Nothing made sense. Nothing had made sense for over a year. Jon did not know what a man was supposed to feel upon hearing that the Wall had fallen after eight thousand years. What he felt was nothing. The fall felt like something from a story, something too fantastical and strange to be believed.

But men had built the Wall, built it to stop the Others. Nothing built by men can last forever. Of course the Others would have a way past it. Why would they have stirred in the North if they had no way to move beyond it?

He and Stannis… no, he and the King, they had always agreed that the Others would need to be fought, that they would need to be dealt with, but it had always been a problem they had put off; As though the Others were an unpleasant letter they could avoid reading. Folly. But what alternative did they have? The Others were creatures out of stories, there was no clear path forward there. The enemies to the West and the South had been more tangible, more comprehendible. The Others were creatures out of Old Nan's stories, what did he know of how to fight them?

He thought of Sam then and his heart darkened. Sam had been reading, poring over old manuscripts. Jon had boarded a ship at White Harbor on his way to Karhold and the Northern front. There had been a letter from Sam there, a letter asking the Maester of the Wolf's Den to consult his libraries for some dusty old tome on the Last Hero. Neither Sam nor the Tower existed now, but Jon kept the letter close to his chest these days.

Let the cold wash it away. Sam at least had been a sworn brother, and he had no doubt died as a hero. Not the first, and not the last. He looked around him at the slowly shambling host that marched north through the blizzard. How many of these would die? How many would die heroes? Every man that died fighting the Others would be a hero, even if none of them would die in song. What was truly known of the Last Hero's companions? Who they had been and what they had been done had been lost to time, replaced only by newer tales, tales where the companions were knights or Braavosi or Dornish. In the end, it did not matter. The enemy before them now meant to destroy all that lived, and if life continued, Jon would consider it legacy enough for all of them.

"Lord Regent!" a herald called, breaking him from his reverie. "I bear news from the Watch!" The man's bright red livery stood out against the falling snow like a torch.

The Watch has ended. But Jon knew that the Herald meant the survivors of Castle Black and its territories. Thousands of men and women and children, most of them wildlings, with herds and sick. By some strange mercy, the Others had not been present to pounce on them as soon as the Wall fell and Jon did not see fit to question it. If he could save them he would. Better ten thousand living allies than ten thousand hungry wights.

"Lord Commander Umber leads them still, they are only two days from Last Hearth, and they mean to stand and fight against the Others there. King Stannis arrived in Last Hearth but seven nights ago and his forces mean to stand with them."

The idea of standing against the Others seemed nothing but folly. Jon had spoken with Wildlings and the survivors of the Great Ranging, and how hopeless fighting them had been then. But what choice did they have? The Others would only grow in strength the further South they pushed, and Whoresbane's refugees could only march so far with their sick and their wounded.

"Did you see King Stannis? Or the Red Lady?" He asked. Of all the King's men, only the Red Lady had seemed without fear. Jon did not know if he trusted her, but the list of those who could counsel against the Others was short.

"No my lord," the herald said, his voice almost lost upon the wind. "I came directly here after speaking with Lord Commander Umber but two days ago."

Jon nodded. He would have to wait until he could speak with the King in person, and it would be at least three days of hard marching before they arrived at Last Hearth. Four days if he did not want his army to drop dead of exhaustion as soon as they arrived.

"How close are the Others to the Watch?" He asked even while he knew the answer would pain him.

"They know not," The herald replied, his voice almost lost upon the wind. "The wights hunt too well in the dark of the blizzard, and their host has been cut blind. The scouts refuse to ride more than a few hours from the camps, and only during the day. At night, the Others send their own scouts to raid the camp. Wights formed from dead snow bears, or mammoths, or shadowcats, not come for plunder or food, only for death, killing as many as they can before falling themselves, or else slinking off into the shadows to attack again later. Sometimes swarms of bats or birds"

"Is Whoresbane at least burning the bodies?"

"...Lord Commander Umber is doing so, my lord, though from what I understand, there has been a shortage of fuel of late."

Of course they would be running out of fuel. Jon cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. The Umbers oversaw rich forests and farmlands, but those were all to the east and south. North of Last Hearth lay fields used for grazing cattle and horses. There would be some trees here and there, groves separated from each other by wide swathes of sandy soil, but a host of thousands would strip the soil bare for fuel and still shiver in the cold. Fresh-killed bodies were not easy to burn, and doubtless, hundreds would be left behind in the snow. Left behind for the Others to find and convert.

