Tormund had ridden south with a fresh flesh wound on his shoulder, and his host looked little better. Jon met them two day's ride from Winterfell. He wished that he might have had warning of Tormund's approach but the state of affairs in the north had made ravens almost impossible to use. Neither he nor Tormund nor any man in the North knew which castle might be held by the enemy, or which might be held by friends, and these days allegiances changed more swiftly than the wind.
Up until now, Jon felt that the winds had been blowing in his favor. Cerwyn and Dustin and Ryswell had added their strength to his, and he had expected to soon hear that Tormund had taken the Dreadfort. After all, what castellan would hold through a siege when his master's head adorned their battlements? From there, Jon would have marched on the Wolfswood to free Lady Glover from the Ironborn. Victory and victory and more victory, that was all Jon hungered for these days. But however much he might wish otherwise, the winds were changing, and all he could hope for was to weather the storm.
"There you are!" Tormund roared as they approached, fighting to keep himself upright in the saddle. "King Stark!"
"I assume that you were not able to claim your promised prize?"
"Ha! I never got the chance. I circled the place, cut off the food… everything as nice as a kneeler might like. But it seems my prize was promised to someone else! Hounds of another one of your kneeler king came sniffing around my encampment and we showed them off. Har, we chased them back to their master's house, but then it was my turn to run and my whole host with me."
Jon's grip around his reigns tightened. "Which King, Tormund? Which one of the Kings?"
"The stag king."
Joffrey, then? The boy was a Lannister to the bone, but his men still rode under the sigil of King Robert, unless…
"It was just a stag, nothing more? A yellow stag?"
"Nay, t'was a flaming stag."
The wind cut through him like a knife. Jon had seen Stannis' symbol only once, on the letter that had been sent to the Wall over a year ago. What was Stannis Baratheon invading the North for? The man could not have more than five thousands after the Blackwater, assuming the letters they had received were true. Jon cursed the Boltons for killing Luwin. No doubt this would-be king had sent letters to Winterfell, but without a maester to receive them the letters would go astray. Had Stannis taken their silence for an insult?
"How many did the Stag King have with him?"
Tormund shrugged. "Two or three thousands."
Jon grit his teeth. Tormund had half again that number, but they would not hold against castle-forged steel, not if he had ten times the force. No, it was better that Tormund had run. Better that he, the King in the North, would see to the defense of the North. Umber, Ryswell, Dustin, and Cerwyn had agreed to follow him for the nonce, but Manderly and Karstark and a dozen others had yet to offer allegiance. Had they offered allegiance to Stannis? The thought made him sick.
"You did rightly, Tormund. Ride with me and we will see to this southron king ourselves."
Autumn snows lay thick and heavy on the road to the Dreadfort, smoothing the world into a vast flat expanse of white. Thick slate-colored clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon, and days passed without so much as a glimpse of the sun. But Jon found himself welcoming the cold, welcoming the stillness and emptiness of the landscape. The cold reminded him he was alive, forced him to keep moving, to keep thinking.
The warm solar inside Winterfell had been too stuffy, too crowded for clear-headed thought. He had indulged himself back in Winterfell, and let himself think of Ygritte, of Robb, of Father… and of Rickon and Bran.
Bran. Rickon. Even now the mere thought of their names filled Jon with a rush of emotion. His brothers were alive, alive, and every day of marching must bring them closer together! The idea seemed too sweet to be true. Even if Theon had not lied, even if he had tracked them as far as the miller, how much farther could a cripple, a lackwit, and a boy of four years travel in a world gone mad? Despite it all, Jon could not help but hope.
Hope, and also fear. Rickon and Bran were ahead of Jon in succession. If the story of his brothers was to get out… Jon grimaced. He should have killed Theon before he went north. Why had he withheld justice? He knew the arguments he had made to his lords. Theon was a hostage, a knife against Asha Greyjoy's throat. But his words had been hollow. He had not believed them himself. Theon was a knife against his own throat; his tale of Bran and Rickon could unmake Jon's kingdom in a heartbeat.
Who would be the first to leave him? Mors? Lady Dustin? Jon had no illusions of his popularity with his vassals. Half his army would gladly exchange him for an easily guided child. Dustin and Ryswell wanted the war to be over, wanted peace with the Lannisters, and perhaps with Rickon as their puppet, they could achieve that. Lady Catelyn's blue eyes haunted him at night, judging him for stealing Winterfell from her trueborn children. Oathbreaker, usurper, bastard. In the end, he had become the villain she had always thought him to be.
Peace with the Lannisters. In the heat of his chambers in Winterfell, he had cursed the idea. Every one of his sensibilities revolted against allowing his father's murderers to live. But in the cold those feelings went numb. Pride, anger, and guilt, none truly mattered. None would stave off the winter that was to come. He would seek peace with the Lannisters and hope that his ancestors could forgive him.
