Jon's memories of Winterfell had been of summer snows, long days of sunlight glinting off the glass gardens, and the sound of ravens in the godswood. If he closed his eyes it was almost as if he could turn back time to two years ago, when he had been young and foolish and unhappy despite it all.

When he opened his eyes, the truth assaulted him. The glass gardens shattered, the towers gutted, the walls burnt black… Winterfell was nothing more than a great carcass, like the ribs of a whale washed up on a beach, reduced to nothing more than a den of wild dogs. The streets of Winter's town should be teeming with men and women fleeing the hardships of winter, availing themselves of Lord Stark's charity, but instead they lay barren and dead. If those families were not coming to Winterfell for aid, where had they gone instead? The likely answer to that question gave Jon no pleasure.

The Bolton men had deployed with Cerwyn and Dustin and others behind the castle itself. The scouts said the enemy had six thousands to Jon's ten, but for every proper soldier in Jon's host he had two Wildlings or clansmen with little in the way of steel or discipline. They had too few pikes, too few horses, too few of anything worth having in an army, and the snow made everything difficult. His only advantage lay in the giants and their mammoths, but even those... The Essosi used elephants in war, but only after draping them in armor and making them half-mad with potions. If Jon brought them near the line of battle, they would go half-mad after only a few arrows and then rage their way through Jon's own host. Giants were better and worse. Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg was a great warrior and had surprised Jon with his cunning, but they were too tall and too easily shot with bows. Had he a thousand gold dragons and a month, he might have commissioned some sort of armor for them… but time was one thing they did not have.

"This battle will be a bloodbath if it goes poorly," Mors stated, giving voice to Jon's thoughts. "Roose in the castle and his bastard dog behind it. Whichever one we attack, the other will come behind and fuck us bloody, and these wildings aren't worth the shit they leave on the ground. We should have laid siege to Castle Cerwyn first, cut off their food. It's a weaker castle and the lands by the White Knife are easier to forage in."

Forage. That was what men of war called it. Simple banditry was what it had amounted to, and with winter so near it would be nothing short of murder. If they had no other choice, he would give the order to forage himself, but the time had not yet come for that. These lands were where he had grown up, where he had ridden with Robb and Theon. He knew many of these farmers by sight if not by name.

Jon had known Lady Cerwyn too. The lands of House Cerwyn were less than a day's ride from Winterfell and Jon had visited them often. She had been Lady Jonelle then, not Lady Cerwyn. But the war had taken her brother and her father from her and now only she remained of her house, little more than a Bolton hostage. Of all Roose's allies, Jon felt pity for her most of all.

"I have no quarrel with Lady Cerwyn," Jon replied after a moment. "She has no love for Bolton, I am sure, and if we return her lands to her unspoiled she will join us happily."

Mors said nothing, but he did not have to. Jon knew the words the old man wanted to use. Soft-hearted, reckless, inexperienced. Perhaps he was right. But patience and caution could lose a war as easily as recklessness. Without a place to settle the Wildlings, they would starve in the coming winter while Bolton's forces would grow stronger, bolstered by reinforcements from the south. If he could end Bolton here, they could settle the Wildlings and their herds, connect with whatever remained of Robb's host, clear the Ironborn from Deepwood Motte, and convince the Manderlys to join forces with him... Would that be enough? A pair of cold blue eyes entered his thoughts unbidden.

"Craven as they are, I wish we had more wildlings," Mors rambled on. "Could have sent them up to the castle, and then won the battle before Roose finished making butchery of 'em."

Jon's lip curled. How well would Mors like it if his own men were talked of in such a way? He felt the urge to strike the man for insolence. "Tormund sieges the Dreadfort and keeps your lands safe from reprisal. He and his cannot be spared," Jon replied, "As to the rest…" he laughed. "Do you mean to tell me you intend to hide behind herdsmen and hunters? They are better off in the Gift where we left them. Mance and Val and those as follow them will be enough for us."

"Val," Mors sneered, "I suppose she's the only wildling you really need, eh?" Stories of Ygritte had become common in the camp. There had been no avoiding it, with so many of the wildling host kept so close. Just one more thing men would hate him for, Jon thought with annoyance.

