JORAH

He ought to have moved faster, but his feet refused to move any quicker than they were as they carried him to where Bronn had fallen. Nothing seemed real at the moment, nothing felt as if he was the one experiencing it, perhaps due to the shock of the awful finality of the Night King's attack on Bronn and the completely unexpected nature of Bronn's sacrifice. The man had known that Jorah and Daenerys were there in hiding–how he knew was anyone's guess–but he had known enough to plant himself right there and distract the Night King. Whatever it was that had led to Bronn's decision, Jorah felt strongly that it was orchestrated to happen in this manner. It did not give Jorah any sense of hope to know that Bronn was meant to die for Jorah to live, if only for a little bit longer, but Jorah knew it was time he should not waste.

There was something more, something still for Jorah to accomplish, but he could not do anything until he had paid respects to the man who had given his life for Jorah's. No man had ever outright been killed or died for him before and the fact that he now owed each and every breath to this sellsword meant that he had to give the man an honorable send-off.

Bronn lay face-down where the Night King had skewered him and steam was curdling off of his back from the gaping hole left by the Night King's weapon. His death grip was sealed over the handle to Longclaw and Jorah once again had to consider the reason why Bronn was in possession of this sword, of all swords. He would have known that Jon Snow wielded it and would have known its importance, but he did not seem the type to go and swipe such a crucial weapon just to give himself a sporting chance. If he had only wanted the sword for its value to be sold or to better protect himself, he would have made off with it and fought his way to a horse and fled the castle, but he had come sprinting across the moor to find the Night King instead. And if he had come into possession of Longclaw, it had been gifted to him by its master, to do what its master could not.

If Jon Snow was dead or dying inside, if Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister were dead or unable to come out to the moor as Bronn had, Jorah was all that remained of fighters in any condition to wield a Valyrian steel sword.

Surely, the fate of mankind could not rest on his shoulders. He was not important enough for that. He had done too many misdeeds, chosen too many incorrect paths to have such a responsibility as a seasoned fighter. He was aging, he was tired, and he knew he could not do what was being asked of him. There was a reason Daenerys had dragons, why Jon Snow had been brought back from the dead, why so many others had made it this far to fight in this battle. Jorah was certain that his purpose of surviving greyscale had been to come here, protect his queen, and see her have a hand in defeating the Night King. His purpose could not be to do the deed himself.

To delay the decision he knew was coming, Jorah removed his dominant-handed glove and reached down to close Bronn's eyelids out of respect for the fallen warrior, but he leaped back in alarm when Bronn suddenly shuddered and gagged. His face had frozen to the ground, sealed in place from his own blood and his eyes were quivering and spilling tears. The pain he must be in was unimaginable, but he was still alive, still clinging to his existence as any determined warrior would.

"F-f-fuck me," Bronn gasped through a mouthful of dark, purple blood.

"Shh, easy now." Dropping to his knees and unsure of how to help him, Jorah turned Bronn over as gingerly as he could, cringing as he listened to some of Bronn's facial skin peeling off as he was unstuck from the frozen ground. In the near-darkness, he felt for the wound he knew was there until his fingers made contact with warm, sticky blood. Pressing down, he tried to quiet Bronn, though he could not say why. The battlefield was empty and though no enemies were coming for them, neither was any help. Jorah needed fire to cauterize the wound and the closest fire was some several dozen yards off, remnants of Rhaegal's attack on the Walker.

He would never make it with Bronn in tow, but was it even worth it? Bronn's was the sort of wound that was unforgiving. Even if he did not die immediately, he would die eventually from infection or blood loss, whichever came first. Cauterizing it was only prolonging the inevitable, but the fire was also the safest place to be out here in a world of ice and snow. If not for Bronn's, for Jorah's own longevity, he needed to move.

Bronn pulled at Jorah's breast chainmail and Jorah leaned over to try and listen for anything the other man wanted to say but instead only heard gentle sobbing. Jorah knew that sound well, for it was made by most–if not all–men when they knew the end was near and could do nothing to stop it, when they realized their time was running out and they wanted to cling to life a little bit longer.