A storm descended on them that lasted for two days, nearly halting their progress entirely. All sense of discipline was lost as howling gales scattered their lines. Men and beasts packed together in dense clumps around the campfires at night, half to warm each other and half so that they would not be lost to the snow. Jon himself slept alone in his tent, and not for the first time he found himself wishing Ygritte could warm his furs.
He dreamed of her some nights, of how she smelled of sweat and pine and leather, of how she laughed and cursed and fought. Other times he dreamed he was Ghost, hunting ahead of the host through the blizzard, coming upon rabbits or deer in the snow and feasting upon their flesh. Ghost did not fear the storm, and Ghost never felt truly alone, for Ghost knew that his brothers still lived, and his sisters did too.
This night Ghost hunted a different sort of game, trailing a horseman from a distance through the snow. The beast was a dun palfrey, short-haired and ill-suited to the blizzard around it. It was a southron horse, a horse that had been foaled in the green fields of the Reach or Stormlands, now brought to the North, to lands where the grass had been covered and the sun had been hidden. Ghost stalked but did not pounce, for the rider had steel and a coat of yellow. Even through the haze of the dream, Jon remembered the significance of that.
"Stark, Stark," a voice at the entrance to his tent woke him suddenly. Mance's voice. He stirred amidst his furs and rose to meet the King Beyond the Wall.
"Let Mance enter," he said, his voice low and thick with sleep.
Mance blew into the tent, his long gray beard turned white with snow, and his smiling eyes bright with the cold. He sat on the chest opposite Jon's cot and "I am grateful to be received so quickly by royalty such as yourself."
"I've not gone soft just because I'm wearing a crown." Mance only chuckled in reply. Jon had gone on a great ranging north of the Wall, but Mance had lived there for years. Jon scowled. "I assume you've some important information for me?"
"My hunters have returned from their nightly scouting."
Jon nodded. "They found Baratheon?"
"Your eyes and nose are sharp as ever, King Warg."
"I'll thank you not to mention it to Mors or Rakelin." He was a usurper and a traitor, he would not have them call him a sorcerer as well.
Mance laughed. "They'll not hear it from me, but they have eyes, and mine is not the only tongue that can wag. Varamyr makes no secret of his talents and so neither can you."
Jon sighed. "What is the full report?"
"We will not know until morning. The hunters found a Baratheon scout half-frozen in a ditch, but he has no more idea where the camp is than we do."
"If your scouts are returned, then it must only be an hour until sunrise?"
"The men have already set about rousing themselves. A few of them saw the scout we took prisoner and thought there might be a battle coming."
"That is well," Jon said. "Battle may be coming soon enough. Stannis is near."
An hour later, the sky had begun to turn from black to gray. Morning had come, or something that passed for it. Men walked about, broke their fast, relieved themselves… but always kept a weapon at hand, even as the snow whirled around them. Jon could almost taste the tension in the air. Would battle come in an hour? Would they not see Stannis' host for a week? No, Jon thought. Stannis was close. Ghost could smell them in the air.
The wind crested and crashed and then slackened suddenly. Jon sensed Mance tense near him. He could feel it too. The storm was ending. The snow still fell, still stopped them from seeing more than a hundred feet in front of them, but it would not last, not for much longer.
Then he saw it. He blinked a moment, clearing his eyes to make certain he had not imagined it, but with each passing moment, it became more clear. Yellow and black and red. The banners of King Stannis Baratheon dotted the hillside in front of them, not more than three miles distant. Stannis and his army had not been near, they had practically been on top of each other.
Shouts went up and down the line, men drawing up into formation and readying for a fight. Jon could only wonder what Stannis' purpose here was. Had he known of their approach as well? Jon had heard stories from Tormund's men. He had heard that Stannis kept a witch by his side who could see the future. Had this storm been her work? Had she sought to mask their approach until they were upon Jon and his forces?
Jon shook his head. He could not be seeing grumpkins and snarks in every shadow. Stannis had likely come south from sieging the Dreadfort because his scouts had noted Jon's approach. No man wanted to fight a battle in front of an enemy castle, so he had come south to fight them. But still, Jon thought that he must have done so unwillingly. Stannis' army would have suffered as badly as Jon's own in the storm, and bad weather was never truly a boon to anyone. Winter killed without any respect for rank or righteousness or honor. Jon thought of cold blue eyes and shuddered.
"He's requesting parley," Jon muttered, though loud enough for the Free Folk around him to hear. Perhaps Stannis was not so inflexible as the rumors had painted him. "Mance, Tormund, Lord Umber, Ser Rakelin, you'll all ride with me."
Mance smiled, "I don't think this southerly lord will take much joy in treating with a pack of wildlings."
"Then he can treat with my steel," Jon said, his lip curling. He would not sacrifice everything he had built in the North for the sake of a pretender, a failed claimant of a failed dynasty. Jon had enough corpses without also taking on House Baratheon.