They will all be dead by the time we get there.

He ignored that notion. "Thank you, herald. Get some refreshment for yourself."

The herald breathed a sigh of relief. "Aye my lord, that I will." He paused. "When will we arrive at Last Hearth, my lord?"

"You have family there?"

The herald looked down. "I am sorry my lord, I was impertinent."

"We will arrive at Last Hearth four days hence to contend with the dead," Jon said simply, and the man seemed to find some comfort in that as he rode off. Jon was glad for him. For his part, Jon felt little comfort. They would arrive at Last Hearth in four days and contend with the dead, whether or not any living remained. There was a grim certainty to that, he supposed, but as comfort went it was cold, cold comfort.

The army crawled through the snow at an agonizingly slow pace. Everything took longer. The horses had to dig for grass to eat amidst the snow, teams of men had to leave and chop firewood… even the heavy furs that the men wore slowed them down. They needed breaks almost hourly and setting up camp took twice as long as usual. Worse than all these, the falling snow kept everyone apart. Jon's host numbered eight thousands but he could see only a third of them and so they were constantly stopping and collecting themselves to ensure nobody was left behind. Jon could have dispensed with half these measures, could have doubled the speed of his progress. He wanted to. The idea that Stannis and Whoresbane could be fighting and dying even at this moment galled him, but he had to be patient. If he doubled their pace he would lose half his army to weariness and exposure. And even if he had, there was no guarantee his men would arrive in time.

The days passed slowly. The men grew nervous, said that this was a doomed march, that Stannis would already be dead when they arrived. Jon never voiced such thoughts aloud. He had to be invincible for the sake of the men's morale, whatever his foolish heart hoped or feared, though he had more reason to be at ease than the men. Ghost hunted far afield these days, following the tracks of the dead things as they cut through the North, and they were far enough away that Jon would be arriving in time. At least, that is what he chose to believe.

The snow stopped at last on the fourth day, and all at once Last Hearth and its city appeared before them. Last Hearth was a great old city-castle of the north, with narrow steeples built to shed the snow and cookfires smoking in the morning light. Over it all, the Umber Giant and the Baratheon Stag flew proudly overhead, red and yellow, just like the dawn. Stannis' army had encamped just outside the walls, Karstarks and black brothers of the watch alongside wildings and Stormlanders. An army of the living, from every corner of the world.

They had arrived in time. For all that he had tried to seem confident, Jon had always feared that… in truth, he did not know what he had expected. That Stannis would die to an assassin in the night like the wight that had been sent after Jeor? That the wildlings and black brothers would fall to infighting? That the Others would come and slaughter them wholesale in a single battle? It seemed impossible in the morning light, with so many thousands of the living gathered before him.

The King made sure to dash any such hopes when they met that afternoon. Everyone of importance was there. Lord Commander Hother Umber the Whoresbane. Melisandre and Lord Davos the King's Hand. Jon brought Mance and Rakelin and a few others. Food was offered, but the bread was stale and the wine was sour, and nothing was in great supply. Was Stannis offering his lords the same rations the men in the camps received? Either way, the poor food was the least of the sources of tension in the room. There were too many weapons close to hand for Jon's liking, and he found himself grateful that Mors had been caught away sieging the Deepwood when this all happened. There were enough bitter rivalries in this room without him.

"They haven't attacked yet because they don't need to attack," Stannis snarled. "We have gathered to the city all the smallfolk we could find, but still there are herders and outlying villages that lie beyond our reach. They reave the countryside for fresh bodies, growing stronger every day while we are trapped here by the snow, eating the last of our stores of food."

"Stores of food meant to last us all winter," Hoster said, his voice toneless and empty. "We may as well be under siege. It was almost better when they raided our camps every night. Then at least we had the hope of dying with swords in our hands."

"If we can't stay still, then let's take the fight to them." Jon almost hated to say it, it seemed so obvious. Surely Stannis and Hother had considered this choice? "We have nearly fifteen thousands to clear away the wights and dragonglass arrowheads and knives to kill the Others. We won't get a better chance than this."

