Davos
¡Shut up! – he shouted – If I wanted, I would give you to Alliser Thorne and watch you die as a traitor, just like the young bastard.
Samwell stopped crying and sobbing. The fat boy tried to retain some tears with difficulty, but he simply couldn't. Luckily for Davos, it was not his case. After losing his fingers, his sons, and perhaps his king, sadness just became the status quo for him. He liked Jon, the illegitimate son of Eddard Stark because he reminded him of his poor Mathos, drowned between the burning, green flames of the Blackwater. Suddenly, the cries of the lord commander took him away from his thoughts. He quickly put on the black armor with the onion and stood in the southern wall of Castle Black.
His blood suddenly cooled. They were many, like two hundred. And inside the fortress? Without a doubt, less. He found himself damning the inexistent luck of Jeor Mormont to keep the ancient glory of the Watch. The column of men was guided by a man who wore a patch on a lost eye, assisted by another who wore a red cloak. But there was something very strange in that troop of men. They didn't have banners. Empty spears stabbed the air as if they were threatening the Wall silently. He saw the man who stood by his own side. Alliser Thorne didn't know what to say. It was evident. So, Davos decided to take the word.
"In the name of the King in the Wall, ¿Who the fuck are you?" He really wished Stannis to be alive.
"There's no King in the wall anymore "a woman approached. Her blond hair and brilliant armor made a huge contrast with her ugly face and body. Davos recognized her. She was with Renly and Catelyn Stark in Storm's End, a long, long time ago. "His forces were overpowered by Terror Fort's."
"So, my King died in the hands of the other bastard…the Bolton" he thought.
"You still haven't answered my question. ¿Who the fuck are you?" he asked again.
"We are the Brotherhood without Banners, Knight of the Onion" the man with the red cloak spoke "Our main objective is to bring peace to the Seven Kingdoms, we swear it in the name of R'hllor."
"Go away" he said fiercely "I don't want to hear anything about your fake gods and promises. I don't want to see a red priest ever again. I've had enough of them."
"If Melisandre of Asshai worries you, stay calm. She ran away to the sea and now is looking for a ship that might take her to Middle Earth" the man said again.
"Do you talk like that about your spiritual partner?" Thorne intervened, inopportunely. He sucked as the head of the men in the Wall. Everyone knew it, but nobody was willing to say it.
"She isn't" The man with the patch over the eye answered "I know Thoros since a long time ago, he wouldn't hurt anyone. In fact, he resurrected me."
"Then tell the Watch your name, leader of the Brotherhood" the lord commander replied.
"My name is Beric Dondarrion, Lord of the Thunder, sworn to the Realm and your server, right now."
The main crow meditated for a moment, but then whispered as an answer: "No". Davos knew it since the beginning. That idiot would never take a wise decision in his entire life, at least, not without some help.
"Milord" he approached "Reconsider your answer. The Watch lacks men and if Jon Snow's reports are true, then…"
"Jon Snow is dead!" the antipathic black brother shouted. "And if I'm not wrong, Sir Davos, you aren't one of us."
"And I'm no longer one of Stannis' men, in case you didn't hear what happened out there."
"Then you belong to nowhere".
"But will you? When the White Walkers come here and devastate the poor forces of this ice snake, tell me then, will there be a Realm to defend?"
A few minutes ago, the doors of Caste Black were opening for Lord Beric. The Brotherhood entered into the castle. Dondarrion approached Thorne.
"Ser Alliser, we promise we won't cause any trouble, we won't disturb your men."
"Great. But don't expect me to provide you with precious food. Also, you'll have to work to maintain the Wall as if you were part of the Watch. Or part of Stannis' remaining lords."
"Don't worry about provisions, milord. In the brotherhood, we count with great hunters to whom we are in debt for a good amount of deer's flesh"
Meanwhile, Brienne and Thoros went to meet Davos.
"Milord, I am sorry for your king's death" Brienne excused secretly herself politely. Davos noticed it. He knew it since the very beginning. The ugly lips of that woman could lie, but not her disgusting and deformed facial expression.
"Well, I'm not" he said, showing them his back, taking a lamp, and walking through a passage that led to the crypts under the wall. He wanted to be again with Tarly, Ghost, and Jon. A wolf, a dead man and a fat one. They became his only friends in the entire world. "Am I really such a tragic man?" he asked himself. His only future was to stay in that cold, frozen paramount until his death, praying to the gods for Bolton not to attack them. But he knew they wouldn't listen. They didn't hear him when the Blackwater Bay burnt. They didn't hear him when he tried to kill the red priestess. And certainly not when she made the proposal for burning Shireen Baratheon alive. Why would they listen to him now? The answer was easy to think: They would never.
The most probable thing for him was to die, attached to a cross and skinned in Terror's Fort as another banner of House Bolton. A bloody banner.
"Why" Thoros of Myr asked, apparently with innocence.
"A King who murders his own daughter doesn't deserve any crown." He couldn't believe they were still following him. But they did. They offered their presence even when he reached the crypt. Why? Why would they be so interested in a failed knight, pirate, or Hand? He was about to ask Thros of Myr, when he answered as if he had read his mind.
"As you might have guessed, we are not here for the resources or the haven the Wall offers" he pointed at Jon's corpse, still lying over the dissection table with the black clothes covering his body and a bony aspect, a sign of death. He looked like a king, as a Stark from Winterfell, a nobleman. "We're here for him".
"Don't you see? He's already dead" Davos put the lamp on a shelf and stroked Sam's hair while he was sleeping.
"No, he is not" the red priest claimed "He's just inside another body. I just have to bring him back to his original one."
"Even if you could – which I don't think so – I don't trust you. Or any R'hllor messenger. I've seen what you do. I've seen you giving birth to disgrace."
"As I said before, Melisandre betrayed the Lord of Light. I'm not like her. I just want to resurrect Jon, as I did with Lord Beric."
"Why, then? You win nothing."
"No, I don't. But Arda does. He's one of the main points of the Wheel, a fundamental verse of the Song."
"Which song?"
"The Song of Ice and Fire. The one that will define the destiny of the world."
Davos didn't know what to say for a moment. He didn't want to fall again into the tricks of a foreign sorcerer. He didn't want more people to die. But he also didn't want to die in the North, far from everything he knew before, without family or friends or anyone to love. He was going to ask Thoros about something else, but, like the previous time, the man went ahead of his words and began to spoil Ghost. The dire wolf seemed to be curious and started smelling his hand.
"He's Ghost and is a lost case. It hasn't eaten since Jon died."
"It's because he doesn't like the taste of the crude flesh".
"Come, on, that's impossible, it's a wild animal. Of course he likes it."
"No, he isn't. He's a man" what the priest said next made Davos' blood run cold "How are you, Jon?"
