Waking up, and coming back to life.
Chapter 2
The Ice Dragon
He had been asleep for so long.
No, asleep is the wrong word. Rather, imprisoned.
Imprisoned by a cage of ice. A mountain of ice and snow pressing onto him, so heavy he couldn't even move. The weight of a mountain pressed above him. A mountain accumulated over centuries, the ice becoming heavier and stronger with each decade.
It had become so hard to breathe, so hard to move. He had fled north to escape the doom - to escape the fires that had sucked the sorcery out of the world. He tried to take refuge in the lands as far north as north would go, the lands so thick with old power that not even the doom itself could burn through them.
Still, the ice and the cold had proved just as perilous as the fire.
The cold crept up on him, sucking his strength. One day, he had stopped to land and then, the next, the ice was so thick he couldn't get up again.
He had already been weakened after flying for so long. His body had grown large and heavy, too large to easily support itself. He needed to feed on more than just meat - he needed the magic, but he could feel the magic in the world slowly draining away. It starved him.
It felt like the magic of the world was dying.
He had turned to the cold as his salvation, and then the cold had become his prison.
He had once been so strong, but the cold had sapped that strength bit by bit. Slowly, he had felt the ice start to blanket him until he couldn't move. Before long, the ice became a cage. It froze him to the bone.
As his eyes closed, he felt himself dying.
The last of a dying breed.
Frozen. Buried. Turned to stone.
He had been dead to the world for so, so long.
…
That was until he felt the blood drip slowly against his brow. It was first thing that had touched him in over four hundred years.
This blood was special. This blood could melt the snow and remain warm. This blood refused to freeze.
This blood had power in it.
This blood caused frozen eyes to flicker. The earth began to rumble.
It wasn't much blood, but it was enough. Enough to cause a frozen heart to beat again. Enough for muscles to tremble and to stir. It was enough for him to take a long, deep frozen breath. It was enough for him to wake, and to remember when he had been strong.
His body twitched, and stirred.
He wasn't just cold anymore. He had become the cold.
Slowly, carefully - like the glacial shift of continents - powerful wings began to unfurl.
The prison of ice protested. The weight of the mountain tried to keep him buried. The struggle was hard, but he thrashed and persevered. He longed to be free.
He roared with all the force of four hundred years of caged fury.
The mountain cracked.
The sky broke.
When his wings broke through the surface, they pounded with all the force of a storm. The air cracked with the sound of thunder. Boulders of ice the size of mammoths shattered everywhere.
And suddenly he was lifting upwards again. He was flying. He was rising up and up into the sky…
Jon gasped suddenly, clutching his chest. His lungs felt frozen. It took him a while to realise that his heart was beating - slowly, uncertainly.
His head was spinning, struggling to move. He felt cold. So, so cold. Colder than any living man had a right to be.
I should be dead, he thought, still gasping breath. I felt myself die.
Am I dead?
He clutched at his chest in shock. His fingers could feel the wound in the very centre of his chest, just under his ribcage. The white walker's blade had gone straight through his chest and out of the other side. The freezing cold had cauterised the wound, leaving nothing but an ugly scar two inches thick.
Briefly, Jon wondered whether or not his eyes had turned blue. He remembered the white walker's blade plunging into his chest. He shouldn't have survived a stab like that.
But I can feel my heart beating, he told himself. It was slow, laborious, but it was beating. I can't be a wight. Can I?
What is going on?
Every breath felt sore, laboured. He was struggling to breathe. He couldn't see anything. It took him a while to realise that he was buried under a few inches of snow.
He tried weakly to pull himself up. The pain in his chest was so intense he couldn't even scream.
I can't be dead. Dead people surely couldn't feel this much pain?
Strangely, he heard the voice of Dolorous Edd echoing in his head at that moment. "The dead are likely dull fellows," Edd's ghostly voice mused. "Full of tedious complaints-the ground is too cold, my gravestone should be larger, why does he get more worms than I do? "
The sudden thought was so surreal it made him laugh. Hs chuckle turned to pain, his scar throbbing. He could only moan, rolling weakly in the snow as he prayed for the pain to go away.
What happened? Jon eventually thought with confusion. The last I remember, I was bleeding out in the snow…
He paused, struggling as a weirder memory hit him. No, he thought slowly. That's not true. I remember something else…
Jon remembered the sensation of waking up. He remembered a centuries-long sleep coming to an end. He remembered moving limbs that had long since been frozen. He remembered thrashing and dragging himself out of the earth in a tremendous crash of power.