The king's lip curled. "An excellent notion. Charge out to fight them, sword in hand. But where would you charge, Lord Stark? The Others stalk in the same blizzard that you had to fight through to get here, and we cannot track them in it, nor could we catch them even if we could." Stannis shook his head. "We will have to hold and wait until the blizzard is finished in five days' time, and then see what the damage has been."

Jon opened his mouth to speak but Hother cut him off. "Five days' time? This blizzard has held for weeks and you mean to force us to wait another? Get your witch to hurry an end to this blizzard if she can. How many burnings would it take? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? We'll lose that many every night when the cold sets in."

"Your callousness offends the Lord of Light," Melisandre said. "His miracles are not common wares to be bought or sold. He will end the blizzard in five days' time, and until then we must have faith."

Hother's hand crept to his belt. "Spare us your pious bleating, witch. I know of the sorceries of the Asshai'i, I studied your ways in the citadel and I know what it takes for you to make a working. Why do you lie about your sorceries, why do you claim they are from your god? Why not tell us in plain speech what is coming."

Melisandre's eyes glittered dangerously. "This is not the path the Lord of Light has ordained for his chosen."

"Silence," Stannis said. "Remember that you are in the presence of your King." Jon frowned at that. A King should not have to remind his supporters of his station nearly so often. But Hother backed down for the moment, scowling and spitting to the side.

"I'm of the Watch, King," He said. "And the Watch takes no part in your claim."

"King Stannis is more than your king," Melisandre said, her voice cool and collected. "But there is a different path forward here, a shadow in my flames who can lead us to the Others..." She paused and turned to Jon, her terrible eyes glittering with a joy that was more terrifying than any malice. "Lord Jon," she said, "I believe you were about to tell us how you could find the Others."

All eyes turned to him, their expressions ranging from disbelief to deep suspicion. Melisandre's gaze was the hardest to bear, but Stannis and Selyse and Hother were each terrible in their own right. Each of them powerful and beyond him, each of them with a grudge to hold against him. A part of him wanted to run away and hide as he once would have had, but it was only a distant impulse now. "I can find them," he said.

Stannis' eyes narrowed, flitting back to Melisandre a moment before settling on Jon again. "Explain."

"Witchcraft. Sorcery." Jon said. There was no use in hiding such things now. His reputation could hardly become any blacker than it was, why not tell the truth? "Surely you heard how my sisters crossed the Neck escorted by a thousand wolves? That was no chance. I can command the minds of beasts, and I have more among my host who can do the same." He saw no reason to mention his Rickon or Arya for the moment. Better if they concluded that all the wolves were his.

"Lord Jon speaks the truth," Mance said, speaking quickly before the queen or anyone else could interrupt him. "I had taken him for a Warg from the moment I found him. It could not be any more obvious, with that great white wolf following him everywhere. And what he says of Wargs is true. There's no man ahorse who's the match of a wolf when it comes to tracking through the snow, and on a clear day a hawk is even better."

"Ghost has been following them for weeks now. I can find them for you." Jon said. "Won't do any good if we can't force them to give battle, though." Jon's heart sank even as he said the words. The more he considered the prospect of fighting so many wights, the more impossible it seemed. How many dead things marched in their host? How many men and beasts had they slain already? Tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands could be marching with them now. Could dead birds scout for the Others? Could they march on forever with no resupply, no fuel, and no rest?

It was too much, too much by half. They had neither the time nor the resources to search for forgotten lore. All that remained now was a bitter desperate struggle. Could they win? It did not matter. They would have to try regardless.

Stannis leaned over the table, his head bowed and brow dark. "Where are the Others now, Lord Stark?"

A hundred miles away, Ghost sat on a hill amidst the falling snow. The scent of the dead things was on the air, a scent unique from the smell of rotting meat. Another scent came on the breeze too, and it gave Jon chills. Living men and women and beast. Wildlings, or maybe reindeer herders from some far-flung corner of the North. Either way, they were too close to the army of the dead.

Jon took a pencil and circled an area on the map, a spot of land on the New Gift just a few days North. "There are people there as well, between us and the Others, and I expect the Others have been hunting them, hoping to add them to their number. If we march within the next few days, we can save them."

Stannis did not look up. "March into the blizzard, you mean."