"The wildlings at least obey me without question," Jon stated, anger hot on his tongue. It was a lie. Rattleshirt had left the host to raid the fat of the land not more than a fortnight earlier. Harma Dogshead had brought his head back to Jon on a pike. "See to your men, Mors, we march within the hour."

Mors left, showing only the barest minimum of respect. Insolence. He had expected another Robb, leading them to glorious victory after glorious victory, with easy charm and open-handed virtue. Instead, they got a bastard, orphan, son of whore who had slept with a wildling and seemed certain to lead them into doom. Well, let them talk. He would show them his quality.

Jon turned to face his honor guard. These were rough men from Wull and Burley and Norrey, thick with hair and dour expressions, wielding greatswords as large as Ice and riding hairy horses little larger than ponies. "Would any of you wish to voice objection? If so, I urge you to make haste, we march within the hour."

A few chuckled, a few grimaced, but most made no expression at all. "Mors is no craven," the Wull said after a moment. "He said nothing to you his own men weren't saying around the campfires last night."

"Mance Rayder will give us victory."

"Mayhap," Hugo replied. "Most of the men would be happy to believe that. But men look at a castle, a castle like Winterfell, and their confidence in a scheme becomes less sure. 'Can we really take such a great place with only a few thousands?' They ask. Your scheme is a good one, but schemes are always uncertain."

"All things are."

"Not all. Some things you can depend on. Service. Winter. Death. More hopeful men than I might trust to steel or stone or gold, but we have little enough of those in this host. What am I to tell my men? The Boltons occupy a great castle, a great rock that has never been taken by storm, and you tell your men to charge at it. Men are not made of steel. You must give them something certain, Stark." Stark. He felt a shiver run through him every time they called him that. Hugo was the Wull, Bill was the Burley, and Jon was the Stark. What had he ever wanted more than to share his father's name? But now he was the Stark, the only one, and these greybeards meant to ask him for guidance.

"Winter is coming," he said, and he did not know which way he meant it. His father always meant the words as a warning, a call to caution and foresight, but the old kings of winter had intended the words to be a threat. Winter is death and so are we. "If the men are certain of nothing else, let them be sure that Winter is coming."

The hour passed too slowly for Jon's liking. The sun crept its way along the southern horizon slowly, a faint patch of light in a sky of steel. Fear and anger warred within him, threatening to tear him apart from the inside out… but at least no doubt remained. He had made peace with the wildlings, with the Night's Watch, with the Mountain Clans, but there could be no peace between Stark and Boltons. His brother's blood cried out for vengeance, but even if Roose had merely been an upstart lord there could have been no compromise. Roose lay claim to the seat of Eddard Stark, the seat of Jon Stark, and large as Winterfell was, it could not support two Kings. Neither Bolton nor Stark could rule the North while the other drew breath.

"Sound the advance," Jon stated, and a chorus of horn blasts sounded in reply. Like a glacier falling into the sea, the formations of men shuffled forward. The wildlings moved in front, clutching bows and fistfuls of steel-tipped arrows. Those arrows could have pierced mail if strung on a proper bow, but the wildling bows were light weapons used for hunting or raiding, not weapons of war. Still, there were thousands of them, and even if only one in a hundred arrows found their mark, it would be enough to force the Boltons to charge.

The flayed man of the Boltons shifted in response to them, remaining squarely behind the castle, taunting Jon to break himself on Winterfell's ancient walls. They had set up in the abandoned streets of Winter's Town, and would not be easily displaced.

For what seemed like an hour, no sound came but the steady crunch of snow under the feet of his men, but then came the missiles. Two blackened stones hurled out from Winterfell, crashing into the wildlings as they advanced. One missed, luckily landing amidst the loose crowd of wildlings, but the other crushed a black-bearded warrior outright as it fell. The man lay there in the snow, screaming raw agony. A few of his friends moved to help him, but it was too late, and the host parted around the fallen man and his friends as they continued forward.

More stones crashed into his host. Three men died. They marched on. Arrows loosed from the walls and fell amidst them. Men were dying, how many he could not say but their screams filled the air from every direction. Jon closed his helm and reminded himself to be calm. This was no place for rage, for fury. His commanders thought him a green boy and he could not give truth to their thoughts.