Jon remembered the feeling of beating wings, and flying through the night's sky.
Those aren't my memories, he realised. Normally, when Jon had dreams that weren't his own, they were dreams of being a wolf. He had never had a dream like that before.
Jon stared at his hands. He was still wearing his furs and cloak, but they were stained in blood and shredded. He was lying in the snow, and the wind was so far below freezing. By rights, he should have frozen to death a thousand times by now.
His skin was pale, but he wasn't trembling. There was hoarfrost clinging to his skin.
Why didn't the cold kill me?
It was hard to focus. His eyes were struggling to process anything but the snow and the dark. Something pale whipped across his eyes. At first, he thought it was more snow, until he wiped at his head.
"My hair," he realised with shock. The light was faint, but his dark black, overgrown locks were gone. Instead, he was left clutching at hair as white as bone. The cold had frozen his hair to a white the color of ash or bone.
His heart pounded. His senses started to return through the fog of disorientation, panic and pain. I need a fire, he thought. I'm suffering severe shock, hypothermia, and probably frostbite. I'm in shock and I can't feel it. I need heat. I need a fire .
Where the hell am I?
Jon managed to prop himself up. He wasn't on the glacier anymore. He had no idea where he was. He could see absolutely nothing but snow-swept plains illuminated in the dark. The only light was from the dancing aurora borealis weaving in the moonlit sky above him - a shimmering green and red that illuminated the sky. It took his eyes a while to adjust. He had never seen the northern lights so bright before.
He wasn't in the Frostfangs before. He could see the constellations above him - but the Stallion had never been so high in the sky, nor had the Sword in the Morning ever seemed so low. He couldn't even see the Galley or the Sow, and the Moonmaid had never seemed so lost.
He was in the frozen wastes far north of the mountains. He was so far north that the very stars in the sky had changed.
Realisation twanged. I'm north, he realised. I'm further north than I've ever been before. I must be far off the edge of the maps - no ranging has ever gone this far north.
How?
Why didn't the cold kill me?
His heart started to pound. The white walkers. Did the white walkers bring me with them after they stabbed me? Am I their captive, or worse…?
Slowly, more memories started to return. Surreal, weird visions. Visions of breaking free. Visions of blue eyes. Visions of flying. He tried to drag himself upwards, still staring entranced by the aurora above him.
No… Jon thought, still clutching at his chest. The white walkers didn't do this…
He felt the impact before he heard it. It was a dull beat like the banging of a drum that reverberated into his heart, dull and consistent. The beat of wings.
Jon was still staring upwards as he watched the dark shadow pass over the northern lights. The shadow was so large it could have blocked out the sun.
Jon stared dumbfounded as the ice dragon roared.
…
Panic.
Confusion.
Those moments were a blur.
The dragon was beyond enormous. It was at least a hundred foot long from tail to shout, and then wider from each wingtip. Its whole body was deep white but with red veins tracing down its side and across its wings. The wings were sinewy, but with powerful, muscular upper arms and clawed legs that hung backwards as it weaved through the sky.
Its body itself was scaled and spiked, with spiny red crests running all the way down its back to its tail. The tail whipped around the air, while each beat of powerful wings caused the air to shudder slightly.
The roar was like the howl of a hurricane. Jon's ears were still ringing, his head splitting open in pain.
He watched as the dragon circled around him three times, before disappearing into the night with two beats of its powerful wings.
Jon was already running. He didn't know where to. His leg felt stiff and lame, but he was still limping over the heavy snowdrifts.
A dragon.
A dragon.
They were supposed to be extinct.
Do dragons still live Beyond-the-Wall? Could that dragon have lived all this time up at the furthest north?
No… Jon thought slowly. His memories were still jumbled and blurred, but they slowly came into focus. He remembered a sleep of eons, he remembered waking up. He remembered flying.
I woke it up . He didn't… he didn't know how he knew that, but he knew it was true. He had been bleeding out on the glacier and the dragon had been buried beneath him. My blood woke the dragon.
Is that how I'm still alive?
The dragon must have carried him here, to this place so far away from the Frostfangs. Why? How?
Why didn't the cold kill me?
Jon's body shivered. There was no sign of life on the frozen plains. His body was still deathly weak. The adrenaline kept him moving, but his strength was failing quickly.
His leg was lame. His chest hurt to breathe. He was in the middle of the uncharted wilderness and there was a dragon stalking above him.
And how the hell am I going to survive?
There was no shelter, no way to light a fire.