Stannis rode to meet them, a woman in red filing in behind him. The King towered atop his horse, as dark and as threatening as a thunderhead. Beside him rode men of the south, from minor houses Jon could not name. The Florent fox, he recognized, though not the obese man who rode under the flag. The sun of house Karstark he recognized too, and the little girl who led the knights must be young Alys. She had danced with Robb at Winterfell once, though that felt like an age ago.
"Are the gods determined to punish the North for some great crime, that they would inflict Stannis Baratheon upon us after all we have endured?" The words came too easily to Jon, pent-up years of frustrations spilling out all at once.
"There are no gods here," Stannis said. "Only me and my men, and you know what crimes we seek to punish you for. You are an oathbreaker, a rebel. You have consorted with the enemies of the realm to push a false claim to the seat of Winterfell."
"I saved the North from tyranny, and I can do it again."
"And what do you call your own rule, Jon Snow? I came North at the request of the Watch, only to find that a brother of the Watch had betrayed his own order, and forced them to let the raiders through. I came North to find that a baseborn bastard of House Stark had laid claim to the rebel crown of his half brother and had forced the lords of the North to bend the knee to him at swordpoint, and now you come out to meet me with a host of flea-bitten wildlings at your back. Do not speak to me of tyranny."
"Shall I speak to you of misrule then? Shall I speak to you of how my father rode south to serve your brother and was rewarded by your nephew shortening him by a head?"
"I have no nephew."
"Then why did you molder on Dragonstone and leave my father friendless in the capital? Why did you not aid my father in wrestling the throne from the Lannisters? Then, as now, you have done too little and done it too late. Had I not broken my honor for the sake of the Watch, you would have come North to find only ruins and corpses. Every brother in Castle Black will bear witness to the truth of my tale."
Stannis' lip curled with contempt. "If you saved the North from wildlings, then where did you come by all these braying dogs?"
Jon's blood burned hot. Who was Stannis Baratheon, and what had he accomplished to sit on his charger and mock the plight of the Free Folk? This southron king was no different than all the other lords Jon had seen. Grasping men who believed they were owed the lives of everything they laid eyes on, who had no appreciation for the responsibility to which they had been born. For a moment Jon held his tongue. It would do no good to be angry, to show himself the petulant boy half his host believed him to be. But the moment passed and he was still red with rage. It burst up from his lungs like a gust of wind and came out his mouth as a laugh.
"Did I say that I saved the Watch from Wildlings?" He gasped, between the laughs "Do you think it is flesh and blood that the north contends against?" Stannis would not believe the truth, could not believe the truth, no more than Mors or Dustin had, but Jon was too angry to care. "Winter is coming. Death is coming. The Dead walk North of the Wall and were it not for Mance, were it not for me, these braying dogs you see before you would walk with them. You have no notion of what terrors lurk in the Lands of Always Winter."
Stannis' arm went for his sword, and for a moment Jon thought that he meant to charge, but Stannis drew his sword only to raise it skyward, a great, twisting light of flame exploding from his scabbard as he did so. Some great sorcery had been laid upon the blade to make it shine as though it were made of fire itself, and Jon had to rein in his horse to prevent it from bucking, even as he gaped in shock himself.
"I know of the evils beyond the Wall," Stannis said, his voice hard and resolute. "I have seen them in the flames, and I will destroy them even if it should cost my life. It is for this purpose that I have come North, and there is no other to whom I can trust this task. Bend your knee, Snow, or be destroyed."
Jon searched for words for a moment, unsure of what to say. "How?" he said at last, the word dropping from his mouth without thought.
"The night is dark and full of terrors," the Red Woman said, raising her voice for the first time. "The servants of the Lord of Light know this well, and among them King Stannis is the chief. The Lord grants us visions, and we have seen the face of the Great Other that lurks beyond the Wall in the Heart of Winter. We mean to bring war to him, for the future of mankind. King Stannis is Azor Ahai reborn, and the fell light he wields is the Lightbringer itself, the sword that shall turn back the night."
Jon's mouth closed and his eyes went back to Stannis as the colors of the flaming sword played over his harsh features. Was this some cheap trick, some minor conjuration? It could easily be so, and yet... The Stag King had come north. He had come north to save the Watch when no other King had. And his woman spoke of the terrors beyond the Wall, spoke as if she had seen them herself. Could he be an ally against the forces of Winter?
A dry laugh broke through the tension like water bursting through a damn. "This is the first as I've heard of any Azor Ahai," Mance said. "But if you'll stand against the Others, I don't see as there needs to be war between us. If you and King Jon need to settle who's in charge between the two of you, have a duel and leave the rest of us to fight another day."