"TUN WEG DAK!" The call went up from the rear of Jon's host, a great bellowing voice like the roar of a lion, and a shiver ran down Jon's spine as great stones passed over his head to smash in the walls of Winterfell. Slings were crude weapons, but in the hands of giants as mighty as Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg and his kind they may as well have been scorpions.

Poorly aimed scorpions, Jon had to admit. For every stone that had found its mark, three had come up too short or too far. Jon was happy he had told them not to loose into the melee. Giants had strong arms, but weak eyes, and only a few weeks of training with the slings. Mag would not win this battle for them, and they had to press on.

Jon had not made any pretense of giving the wildlings strict orders. Val's archers traded arrows as soon as the Bolton army came within range. Jon could not see how many of them found their mark. Would it be enough to force Ramsay out from the ruins of Winter's Town? Jon's grip on Longclaw whitened. But soon the banner of the flayed man began to approach. His gambit had paid gold, but what came next?

Jon could see them properly now. These were soldiers from the lands near Winterfell, soldiers whose colors and arms he knew well. The thick segmented plate of the Barrow Guard, the long pikes of House Cerwyn. The Bolton men were new to Jon, but they cut a distinctive appearance in the snow, with their great shields painted bright pink, a tribute to the old tradition of covering their shields with the flayed skin of their enemies. The wildlings melted away from their approach, falling behind the ranks of Umbermen and Mountain clan champions. Stone clubs and bronze swords were of little use against castle-forged steel.

Screams and clamor rose up as the lines collided. Each side had spread as wide as they could in an attempt to outflank the other, and for a moment the Boltons on the left flank looked as though they would wrap around the left flank of the host and tear them apart, but then a spearhead of wildlings led by Harma and Val circled around from the back. The wildlings could not win that fight, not even outnumbering their enemy three to one, but they would at least hold for the moment. Battles like this, between great lines of men, would always be slow, torturous affairs. There could be no stunning victories, no glorious charges, only the bloody business of men in steel trying to kill other men in steel.

Jon would have given his right eye for even a hundred heavy cavalry. With a scant hundred, he could sweep around and crush the enemy from the flank or rear. Had it been five years or ten since his father had shown him how to do that with blocks of wood laid out on a map? But there was no heavy horse to be had in the North. All had gone south with Robb, never to return.

They were losing, Jon realized with a grimace. The left flank had been righted for the moment, but it was the right where the true danger lay. Already the line had begun to buckle. Already, mere minutes after the battle had begun, were the Umbermen losing steps. Mors himself had committed to the melee, a tower of black raging as the Barrow Guard pushed into his men.

Jon spurred his horse forward. Ghost and the champions of the Mountain clans fell in around them as they charged through the gaps in Jon's formation. These were not heavy horse he was riding with, Jon reminded himself. They could not rout the Barrow Guard on a charge. But if they could buy time, just a little more time… He heard nothing, saw nothing, but the ground before him and the line of the enemy. They were free of the allied host now, circling around to face the flank. Jon had tilted against Robb a thousand times in the yard, but never with live steel. His steel was true, but was his arm? Was his blood?

Every bone in his body ached as they crashed into the Barrow Guard. Longclaw flashed into the eye socket of a man's helmet and came up bloody. He arced his Valyrian steel down again to cleave another helm in two. Ghost leapt over the falling corpse to trample three men under his great paws and tear a fourth man's head off with a single bite. The Umbermen cheered, swelling forward as the Barrow Guard fell back.

Mors rode over to Jon, a fierce light in his eyes. "Sound the retreat," he growled. "We're barely holding as it is and Roose will sally out in a moment and fuck us bloody!"

"Not yet!" Jon shouted. "Not yet!"

"Sound the retreat, you bastard!" Mors screamed. "Mance has failed us!" Mors yelled, and Jon's guards moved to put themselves between them. Mors cursed, and then opened his mouth to speak...