Jon managed five steps, before finally collapsing face first into the snow.
He felt himself falling through the world.
He saw snapshots of a different life. A different perspective, he was staring down through reptilian eyes as he hovered over a frozen wasteland.
His body was weak. Hungry. Everything was different. He was lost, and his muscles screamed in pain. He needed to eat. He needed to heal.
After being caged for so long he was left scrawny, weak and hungry.
And all around him, he could feel the demons. The creatures of dark ice and death. He could feel their eyes on him, stalking him hungrily from the ground.
The cold and death longed to hunt him.
Let them come. He had been dead to the world for so long.
He would never die again.
He roared in fury, and the sound of his cry splitting through the storm.
Jon woke up woozily. He felt heat. He felt the cold draining away slowly.
His eyes flickered. There was a fire. He was in front of a fire. A campfire. Jon blinked, trying to process what was happening. They were in a cave. There was a figure dragging him, dropping him over into a small hollow as a fire crackled in front of him.
He felt his ruined furs being stripped off him, he felt warm rags being pressed against his wounds.
Strangely, the feeling of warmth felt almost alien.
Jon groaned weakly. "Easy," a hoarse voice muttered. The voice was as dry and as rough as sandpaper, almost a rasp. "You are very weak."
Jon didn't object. He could feel cold hands tending to his wounds, pressing poultice up against his injuries. Somebody was tending to him. He didn't know who and he didn't know why, but they were trying to heal him.
For the life of him, Jon wasn't even strong enough to focus on the figure. He could see nothing but blurry outlines and flickering light.
Still, I'm alive .
He hadn't expected to ever be alive again. Jon groaned as he slowly dropped back into a wounded slumber. The world went black.
He woke later as he felt someone press a skin of water to his lips. His throat was painfully dry. When the water hit his throat he nearly gagged.
The cold and numbness was fading away. Instead, Jon just felt pain.
"Drink," the hoarse voice said. "You must drink."
"Drink," another cawed. "Drink. Drink ."
Jon's eyes slowly managed to focus. He was in a small cave, with a campfire burning less than a few feet away from him. The air smelled of rot and old humus, and the walls of the cavern were coated in ice. A man in black was standing over him, features inscrutable under a dark hood. The figure was wearing nothing but black; black furs, black boots, black hood. Was this man a brother of the Night's Watch?
There was a rustle of feathers and cawing. All around the cave, Jon saw half a dozen ravens rustling around him. They flapped everywhere, one even landing on the figure's shoulder. He did nothing to brush the bird off.
Jon could smell something else too, a pungent tone to the cave's air. Dried meat and blood.
Jon tried to speak. His throat was so weak he could barely even breathe.
"Easy. You are lucky to be alive," the stranger said. "There are not many strong enough to resist the power of the Others. There are even fewer who can drag themselves back to life afterwards."
"… What?" Jon gasped. His voice was so weak.
"You were touched by the Others. Their power freezes the living but doesn't quite kill; it creates a stasis between life and death. An undeath. Once frozen, their power will consume you until you are nothing more than a thrall." The voice was low. "But their influence can be shattered. Before you fully lose yourself, it's possible to break free. If you are very recently dead, resuscitation can even be possible. You were in the hold of the white walkers yet swiped out of their grip."
Jon blinked, struggling to understand. The pain in his chest was agonising. The stranger's face was still hidden in the depths of his hood, obscured under a thick scarf. "… In a sense," the man continued, in his deep, sombre voice. "Their power may have even saved your life. It was only while you were frozen on the brink of undeath that the cold couldn't kill you, and your injuries didn't cause you to bleed out. Their power preserved your body despite the cold, it sealed your wounds and gave you time - long enough for me to find you."
Jon could only stare. The hooded figure's head tilted slightly, examining him. "… But be careful…" he continued. "Those who have felt the white walker's touch can never truly be free of it. You will feel their chill on your soul for the rest of your days."
Jon coughed slowly. His body felt so weak. "… How do you know?" he muttered after a long silence.
For a while, there was no reply. Then, the stranger leaned in closely and placed his hand on Jon's shoulder. "Because I feel it on mine."
His hands were cold. Jon stared down and realised suddenly the stranger wasn't wearing gloves. His hands were black. Black and cold.
Jon flinched suddenly. He jerked so hard that the pain shot through his chest, and he erupted into a coughing fit. There was blood in his mouth.
"Easy," the stranger warned. Around him, the ravens echoed the word, cawing "Easy, easy, easy, " into the distance.