"If we can start moving over the next few days, the blizzard will cease while we are already on the approach to them, and we can arrive in time. The alternative is allowing them to add several hundred wights to their number, and deprive ourselves of herds and allies."

Stannis scowled. "A hundred more or less is nothing compared with the risk to the whole army," Stannis said. He paused a moment, as if uncertain, and then he looked up. "But I am their King, and I will see them protected if I can."

Two days and nights later they were on the march, cold dogging their every step, wading forward into a white-dark void. Thousands of men and horses marched onward together in isolation, with no clear sign of progress or falling back. The King's men got the worst of it. Stormlander Destriers unsuited to the cold froze and died on the march, as did some of their riders. The Hell of Ice, the men had taken to calling their march, and Jon felt himself agreeing. He had lived his whole life in the North, had ranged north beyond the Wall, as far as any living man in the Seven Kingdoms, but still, the blank landscape haunted him. On the second night of the march, a tale went up in the camp of a man who had walked into a cookfire and stood there, crying with joy as the flames ate his flesh. The sun rose late and set early, a slight lightening of the sky the only marking of its passage. All eyes turned to the Red Woman then, who walked amidst the camp like a torch, her bare skin exposed to the elements, her red hair brighter than the sun. She had staked her life on the end of the blizzard more than anyone, Jon thought. If the snow did not let up, the camp would rise as one to slay her for it.

On the third day, Jon arose in the dark and found the snow still falling. He stumbled through the camp, the old injury in his leg still throbbing, and found Melisandre standing alone atop a small rocky outcropping of the land. A few men were milling about uneasily, and one turned to Jon as he approached.

"The snow's not stopped," the man said, his face red and blustering. "The snow's not stopped, milord."

"I know," Jon said. "I have eyes. But she only promised the snow would end today, not when. Whether she has led us true or false is a matter for me and the king, not for some unruly mob, and I will personally take the head of any man who moves toward her. All you here, join with my guard and form a ring around Melisandre, make sure no trouble starts."

The men looked between each other and slowly shuffled into order. Jon left them with Theomore and approached the Red Woman himself.

"Lord Stark," she said without turning toward him. "I thank you for your concern but it is not needed. The snow will stop as promised, and this will not be my end."

Her words made him nauseous and he could not say why. He shuddered despite his layers of cloaks. "You have your prophecy, I have my duty," he said, perhaps a bit more gruffly than he intended.

She turned to him with that small smile she always wore. "This is the chivalry of the North, then?"

Jon pulled his cloak tighter around himself. For some reason, he was thinking of Ygritte just now, and that made him feel cold. "You mock me. This was no chivalry and I am no knight."

"No indeed. But you have a part to play, as do many."

If you mean to flatter me you would be better off saying something less obvious. He did not say that aloud. He had not come here for Melisandre's theatrics. "I came here to tell you," he said, his voice low. "The Others are moving. They turned away from the wildlings in the night and they are coming straight for us like the wind, carrying the heart of the storm with them. They will be here by midday. If they strike us in the dark, in the snow, the men will not hold."

Melisandre nodded. "Then it is as I have foreseen. Have faith, Lord Stark. The power around us may seem absolute, but the power of the Great Other is not greater than that of the R'hllor. A wind is rising from the South even now, great and hot and full of life. It will burn these snows away with the dawn, and clear the path for his chosen champion."

The Great Other. Every time she said that his blood boiled. What did a woman of the Asshai'i know of the Others? The Others were the enemy of the First Men, the North, and the children, and if there was a singular mind to them, none of the tales told of it. But this woman had come here from the edge of the world to fight them, and in these days they could not turn away aid, no matter how strange.

"I sense a lack of faith, Lord Snow."

"Faith is for Andals," Jon replied. "The Old Gods give us minds cleansed of emotion with which to act. Wisdom is the first gift they give, and the best."

"And what does your wisdom tell you?"

"That we have to gamble, and trust to your visions. We may not win if we fight, but we will surely lose if we flee. If I had an alternative to trusting your visions, I would, but I do not, and so I cannot."

Melisandre nodded. "Then your reason has told you to have faith. You have reasoned correctly. Are you ready to face the terrors of the night?"

"I am ready to face the Others. The Great Other, though, I have never heard of, though I have lived in the shadow of the Wall all my life."