But whatever he had meant to say was lost to noise as a great horn blast split the air, and Jon thought of the Horn of Joramun from the song that had been said to wake the giants from the earth. For a moment every man paused from their work of butchery and looked to Winterfell, to the gatehouse. There at the peak, in colors of motley stood Mance Rayder, a massive horn of gilded ivory pressed to his lips. Dead Bolton men lay dead at his feet, and behind him rose direwolf of House Stark.

"A Direwolf!" the men cried, "A Direwolf for House Stark!" As one man they pushed forward, taking ground where before they had been giving it. The Bolton line shattered, stunned to see their great bulwark turned against them, and soon it had become a route altogether. "Keep in formation!" Jon screamed, "Head for the Gate! To the Gate!" But Umbermen were already pouring into Winterfell, a tide of red and gray.

Mance was waiting for him when he came to the castle, looking down from atop the open gates of Winterfell as Jon had seen Rodrik Cassel do so many times. "Does a Stark beg entrance into Winterfell from a wildling?" Mance called, his eyes bright with laughter.

"If you meant to keep me out you should have kept the gates closed," Jon replied. Home, he thought with something like a smile. Home at last, even if little remained of the home he had known. Shattered windows, charred remains of the servants quarters… and the servants themselves, they were gone too, replaced by raiders and soldiers and corpses. He felt like he was stepping into a tomb. Perhaps he was.

"A wildling raising the Stark Direwolf," Jon said as the King of the Wildlings descended from the wall to greet him. Bolton men were throwing down their spears all around. "That seems worthy of one of your songs. Or is it wrong for a bard to sing of his own deeds?"

"If a man does not sing of his own deeds, then what right does he have to sing of others?" Mance replied with a smile, but the smile was tight around the edges. "How fare Dalla and the babe?"

"The rider most recently come from Last Hearth said he left them in good health a week ago. When Winterfell is secure we will bring them here," Jon replied. "What of Lady Cerwyn? Can you take me to her?"

"I am quite well, Your Grace," said Jonelle Cerwyn, who walked toward them in the yard. She was much as Jon remembered her, thin and hard as a whip, with dark brown hair and jet black eyes. Perhaps she had a few lines around her eyes now, but when so much else had changed what did that count for? Jon was happy to see a familiar face, happy to see that she bowed to him as he approached.

"Milady Cerwyn," Jon said, accepting her offered hand and kissing it chastely. "I am glad to see that you are preserved."

"I thank you for your concern, your Grace. Your bard Abel has regaled me from many a weary night in these months of my imprisonment with tales of the outside world. Only now he tells me he was a king, and I must wonder, for I have never seen a king in motley."

"Perhaps Kings should wear motley more often," Mance replied, "It would certainly be more honest of them."

"I have been a fool before," Jon acknowledged evenly. "But the only fool today is Bolton. Have your men found him?"

"He was in the keep when my men took the gatehouse, and he is there still."

"Then he will keep for the nonce," Jon said with a scowl. The castle was all but theirs, and they could starve the Leech Lord out at their leisure. Would this ease Robb's spirit? But no, he must concern himself with the living. "You are willing to swear fealty to me and acknowledge me as your rightful king? Mors Umber has the will with him still."

She almost laughed. "I was among the first who acclaimed your brother as king in the North. I know well of the love he bore you. What cause do I have to disbelieve such a will? I acknowledge you as my King. But what of you, will you have me as your vassal? I have served Bolton. He came upon my party as we crossed the neck and made me his prisoner. My castellan Theomore Raiklin has been his dog ever since. Does this show me to be an unfaithful vassal? Should I have cast myself from the window of the Great Keep? Tried to steal a sword and fight my way free?"

"You gave service when it was asked. That is all I could ever require," Jon replied. "Consider matters between us settled. What do you know of the army in the field?"

"Roose's dog has command, but Barbrey's man Corre holds his leash. My own foot are under Theomore Rakelin, but I could not safely get word to him in time." She pursed her thin lips.

Jon nodded. Mance had only sent them word of his plan a few nights ago, and many eyes would be watching this Theomore. How many men of Cerwyn had died fighting on the side of Jonelle's enemies? Jon wished that thought gave him pain, but all he felt was numbness. "Roose put your men in the front," he told her, "but the fighting was harder on the flanks. For now, it is to our advantage that your role in this is unknown. Soon we will..."