"You're a wight," Jon gasped weakly.
His head tilted. "Yes."
Jon's stared. He had no sword, and he was in no condition to fight, but his body still flinched. He was in a cave being healed by a dead man.
The wight slowly lowered his hood back, only slightly, but enough to reveal his upper face. His skin was deathly pale, clung to the bones of his face like something desiccated. His eyes were pitch black, though, not blue. "I was in the grip of the Others as well, once. Like you, I broke free… but not before my body was well and truly dead. My heart stopped beating a long time ago, and it will never beat again."
Jon's eyes were wide. "If I wanted you dead, I would have left you where I found you. You were very close to dying again before I found you, Jon Snow."
He knows my name . "How did you find me? Why?"
"I have a companion that directed me to you." The ravens fluttered around him. "And I saved you for the same reason that I myself was saved a long time ago…"
He threw another log onto the fire. It crackled. "… Because our war is not done with us yet," muttered the stranger. "Sleep now and heal, brother, your fight has only begun."
Jon stayed in that cave for days, cradled by the fire. The cave was hidden in a hill of the frozen wastes, and every so often he could hear the howl of the winds outside, a thin shriek in the tunnels. For days Jon could only slip in and out of a vague consciousness as he recovered. Aside from him and the stranger, and the many ravens, they were alone.
"… Why didn't the cold kill me?" Jon eventually asked, staring at the stranger. "And how did my blood wake the dragon?"
The stranger simply shook his head. "I have no answers to give you, brother. You ask things that are beyond me."
"Then who can I ask?" Jon demanded.
"I will bring you to him, when you are well," the stranger promised, and said no more.
It took four more days before Jon was strong enough to stand. Another four before he could walk. The stranger watched and guarded him with all the patience of the dead. Sometimes, the dead man went out and to hunt for food, riding on an enormous elk that inexplicably seemed to obey. Otherwise the dead man guarded Jon in silence, and continued to guard Jon as his strength slowly returned.
Even when the stranger was away, the ravens would always linger in the cave. The birds would caw and flutter - some would leave and others would arrive, but they would always watch him. The ravens were guarding him too. They weren't natural birds. Nothing about them felt natural.
Every time the stranger came back, Jon would always ask more questions. Trying to find answers.
"That dragon… was it buried underneath the glacier?" Jon asked one day.
The stranger nodded. "Yes, buried for a long time."
Jon paused, gave it a long moment's thought. "There are old tombs in the mountains. Tombs beneath that glacier," he muttered, almost to himself. "Mance was searching for the Horn of Joramun. He said it could break the Wall. Mance kept saying there was forgotten power in the Frostfangs…"
The stranger glanced at him. "… Sometimes old legends get muddled up."
The stranger didn't speak any more after that, and Jon had too much to think on.
All that time Mance was searching for the Horn of Winter, could he have actually been searching for a buried ice dragon?
The Horn of Winter was supposed to be a power that could destroy the Wall and wake the giants. Jon wondered just how much a giant dragon would qualify.
Jon's strength returned slowly. His body still felt frail and weak. He had trouble breathing, and the pain in his chest was nothing short of agony. His hands felt numb, and he felt like he had lost some of the movement in his fingers.
His left leg was the worst, though. It was stiff and weak. Jon struggled to move it below the knee. There were ugly gouges on his leg of where the ice spider's fangs had stripped the muscles near his upper thigh.
Jon had also lost three toes; two on his left foot, and one on the right. The frostbite had bit them clean off. On his left hand, he had also lost his little finger.
Jon spent hours lying in the cave, staring at his mutilated hand. He saw the burns on pale flesh, the scars from where he had once thrown the lantern to save the Lord Commander. With only four fingers, he scarcely could recognise his own hand any more.
He remembered that when he'd first left Winterfell so long ago, he had scarcely had any scars at all.
Still more days passed. Slowly, Jon started to walk again.
The stranger had done all he could. He had proven a talented healer; treating Jon with herbs and poultices that Jon couldn't even recognise. He had tended to Jon's wounds diligently; slowly easing the ice out of the wounds made by Other's sword. He had smeared strange white paste onto the wounds; a paste that dripped red sap, a paste that had stung so badly that it made Jon gasp, but would eventually cause his skin to tingle strangely. Whatever it was, it worked - it helped to heal wounds that should have been debilitating.
Jon felt his face with his hand. He had no mirror, but his features felt pale and gaunt, like his skin was stretched tight over the bones of his face. It felt rougher, like it had been burned by the cold. He had lost weight, he had lost muscle. He had seen men who had been exposed to the winter before; they always had carried with them that haunted look in their eyes.