"Then you will not object to me sharing what I know. It is nearly dawn, and so we may speak of him without fear. These Others, as you call them, are but pawns of the dark god of death that threatens to engulf us all. The Great Other, whose black eye watches over all the world. Besides these Others, there are the Stone Men, the Shrykes of the Grey Waste, the Warlocks of Qarth, and a hundred other evils. They are launching an assault on all the realms of the living now, to drown the world in death and feed upon its corpse."

A chill went up Jon's spine, a sense of a larger scope to their war than he had ever truly comprehended before. Places like Braavos and Pentos had never occurred to him as being under threat. Indeed, Stannis had depended on shipments from Braavos to feed his armies. The idea that all realms were facing such a dire battle as this…

"Then why are you here? You came all the way from Asshai, but you could have fought The Other in your homeland."

"I could have. But this is the fight that matters."

"Why?"

She pointed out into the dark. "Because he is here." A fire blossomed in the night, a bright brand of light standing against the dark horizon. Lightbringer. The King's bright sword of heatless flame. He raised it over his head, and a cheer went up from the waking host.

Jon could not help but smile. Mummery it may be, but damned good mummery it was. "A fine show," he said. "But that sword will not melt the snow."

"Have you not noticed?" Melisandre asked.

Jon held out his hand. The snow had stopped. He sighed. Well, it looked like they all had much work to do.


After days of darkness, the sun against the snow nearly blinded Jon with its brilliance. The going was easier, now, though still not easy as he would have called it even a few months ago. He paid more heed to Ghost's eyes than to his own these days. The Others were fleeing now, turning tail as soon as the southern wind pushed back the cover of the cloud. The Others were running from them. That warmed him. Better still, the warm wind from the south had seemed to slow them almost as much as it had given speed to the forces of the living, and Stannis' host was catching up.

The first signs of the army of the dead were raiders that came at the edge of the host, wights made from the corpses of smallfolk, leaping out of the snow to grapple with unsuspecting soldiers and bite at their necks and faces. Every few hundred feet, it seemed, the Others had prepared some sort of trap for them, the pace of the host slowed. Perhaps two or three of the men took an injury, but the damage to the whole host was far greater, as everyone's pace slackened and every man marched with one hand on their belt.

The nearer they drew to the main host, the more wights were committed to ambushing them. Dozens of wights would burst out from beneath a snowdrift, or run out screaming from a copse of trees, or explode from hidden hovels in the earth. The army bunched up into a single column, and they were forced to stop to check for stragglers as they had been forced to do in the storm. Gods be good, at least it is no longer snowing.

The Others know how to fight us. At every turn, the Others delayed and forestalled and chipped away at his host. It galled Jon, made him furious, made him want to charge into the hosts of the dead headlong. But he tempered himself and encouraged the forces where he could. Not for the last time he wished he had Robb's gift with words, his ability to encourage and inspire. But Robb was dead, gone or worse and only pain lay in thinking of what he had once been like. Jon and Stannis could only offer cold comfort to the men.

They caught sight of the main body just a few hours after midday. They began as a thin black line on the horizon, looking almost like a forest, growing wider and wider with every mile that passed. Gods but there are so many of them. Twenty thousand wights at least, most of them unarmored, dressed plainly in whatever rags had survived the march, with black-blue skin and cudgels made of wood and stone. They had positioned themselves on a low hill inside a thick copse of pines, and gods only knew how many were lurking in the shadows of the trees.

"Ugly bastards, and a lot of them," Massey said, "But without arms or armor they'll be hard-pressed to break through our lines."

"Don't forget they can keep fighting even with their head bashed in," Jon said, thinking of the brutish strength of that monster in Jeor's quarters. "We'll have to crush every last wight in that whole army before they break, and some of the corpses will have steel armor and weaponry." Black brothers had been killed in the great ranging, as well as others. And if the tales of Hother's survivors were true there would no doubt be undead elk and giants and mammoths and snowbears and worse. Had they set up on a forested hill to hide their greatest terrors? Jon pushed the thought aside. "If we have to push up that hill into the woods it is going to be hard fighting the whole way." No doubt that was what the Others wanted them to do.

Once again he found himself feeling begrudging respect for the monsters. They had been one step ahead of them every step of the way. There was no sorcery or strategy the armies of the living could employ for which the Others did not have a ready answer.