With one hand tangled in the material between Bronn's shoulder padding and neck and the other clutching his sword, Jorah started dragging the other man through the sea of corpses. Longclaw was still locked in Bronn's grip and made a loud, musical clang against the ground with every stride, but Jorah knew there was no one out on the empty field to hear. Some hours it seemed to take Jorah to make the long journey to the raging fires, but in the mass befuddling chaos that was pitching around in his head as his thoughts fought for dominance, he only had the incentive to be near the fire for its warmth. He did not want to die frozen.

Overhead, he heard ravens cawing at him, encouraging him on and watching over him to ensure safe passage.

Finally, he stood before a wall of flame, wondering what he ought to do now and if lugging Bronn all this way had been worth it. He went through methodical movements almost as if someone else were in control of his body and making decisions for him when he could decide on none himself. He placed the tip of Heartsbane in the fire, turned his back to it, and surveyed the empty battlefield, watching and waiting for what, he didn't know.

He couldn't stay out here forever. Once he took care of the present matter, he would have to head back toward the castle because he never even entertained the thought of doing the opposite in fleeing. Though Daenerys was safe from the Night King's reach now that the latter was grounded and unable to pursue her in the skies, she was still up there somewhere, calculating her next move as well, and if she came down only to discover that Jorah had abandoned her, it would damn him to any and all hells that existed.

His sword sizzled behind him and he withdrew the blade from the fire, approaching Bronn who he had placed on his back. Without preamble or warning, he pressed the white-hot tip to the hole in Bronn's chest and the ear-splitting shriek the man made was enough to make Jorah grind his teeth in discomfort. It was a small comforting notion that Bronn could still feel the pain of the cauterization, but there really was no sense in sealing the wound. Jorah was only holding off on having to face the inevitable. He was content to stand here for the rest of the night and listen to Bronn call him some of the most inventive and colorful insults he had ever heard on either side of the Narrow Sea and when it seemed that Bronn had finished, Jorah knelt beside him again to examine the sizzling closed flesh.

What pulled him up short was that Bronn was staring right at him but without seeing him. Bronn clearly wanted to move but he was both petrified in fear and too wounded to do so. Instead, Jorah saw his eyes, already a delicate shade of pale blue suddenly grow deeper, darker, and colder. Knowing what this color of blue meant, Jorah steeled himself to run Bronn's body through with his sword when he heard words spill from the man's mouth.

"He's here," Bronn whispered in horror.

Piecing together what he knew about wights, their inability to speak, and the fact that Bronn despite having blue eyes that only wights had could still speak, Jorah was inclined to believe that Bronn was now somehow linked to the Night King. Perhaps being pierced with the ice sword gave one the privilege to see as a wight without actually being dead, but in any case, Bronn seemed absolutely certain that whatever Bronn saw was true and that the Night King was coming back for Jorah.

How eerily calm he felt knowing that he was about to see death incarnate approaching him. The time he had wasted walking to the fire just to close a mortal wound to no effect should have instead been spent deciding to walk toward death on his own instead of having it come for him, but now that he no longer had a choice, he came to the conclusion in his head that this was where he was meant to be.

His queen was safe once more in the skies, but too far for him to call for her, his friends were all fighting or dead. The only living soul he knew still existed anywhere near him was the dying man at his feet. He lifted his sword, preparing himself for one last fight.

With his back to the flames, he still felt the chill of the air growing colder by the second, preceding the master of ice.

"Hold…until…fire," Bronn choked.

Temporarily distracted by these words, Jorah looked behind him at the remnants of the dragonfire. What fire did Bronn mean? There were pockets of flames across the battlefield, but none so strong that they would serve any purpose and those few pockets were quickly being extinguished as a cold front swept in, preceding the black leather-clad figure of the Night King returning to the one warrior who dared stand and oppose him. With a face carved of ice, he still managed to look absolutely murderous with an irrevocable hatred as if Jorah was his sworn enemy. That look promised pain the likes of which Jorah had never known, reaffirming his doubts and solidifying the belief that Jorah was not enough.