"Your Grace!" a messenger squeaked. He was a boy, perhaps Bran's age or the age Bran would have been by now. "A herald from Ramsay Bolton. He sends for parley."

Jon nodded, "Tell him we will meet." Roose Bolton had met them for parley in the morning, but it had only been a formality. Neither side could offer the other any ground. Jon did not have the measure of Ramsay, but he hoped this parley would be much the same.

He took Mors, Mance, Val, Wull, and half a dozen others with him to meet the Boltons. Jon could name half the men that rode out to meet them. Theomore matched Lady Cerwyn's description, tall and handsome with strong features. Corre was a thin, short man in a dull grey plate, and Barbrey Dustin was the stately woman who rode ahead of him. And last of the groups was Ramsay Bolton on his great red stallion. Any man could look lordly on the back of a horse, but not Ramsay. He was tall and powerfully built, but his shoulders sloped like one of the giants and his face was fat and fleshy and too wide.

"So you've come to treat with us, Bastard," He called before they had even stopped. His voice was high, and painful to hear. "You've come to offer me my father's head?"

No, I've come to take yours, Jon thought. "Winterfell is ours. The Dreadfort is ours. The food stores and the land and the armies are ours. You have nothing except the worthless name of a dying house of oathbreakers, and winter is coming. The blood of my brother demands that I kill your father but make peace with me and I will not kill him, or you, and any of yours. You and your father can accept my mercy and go to the-"

Ramsay spat. "Mercy." He said the word like a curse. "I'll show you mercy. I'll strip you, strip you naked and strip the skin from your back and wear it like a cloak. But I'll keep you alive, oh yes. I'll give you a chance to say sorry, bastard. I'll give you a lot of chances."

"Winter is coming," Jon repeated. "The North cannot survive at war."

"You pulled a good trick on my father. You surprised the men, made them forget themselves. You can't take us in the field though, and you know that as well as we do."

"You are dooming your father to death," Jon stated, his eyebrows raised.

"Why should I care? If you kill him, then I am Lord Bolton. The Lannisters never loved him and they will never love me, but they hate you, Bastard. That is why these all follow me. They know that they will never have peace until you Starks are dead and gone."

"One enemy at a time," Jon stated. "You, your father, the ironborn… I will treat with you all in turn. If the Lannisters wish to attempt an invasion of the North in Winter they are welcome to try. I think they will find that their soldiers have had their fill of war."

"You'll be nothing but a king of ruins, Bastard."

"It was not the Starks who burned Winterfell."

"No," Ramsay replied. "And it wasn't me either. I brought you a present. Come forward, Reek."

A pale man with deep dark circles under his eyes trotted slowly forward, his expression dark and terrified. Jon blinked, unsure as to who this Reek was supposed to be… and then he saw it. The remnants of what had been Theon Greyjoy. He had been handsome once, now he was a walking corpse.

"Do you recognize him?" Ramsay asked. "Do you know who this is? The man who killed your brothers? How you must hate him. How you must long to cut him to pieces. I think I shall offer you a trade. I will give you my Reek, my finest work, and you will give me Jonnelle Cerwyn. My last wife died, you see, and I need a new one."

Cold rage settled in Jon's guts. Bran and Rickon, slaughtered on the highway like rabbits by a man who should have been like a brother to them. He thought of Theon's knowing smirk, of his casual cruelty and vanity, and he felt the hunger. The hunger for Theon's death. He would enjoy that. He would enjoy cutting him open and feeding him to crows.

But no. He closed his eyes and found his center again before he opened them. "Theon Greyjoy killed my brothers," he said simply. "I've never seen this Reek before in my life." Theon's eyes widened, and Ramsay's teeth flashed as though he meant to bite Jon's throat out.

"If you have nothing more to offer than a mummer's show," Jon replied, "Then I and my lords will take our leave."

And with that, he turned his horse away and rode back toward camp.

"You'll see us on the field of battle!" Ramsay called after him, "You'll see my mercy then, Bastard!"

No, Jon thought. I will never see you again.

Theomore Rakelin arrived before sunset to make an offer of peace, along with a box containing the head of Ramsay Snow.