The cold would always leave its mark. Now, Jon knew what that mark felt like. Between his gauntness and his hair that been frozen white, Jon doubted if he was even recognisable anymore.
The stranger returned late one night. This far north, there were barely any days or nights - instead the world just lingered in a state of perpetual dusk.
"Are you strong enough to move?" the dead man asked. Jon glanced to the stranger. His clothes were a bit more ragged, and there was dried, rotten blood on his sword.
Jon nodded. "Yes," he said firmly, wishing that he believed it.
"Good. We must leave now. They have been looking for us for some time now."
Jon didn't need to ask who 'they' were. "I heard that dragon again when you were out," said Jon. "I heard it roaring in the distance."
"Yes. The beast has been circling the northern wastes. I saw it bring down a mammoth the other day." The dead man's voice was emotionless. "But the dragon is being hunted too."
"The Others." Jon frowned. "What do they want with the dragon?"
"Perhaps they seek to kill it and raise it as part of their army. Perhaps worse."
Jon couldn't think of many things that would be worse than that, but he stayed quiet. The stranger was slowly carefully packing up the camp. "When do we leave?" Jon asked with a gulp.
"Now. We must hurry."
Jon nodded, grimacing as he tried to stand up. "Where are we heading?"
"South, through the mountains. To the Haunted Forest." The stranger summoned his elk. The ravens perched across the elk's horns. "There is a man there that has been waiting to speak to you."
Jon frowned, but he knew better than to ask. The stranger had always been elusive about the one he worked for. "Is the route safe?"
"No." He helped pull Jon to his feet. Jon limped in pain, wrapping his arm around the stranger's shoulder to support him. "But it is perhaps safer than it might be. The enemy has been chasing after the dragon in strength. Its presence is perhaps the only reason we have been able to linger here for so long."
Jon had dreamt about the dragon sometimes. They were weird, surreal dreams. He had dreamt of being larger than mountains, but everywhere he went the storm followed. He dreamt about the dead rising and pursuing him at every turn, all the while creatures with cold blue eyes stalked from the shadows.
They were frightening dreams. The dragon was in danger too. Jon knew that the beast was still too weak to fly for sustained periods, and the storms would threaten it too. Every time it was on the ground - and it had to land frequently - it was in peril. The Others were harrying it constantly.
Sometimes, Jon had other dreams too. The wolf dreams were calm and reassuring compared to the chaos of the dragon dreams. Jon dreamt that Ghost was caught to the south, trapped on the other side of the Frostfangs. He dreamt of the wolf prowling restlessly over the mountains, avoiding the lingering dead that still roamed.
Occasionally, Ghost glimpsed free folk running as well. There had been some that had survived the collapse of Mance Rayder's army. The wildings were scattered and broken, but Ghost frequently saw them. None of them had fire-kissed hair or a smell like summer, though.
"Did you see a girl when you found me?" Jon had asked the stranger one day. "She had bright red hair, short, skinny. She was wearing grey furs."
The stranger shook his head. "I saw no one. It was the dragon that carried you to the northern wasteland after it shattered the glacier. I followed, and I found you."
Jon's stomach had twisted at the thought. He had no idea if Ygritte had survived or not. For all he knew, the white walkers might have cut her down as soon as they had him. It was a bitter thought, one that brought only pain.
They set off within the hour. Jon was carried on the elk, while the stranger walked alongside. The elk stood two metres tall with huge antlers nearly as wide - it had no saddle but it was big enough for Jon to be draped across its back. The stranger didn't stopped or paused, he walked tirelessly and matched the giant elk's pace. The elk was a strong and hardy beast - it didn't gallop, but it made good progress through rough snows and rarely stopped.
The elk was a strange mount. It wore no harness and it waited for no instructions. Instead, Jon collapsed onto its back while it carried him.
The ravens circled above. Occasionally, the stranger would change direction to follow the birds with no warning given. It took Jon a while to realise that the birds were somehow acting as scouts, or as guides. He didn't understand how.
The landscape was totally foreign. Jon knew their location only broadly - he knew that the Valley of Thenn must be somewhere to the southeast, while the Frozen Shores were to the far south and west. They were deep in the Lands of Always Winter, deeper than he had ever heard of a man to go. These bleak lands were a frozen wasteland that stretched for as far as the eye could see.