Off to the left, a powerful surge of orange and glowing yellow left fiery prints across Jorah's irises as he saw fire rippling toward him. Clegane came thundering across the battlefield from within the castle with the fire growing and following in his wake as if it were fueling his speed, urging him to run faster. There was no source, no dragon behind him or torch in his hand or oil spill at his feet, brought to life by a spark from steel. It was simply there at his heels without touching him, lighting up the battlefield in a brilliant glow.

Clegane was closer to Jorah than the Night King and came to stand beside Jorah, armed with his Valyrian knife and nothing else. When he saw Longclaw shining brilliantly in the snow, he snatched it up, finally breaking Bronn's hold on it, though it seemed that Bronn had relinquished his hold now that there was someone to wield it in his stead. The sword was shorter than the length of steel Clegane normally wielded, but he held it with expertise and valor as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Jorah.

This magnificent feat before them would require speed, agility, cunning, and strength the limits of which Jorah and Clegane had never been tested, but they were it. They were all that was left.

The Night King brought his blade up to eye-level and despite being the one marching in for the fight, he was on the defense. Together, Jorah and Clegane both charged forward. Jorah swung wide, Clegane swung overhead, and as the Night King dodged Clegane's attack, he met Jorah's in a clash of steel on ice. The sound set Jorah's ears ringing as the blades made contact.

It was a blur of movements as both Jorah and Clegane pressed the Night King, fighting for an opening and finding nothing. It took every ounce of experience they both had just to stay alive from one second to the next, for the Night King fought as ten and seemed to guess their movements before they even conceived them. It was only thanks to their years of fighting and their own self discipline that they both had not been killed within the first five seconds of the battle.

At any moment, Jorah knew their luck could give out and likely would, but he could not even begin to think of a way to prevent their demise. At this point they were only prolonging what was likely to be a freezing, excruciating death. If they didn't trip over another body or their own feet or even took a second to blink too long, something else was going to be the reason that they let their guard down and provided an opening for the Night King to deliver the deadly strike.

If the Night King were capable of any emotion, any thought or feeling, Jorah would have said he was toying with them and finding amusement that Jorah and Clegane were the best defenders mankind had to confront him with, but it did not seem possible that the Night King was gleaning any sort of entertainment in this fight. Why he did not overtake them and kill them swiftly was a mystery to Jorah, which led him to believe that if the Night King could have easily dispatched them, he would have. It made sense to conclude that Jorah and Clegane were giving the Night King an admirable fight and that though he would not tire, he was performing every move possible to defend himself. It gave Jorah an immense measure of pride to consider that fact, but he could not savor the feeling as he watched Clegane's weariness begin to set in–and cost him.

Clegane hacked downward, relying on Jorah to parry and defend him as he left his side exposed, but the Night King put too much weight behind his next attack on Jorah, causing him to stumble away from Clegane, unable to come to his defense.

The Night King's ice blade cut across Clegane's back, opening a wound from shoulder to hip and Jorah watched his friend's arms fly up to chest height in reaction to the pain. Clegane fell to his knees with his back turned to his enemy. Jorah had no thought of trying to kill the Night King then. It only mattered that he block the next attack that was meant to take Clegane's head off at the shoulders. He ducked under the long reach of the Night King's blade, throwing himself forward and bringing his sword perpendicular to the ground to catch the ice blade as it was swung sideways in an attempt to decapitate.

As it had with Longclaw, the ice blade rang out when it made contact with Heartsbane in a sound that should have deafened Jorah yet again but instead gave him courage. It was his one barrier between the icy grip of everlasting death and life and no matter what happened, he would not let the sword fall from his grasp.