Justin gave an easy smile. "Well, I suppose we'll have to trust those preparations you and the King made."

Jon did not reply. Massey was right, but Jon did not like it. He scanned the hill, wondering if there were any faces he knew among the dead. There likely were, even if he could not see them from this distance. Wildlings who had split off from Mance's host, or brothers who had died on the ranging. Qhorin, Jeor, Jarl… even Ygritte might be walking amidst the enemy now, and facing them in the light of day was somehow more horrible than facing them in the dark of night.

The army drew up battle lines and marched toward the hill. There was no parley, just a short council of the commanders of the army and then the march toward death. It seemed strange, like a song started halfway through, but what parley could be held between the living and the dead? The men sensed the difference too, Jon could tell. These men would march and fight and die, but there would be no marching chants or taunts today.

"Halt!" Stannis shouted, and the host of the living slowly ground to a stop, archers moving to the front along with the sleds that had been dragging Stannis' siege engines all the way up from the Dreadfort.

"Loose!" Thousands of arrows rose and fell and found their mark, cutting into the exposed wights with ease. One volley, two volleys, three, four… Before long the front lines of wights were riddled with arrows, feathered shafts sticking out of their arms and eyes and legs. The wights stood and took the arrows almost without flinching, as though they were made of wood.

"Seven hells," Massey said under his breath. "Tough bastards."

You heard about the severed hand we sent to Braavos and you thought arrows would cut them down? Jon stilled his tongue. He should be happy these men were willing to stand with him at all. Stannis and he had never placed much hope in the arrows to begin with.

"Loose!" Scorpion bolts were added to the onslaught, thick bolts of pine that shattered the bodies of the wights when they hit. Jon saw one split a wight in two from shoulder to hip. Another wight was pinned to the earth like a speared frog.

For every two they killed there were a thousand behind them, staring out with cold dead eyes. Jon could already hear the murmurings around him, the growing disquiet that threatened to shatter the host to pieces. When you filled the enemy with arrows, they were supposed to retreat or approach, that was a simple law of battle, but these wights cared little for the laws of man, and the men were finally coming to understand what it meant to fight an enemy that could not, would not break.

Jon felt a storm building in his chest. Frustration and damnation. How many years had these cold eyes taunted him? How many had they taken from him? Two years of sacrifice and suffering and death and for what? This farce of a battle? He had known the battle would be like this. Stannis and he had talked the matter over late into the night more than once, and they had all agreed on this plan of battle. They had the time, they had the weapons… but would the hearts of the men hold that long? Or would they grow weary as the battle wore on into the night and lose heart? The idea that they could have come so far and done so much for so little purpose galled him.

Rule your heart, Jon scolded himself. Charging ahead madly would serve no purpose now. They had to be cold, as cold and clever as the Others themselves. "Advance!" He called, and the army marched forward, pikes presented to the enemy, three ranks deep. Drums were beating, allowing the men to march forward apace. The wights moved in response, advancing to meet them. Wights were moving from the forest now too, moving to flank their infantry, but Jon could not spare them any thought. Hother and Florent would hold them off, or not, and either way, Jon could do little about it.

The wights surged into the thicket of pikes like a wave. The pikes of the men had been given wings near the tip, crossguards like those of a boar spear that prevented the wights from running up the length of the pike and Jon had ample opportunity to be grateful for that, as wave after wave of corpses impaled themselves. Some took a pike to the chest and pushed, others fell to the ground deliberately to open a gap for their fellows, before rising and trying again themselves. The men heaved and shouted and screamed, throwing back the wights and stabbing again into the approaching mass of death.

"Hold!" Jon yelled. "Hold for all your homes! Hold for the forces of the living!" his voice sounded small on the air. A break appeared in the line and the wights surged to fill the gap, overwhelming the wall of pikes and rushing to the men themselves, trampling them and tearing them apart with raw force. There were men with halberds and mauls in the rear ranks, men who tried to stave off the onslaught with heavy, bone-breaking blows, but these could not stave off the advance of the bodies, falling beneath the mass of death screaming in horror. Jon clenched his teeth. The press of the men around him was too much, he could not get to them.