Jon's heart lurched in his throat. Did Mance mean to get him killed? He had never met a man his own age who could best him with a blade, but Stannis was a man grown, a full foot taller than Jon himself, and lean with muscle. Jon would not like his chances against such a man, Valyrian steel or no. Their army had every advantage, why should he cast that aside?
"Do not mistake me for my brother," Stannis growled, his face turning suddenly dark and fierce. "Your king has no claim to anything, and I will not countenance him with a trial by combat. He will bend the knee or be destroyed."
Despite himself, Jon felt his anger rise within him again. "I have the blood, and I have the will of King Robb," he stated darkly. "I have half the North unified under me, and any army twice the size of your own. My claim to the North is stronger than your claim to the Iron Throne."
Stannis smiled, and Jon felt as though he had just put his foot into a bear trap. A plain man wearing a simple cloak rode out to the front of Stannis' host. Only it was not a man at all, but a woman, with hard lines on her face and a small child riding in front of her on the saddle. A small boy...
Jon's mouth fell open and words failed him.
"You are no King, Jon Snow," Stannis growled. "You are a usurper. Manderly and Karstark and half the North knows it for a truth. Robb's will names you his heir only if all his brothers are dead, but there are trueborn sons of house Stark that yet live, and so you are nothing. Does that disappoint you, Snow?"
"Rickon..." Jon declared, his eyes wide. The boy glared back at him with naked anger, and Jon felt guilt twist in his gut. Jon had left him and Bran alone, unprotected. He wanted to run to Rickon, to hug him and carry him away to Winterfell where he might be safe, but… but nowhere was safe anymore. Another thought struck him then and filled him with fear. Where was Shaggydog? Had he been killed in the raid of the ironborn? Surely Ghost would have caught his scent on the wind if he were near. Had Stannis killed the wolf when Rickon had been taken captive?
"How came you by this boy?" Mors growled.
"Does it matter?" Stannis asked, "He and a wildling woman were fleeing east and we were marching west. His wolf mauled three of our men before the wildling woman calmed him, and boy and wolf alike have been enjoying our hospitality ever since."
"He's been your prisoner, you mean," Jon replied. "Or else you would have let his wolf roam free."
"The boy has enjoyed every hospitality, and his wild beast lives comfortably enough," Stannis growled.
Stannis might as well threaten them with Rickon's execution. Tormund and Mance might not care whether Jon's brother lived or died, but Mors and Rakelin would. Jon himself would. That was Stannis' intent, no doubt, to divide Jon's forces and sow dissent. Jon could feel the shift in the air, as his vassals came to the same realizations as him. Robb's will had named Jon heir, but only if Robb and all his trueborn brothers were dead. If they beat Stannis here, and Stannis did not kill Rickon, who then would they serve when the battle was done? Whether they found victory or defeat, Stannis had ensured that Jon could not rule the North.
Jon felt divided even amongst himself. Winterfell was his, was his own lordly seat, and the thought of giving it up to his child brother made him ache. But the thought of doing anything else, of usurping his brother… the memories of Catelyn's judging eyes rose to hate him. If he took Winterfell over Rickon, he would be proving everything she had ever said of him to be true.
But what did that matter? Rickon could not be trusted. He was a boy of four, easily guided, and easily led. The North needed strong leadership. Westeros needed strong leadership, needed a stalwart shield, a sword in the darkness… and then Jon looked again to Stannis' brilliant blade and his thoughts darkened further.
"Has the northern wind frozen your insolent tongue?" Stannis' words cut through the silence with all the delicacy of a greataxe. "If you have words to speak, speak, but if you do not then let us fight and be done with it."
Stannis was too eager for war. Jon's host outnumbered him two to one and was in better supply. Stannis should be retreating, not threatening battle. There must be something that his scouts had missed. Had Stannis prepared the land for them, set traps amidst the snow? Jon opened his mouth to speak, thoughts whirling. There were too many mistakes he could make, too many wrong paths to choose, and he had not enough time to think.
The cold wind blew through him, and he found the words. He was surprised how steadily he spoke them.
"Rickon lives, but he is no king, not so long as he is your prisoner. On this matter Robb's will is clear. Neither Rickon nor Sansa will rule the North so long as they are a hostage. Return him to us and I will step down to act as his regent, but keep him as your hostage and we will fight to free him." He would not be a usurper, would not be a kinslayer, not even with Winterfell as the promised prize. He would save at least one of his brothers if he could.
"Bend the knee," Stannis repeated, "And I will return him to you."
Jon's lip curled back in a snarl, but he restrained himself. This king had come north to fight the Others, and Jon would be a fool to provoke him. War between them could only spell disaster, regardless of the victor. But would Stannis pull them into wars in the south, as his brother had done? Would Dustin and Ryswell agree to peace with a man so obviously opposed to peace with the Lannisters?
Jon sighed. "Let us get out of the wind before we speak more on this matter."