Still, they made good time. Jon was unconscious for most of it, but the elk moved constantly even as Jon slept on its back. During the nights, the stranger would set up a warm campfire for Jon alone. Slowly, Jon began to make out the craggy heights of the Frostfang Mountains in the furthest distance south.
Jon stared from atop the elk. The perilous mountains weren't that much more of an improvement, but it was in the right direction. He was watching the mountains take shape, right up until he heard a bellowing cry from the west.
Jon turned. In the distance, he could see the outline of a storm swirling over the horizon. The dragon was trapped in another storm, and the dead would attack at night. The beast raged and thrashed, but Jon knew that it couldn't fight forever.
The Others are hunting it, Jon thought with a twinge of sadness. It is fighting the cold and the dead .
"That dragon is going to die up here," he said slowly.
"Perhaps." That was the only reply the stranger gave.
It took them a week to reach the mountains. It took another to cross through a mountainous pass, and finally reach a frozen stream, a headwater that would later run into the Milkwater. The stranger moved confidently and surely through the lands, and the elk was a sturdy mount. The surrounding rocks slowly became speckled by dead pine trees; broken trunks jutting out of the ground like jagged spikes.
They passed a few abandoned Thenn camps throughout the journey, but they were cold and deserted. There were some signs of battle, but no corpses.
All of the surviving free folk had run south. Even the Thenns and the mountain clans had fled.
The Others are creeping over the world from the north, Jon found himself thinking, as they passed through another abandoned mountain camp. The Others were heading south piece by piece, and they left no survivors. Their armies weren't fast, but they were very thorough.
How long until they reached the Wall? Jon knew that however it would it take, it wouldn't be long enough. Winter is coming, and we are all so, so unprepared .
The ravens cawed around, flocking upwards from the elk's horns. The stranger didn't say a word, but the elk changed direction slightly.
Jon thought that they would be heading through the forest, but they didn't. Instead, the stranger led them west, to a small hilly outcrop overlooking the frozen river. There was a towering tree hanging over the rocks, its roots dangling downwards over the rock.
A dead weirwood, Jon realised. It took him a while to recognise it; the tree was leafless, and the bark had decayed into black like stone.
Jon stared at the rocks and the hill. Once, thousands of years ago, this might have been a place of worship to the Old Gods - a sprawling heart tree atop a hill. It was hard to see it now; the weirwood was dead and the hill was just a barren cluster of frozen rocks.
Still, the stranger stopped just short of the hill. The dark man paused at the boundary. "This is where I must leave you. You must go on alone."
"What?" Jon gasped weakly, clutching at his chest. He was stronger now, but two weeks of being carried had left his muscles feeling like mush.
"I cannot pass the boundary. There are old spells woven into this land. Dead songs, but their echo remains."
"Where am I going? There's naught but a dead tree on that hill."
"Look in the roots," said the stranger. "There is a cave hidden under the tree. There are tunnels crisscrossing beneath the forests throughout the north. Enter the tunnel and follow the path. It will be a long journey, but there will be somebody there to meet you."
Jon stared. "What will I find in there?"
The stranger looked at him. "What are you looking for?"
"A way home. A way to stop the Others."
"Then go." The stranger paused. "I wish you luck, brother."
Jon's face flickered, uncertainly, but he had nowhere else to go. The stranger had saved his life, and he had no choice except to trust him. He wouldn't survive a week out in the wilderness by himself, much less make it back to the Wall.
It took the stranger's help to dismount the elk, but Jon still nearly collapsed when he tried to make the first step. His legs felt like jelly, and the snow was treacherous.
It was barely fifty feet up a gentle incline, but each step still felt gruelling. Jon was gasping weakly before he was even halfway up. Behind him, the stranger watched solemnly. The elk pawed at the snow.
Finally, Jon reached the top. He could see the rotten weirwood roots dangling over the outcrop above. He didn't see the cave at first, but then slowly he made out the gloom hidden behind the roots. It was a cave barely big enough for a child. Jon cursed, but limped forward.
He barely even saw the figure until he was three metres away. The figure seemed to blend into the mud and routes. It was slight outline; at first he thought it was a child.
Then, Jon's eyes made out nut-brown skin, dappled like a deer's with paler spots, along with large ears and large gold and green eyes. Those strange eyes were slit like those of a cat, glowing softly in the darkness.
He stared in stunned amazement. The child of the forest cocked its head. Jon nearly collapsed in exhaustion, but it made no move to help him. They both looked at each for a long, painful moment.
"The hour is late, King Snow," it said finally. "The last greenseer awaits."