"Wun Ag Dar!" Wun-Wun yelled, pushing aside the forces of men as they came into the gap. He crushed the wights to the ground with a great three-pronged spear as thick as a tree and then trampled them underfoot as he advanced. "Ag Dar!" He called again, and the men cheered aloud as the gap closed and the advance continued.

Follow the plan, Jon scolded himself. They had planned for this, had talked with the survivors of the Fist and the brothers that had fled with Hother. Stannis had drilled his men relentlessly, given them strict orders. If they followed the plan, they would win, he had to believe that. "For the King!" the men cried, "The King and the Prince! For the Dawn!"

Somehow they were pushing the enemy back. Somehow the strength of men prevailed. They advanced over the still-moving corpses of the dead, spike boots marching in step, crushing the bones of the corpses over and over again until they were so much bloody pulp on the ground. The wights were weaker in the sun, in the day, that had to be it. But still, they could not afford to be reckless. "Call for the ranks to rotate," Jon told the trumpeter, and with a few short blasts the men were set in motion, frontward ranks of soldiers raising their pikes and falling back gratefully. The advance stuttered a moment and almost looked like it would break, but the ranks held firm. One sweating Stormlander coming back from the front shot Jon a wide smile and tipped his helm as he fell back. The strength of the dead was endless, and they could ill afford for their front ranks to grow tired and fall.

Desperate trumpet blasts from the left flank. Jon's head whipped over in that direction, only to see Mag the Mighty wrestling with a great wight-giant servant of the Others, flanked by ghoulish bears and elk and mammoths. Hother's army had fallen back almost completely, and soon Jon's forces in the center would be compromised. Even as he watched, Mag crushed the wight-giant's skull with a mailed fist and kicked it to the earth, only for two more to take its place. The pikemen pierced the wight-giant dozens of times, but the massive bodies simply pushed them aside or snapped the shafts in twain. Mag's giant warriors answered them in kind but they had been spread too thin, and the Others had more monsters. Dead giants clawed and wrestled with their living kin, scratching their own fingers bloody trying to pierce the mail. The men near Jon had turned to watch as well, and their advance had slackened.

"The enemy lies ahead!" Jon called. "The battle lies ahead!" They could ill afford the distraction now. They fought on the front, they could ill afford to look to help their neighbors.

The giants would have to be a problem for Stannis' reserves. Yes, yes, even now Jon could see Stannis' reserves moving into position, Lightbringer shining at their head like a red star of death. Stannis brought the star down upon a dead giant that had toppled a living one, and instantly the wight-giant was alight with white-hot flames, stumbling up and back in pain. Lightbringer flashed again, and another of the greater dead fell backward in flames.

Gods be good, Jon muttered under his breath. What sorcery had Melisandre wrought? Or was this truly the hand of the Lord of Light? Jon could not say, and it did not matter. If it could make these monsters feel pain, it was good enough.

A gap in the line opened again, and Jon rushed into it gladly. Years of pain and resentment flowed from him as he lay into them. How much suffering and death had the Others caused? Mance's southern march, the deaths of the great ranging, the sack of Moletown. So much conflict, so much death, so much uncertainty, and now Jon could feel it all passing away. His heart felt light and his soul felt joyful, finally able to fight and win, truly win, for the first time in his life. Again and against Longclaw flashed, cutting and rending until the battle line was made whole again.

"For the living!" He called. "For the realms of men!"

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end all at once, a sudden wave of cold swept over him, a numbing, maddening fear that made him suddenly feel heavy and dark. The world darkened suddenly as though the sun had passed behind a cloud, and over the sound of battle, Jon could feel their approach.

The Others.

Five of them. No more, no less, just five man-shaped figures of frost, with skin pale as milk and long blades of crystal, descending down the hill through the trees. The cool air of the southern wind gave way to cold still air, and the dead's efforts doubled as the Others approached. They left no footprints upon the snow, seeming almost to float.

"Archers!" Jon called, but they were already in motion, notching obsidian arrows as fast as they could. They loosed as fast as they were able, hundreds of arrows trying to find the tiny white figures that raced down the hillside. Jon held his heart in his throat. It could all end here. If even one or two landed, if even one… but a sudden cold wind rose up and blew them all away, and then the Others were amid the throngs of the dead at the base of the hill and the archers could not see them. Damn the Others. Damn them all to hell.

