto the spearwife's back and ground. Ragwyle either didn't notice, or didn't care to mention it.
"Why'd ye stop!?" the large woman shouted, just as Ygritte wriggled her way off and onto the ground.
Ygritte stood up on wobbly legs, wiping at her mouth as she felt her cheeks burn.
"Back!" Ryk shouted, panic colouring his voice, "Get back! Get back!"
She couldn't see it, her vision blocked by his back and all the bodies surrounding them.
"What is it, you lanky mutt!?" Ragwyle shoved him out of the way.
Ygritte's lungs seized again. Barricades, knitting together the narrow streets by boxes, sacks and crates piled high and roped together - all raised up in a matter of minutes without them noticing. Every street, roadway, avenue and alley leading out of the centregrounds had been sealed off as tightly as a stoppered waterskin.
The citizens were there, watching them over the barricades with their lifeless eyes. And the free folk stared back at their makeshift fortifications in a mixture of uncertainty, fear, and anger.
So that's why the streets were so quiet in the morning. Was this all planned? Had they already known Rattleshirt's plan?
They must have. Those stockades were raised the moment their backs were turned and their attention paid on Aynesworth. They didn't know where Rattleshirt was, but they knew he was in the city. And that was all they needed.
The citizenry split like a wave, and more guardsmen in longcoats flooded into the centregrounds. Ygritte pulled out her long knife, but kept it hidden behind her.
The Londoner soldiers filed into two ranks, surrounding the free folk and pinning them to the Generator at their backs. Ygritte could hear Rattleshirt spitting insults and calling the people gathered to attack. But no one moved, trapped in their fear and as impotent as a deer before a shadowcat.
A soldier at the end of the front row lifted his sword, dressed more neatly than his comrades. The pale sun was rising over the lip of the Pit, and it caught the steel of his blade and turned it into a blaze.
"Ready your pieces!"
A ripple of clicking sounds as the soldiers fiddled with their devices.
"Front rank, kneel!"
The forward row knelt, lifting their shortspears to their eyes. Ygritte did not understand; what were they doing? Clearly, not charging. And yet, she doubted they were bracing. Were they trying to contain them? What were they doing?
"Wait!" Rattleshirt shouted angrily, but Ygritte drowned out his voice.
Cries of alarm were rising in the crowd. Some were already on the ground and begging for mercy. Mothers were turning away to shield their children with their backs, and brothers and fathers were rushing to the front to shield their sisters and mothers.
"Front rank!" the soldier roared, slashing down his sword, "GIVE FIRE!"
The sound was unlike any other. An eruption of flame and smoke - a furious, rolling crackle. At once, she recognised the weapons. They were the same kind that the sky-ships had greeted them with, the sound described as a crack of thunder.
It wasn't anything like thunder. It was more unassuming, more dangerous.
It sounded like frost cracks. When a night of cold would freeze the sap inside a tree, and a wave of warmth in the morning would force the trees to split open. It was a lethal danger when hunting in a mountain forest. All it would take is a single gust of downhill wind, and the mountainside would come alive with the ripple of pops and crackles - and the entire forest would come crashing down.
It is said that the moment you hear the trees splitting, you were already dead.
Ygritte heard the trees splitting.
"Get back!" Ryk screamed furiously.
It was too late.
Ragwyle was blasted off her feet. Children staggered at the force, clapping their hands over their bleeding ears and crying. Men were screaming as something ripped through their furs and into their flesh. People dropped like sacks of rocks - not just the first few rows, but even deep in the back. A fog of smoke toiled in the air, filling the breadth of the street.
Ygritte choked in it as Ryk pushed her to the ground, before reaching out to drag Ragwyle back.
"Rear rank!" she heard, "Present your pieces!"
More!?
"They're try'na kill us!" Rattleshirt screamed furiously, "Kill them! KILL THEM!"
The surviving free folk turned as one onto the enemy and urged themselves forward. Then, one man broke rank and rushed forward - and the tide followed, shrieking like fiends. Ygritte sealed her eyes tightly as she felt the onrush of wind and chaos, men and women and children charging towards the soldiers, determined to avenge the fallen.
"Rear rank, give fire!"
They were met with a second storm of frost cracks, the wave washing over them with all the force of an avalanche.
And all momentum they had was clamped down upon as more bodies fell, the enraged riot petering out into terrified rabble.
"Surrender!" the soldiers shouted, "Submit yourselves and you will live! We have no trouble with you, we only want the Lord of Bones!"
Ygritte couldn't believe it. Then what had they killed them all for? Her breathing was quick and shallow, her eyes wide as she stared at all the bodies littered across the ground. One man had a hole where his heart was, another woman had a chunk of her skull torn out. A child was missing an arm and a head. Blood didn't pool, it seeped through the wood and dyed it black.
The free folk threw themselves to the floor in submission, and the soldiers advanced - their cohesion broken by the careful weaving through the fallen bodies - smoke still eddying from the tips of their shortspears in ribbons.
"Front rank, present!"
They lifted their devices to their eyes once more, and Rattleshirt bellowed in rage. His warband hefted their weapons - axes, hatchets, picks - over the bodies of the guards, and roared savagely. They took off, charging like demon possessed spirits towards the soldiers.
"WAIT!" Ryk screamed, and Ygritte only understood after a moment.
They were still downrange. And the soldiers did not notice them - or they simply did not care.
"NO!"
"Front rank!" their leader grinned, "GIVE FIRE!"
A piercing pain struck her body, and Ygritte's ears were still ringing when she hit the ground.