The cold redoubled and so did the strength of the dead. The press against the pike line surged and the men screamed in alarm. "Hold!" Jon called, "Hold!" The men on the front would not hold, but if he called for a retreat all would fall apart. One gap opened in the pike line, then another. As before, forces pushed to fill the gaps, but Jon could see other portions begin to buckle. It's all falling apart.

And then the Others themselves arrived, appearing between the wights rushing forward. The pikes screeched fruitlessly against their frosty armor, and a moment later they were amongst the men, the swords cutting through mail and hauberk like air as the Others themselves laughed aloud. Wun-Wun stumbled back from their onslaught, bleeding in a dozen places, and ran off, bawling like a child. Jon could feel the fear of the men around them, feel that they were but a hair's breadth from fleeing outright themselves. He could feel something else too. He could feel the minds of the Others themselves, feel their cold delight, almost as though it were something he was feeling himself, almost as though they were inside his own mind.

Hate filled his heart and he rode forward to challenge them. Dragonglass and dragonsteel, those are their bane, and I have one to hand right now. "Lord Jon! Lord Jon!" the men about him called, and rallied to him as he plunged into the breach. He had two-score armored horsemen in his guard, encased in steel on heavy chargers that shook the earth as they rumbled forward. This was the peak of the might of men, but against the wall of dead that lay before them, it felt like nothing. "Lord Jon, Lord Jon!" the men called as he passed, and threw themselves back into the fight.

Jon's target lay straight ahead, one of the five who had become too gleeful with his killing and had become separate from the rest. If he could just kill one, if he could just kill one… the pale horror turned to face him as he approached, and Jon could hear its soft laughter within his own mind.

Then the thing moved and suddenly Jon was weightless, flying through the air as his horse was cut down beneath him.

Jon hit the ground hard, his shoulder numb. A wight was on top of him almost instantly, hideously strong arms grappling for his throat. He thrust upwards with Longclaw and split the thing's shoulder from its body, but the loose arm refused to let go of his throat. Three times, four times he cut into the wight, and then he was free. All around him his honor guard was dying under a sea of wights. The very ground here was covered in the shattered body of wights, and even now it writhed against them, clutching feebly at their heels as they tried to stand and fight. The sky had gone dark overhead and Jon could sense their deaths approaching.

They were all going to die. That truth finally registered in his head, and he took comfort in it. If there was no hope of life, then he knew what had to be done. Not far away, the white devil carved a bloody path through his men. He staggered toward the creature drunkenly, Longclaw in hand. His vision narrowed and his teeth clenched. Nothing else mattered if he could just kill the one. His guards were screaming and dying, doing their best to keep the wights away from him, but Jon paid them no heed.

Ten paces to the Other, five. His pace quickened. The Other did not see him. He swung down Longclaw… the Other spun and knocked his blade from his hand, and then the Other kicked him in the chest and pushed him to the muddy earth. Jon screamed in pain as the Other's cold seeped from its foot into his body, freezing him over. He could hear its quiet laughter, hear all their laughter. With every blink, he saw something different. He was in Winterfell, he was in a cave, he was stalking through the snow, he was back on the muddied ground again. Above him, the other was fighting off three men at once, content to let the cold slowly overtake Jon's body.

Jon cursed, drew the obsidian dagger from his belt, and drove it into the Other's heel, piercing the joint in the crystal armor. There was a sound like ice cracking underneath one's foot and all at once, the creature fell to pieces above him, flesh and armor falling away to nothing.

Jon tried to get up, but could not. The cold was too deep in his chest. He coughed and sputtered on the ground, his lungs on fire with pain. He closed his eyes and waited to die. Some wight would come along soon enough and bash his head in. Why had one not done so already? But then something strong was lifting him up and pulling him away, something that smelled of fresh leather. He opened one eye, only to find that he had been slung over a giant's shoulder. They were carrying him away, leaving the battlefield behind him.

Retreat. The army had gone into full retreat. The Others were pursuing, but the full bulk of the army was withdrawing away from them. He could see Stannis and Mance shouting orders amidst the chaos, urging the men to retreat in good order.

They had failed. Their best chance to end the Others and they had failed. Jon cast his eyes to the darkening skies and noted that snow had begun to fall again.