Judging by the unwavering glare the Night King was regarding Jorah with, he intended to challenge Jorah on that very front. His knee jammed against Jorah's leg, upsetting his balance yet again and nearly breaking the bone. Jorah could not react to the pain and guard himself at the same time and his very human reaction to almost having his leg shattered cost him.

The ice sword came down over Jorah's shoulder, slicing right down to the bone and Jorah cried out as burning, stabbing ice seeped through him, numbing his arm to any sensation but the pain. He tossed his sword into his left hand and brought it up to deflect whatever attack came next, but his left arm was weaker and the Night King disarmed him with a cold, calculated look that ensured Jorah's death with the next blow.

The weapon of ice came up and then Jorah's view was blocked by a devastating open wound across a broad back as Clegane put himself between Jorah and the Night King.

No…don't, Sandor–

The Night King attempted to dart around Clegane to get to Jorah but Clegane threw his weight behind Longclaw, matching blades with the Night King and forcing him to take several ungainly steps back. As strong as the Night King was, Clegane was still an enormous presence that not even the king of the dead could deny.

"NO!" thundered Clegane as he used his massive form to block Jorah from the Night King's sights. "You'll not have him, you fucker."

Jorah doubted that the Night King knew that he had just been called such an awful thing, but Clegane's tone was implication enough that he was challenging the Night King and if Jorah thought the figure looked angry before, it was nothing to the downward etchings in his stone-cold face now. The Night King took one full step forward and then paused as if his foot had been caught on something that cemented him to the ground and as Jorah's eyes fell upon that caught foot, he could see that he wasn't far off from the truth.

The Night King looked down with fury at what had snagged at his leg and Jorah saw Bronn clinging to the king's leather bound ankle with the very last of his strength in a stunning display of mankind's determination and willingness to keep death at bay. Bronn, apparently, was not even worth the time it would have taken the Night King to deliver a furious kick to the face to make him relinquish his hold. Those precious few seconds during which the Night King and Bronn exchanged silent stares were what bought Jorah and Clegane time.

Clegane was pulling at Jorah's armor straps along his back, hauling him upright. "Stand up." Jorah's legs were loathe to support him but Clegane lifted him as easily as Jorah had lifted Lyanna and his house words rang in his head like sept bells announcing a great celebration.

Here we stand.

"C'mon, stand up. Use your legs, you bastard."

Jorah held onto Clegane's arm to steady himself.

"I've got you," Clegane assured him. "Are you with me?"

He could not speak, but he did nod and as he did, he heard a voice echo across the moors, young, burdened, but unafraid. It sounded like a boy at first, but grew and magnified a hundred fold with each second until it sounded as if every soldier who had fought this night was chanting, "I am here."

A horse stood upon the crest of the hill leading east and in its saddle was the last son of Eddard Stark, calling out to the Night King with his arms lifted high as if offering himself as a sacrifice to end the war.

Jerking his leg away from Bronn, the Night King turned his attention to the Stark boy.

Now, said a voice in Jorah's head that was not his own. He looked to Clegane whose eyes had a glazed over look to them as if he had heard a command in his own head as well. The two of them exchanged but a moment of hesitation to confirm that what they were about to do would either be their last act ever or the last one that mattered.

Jorah's legs carried him forward though his arms were fatigued and he knew there was no conceivable way that he could lift his sword with his left hand alone. The Night King was not hurrying toward the Stark boy, but Jorah's gait was not fast enough to get around to the front of his opponent, so in desperation to not allow the Night King to put much more distance between the two of them, Jorah hurtled Heartsbane with all the strength left in his arms. The flat of the blade struck against the Night King's back and he paused before whirling around looking–if it were possible–infuriated.

Taking up his dragonglass dagger in his right hand, Jorah invited the Night King in for one last duel, praying the bastard took the bait.

Four giant strides was all it took for the Night King to cover the space between him and Jorah and he lunged with his ice blade to stab Jorah through the gut. Sidestepping with the litheness only a seasoned warrior knew how to employ, Jorah dodged the blow and stabbed out with his dagger to bury it in the Night King's side but a searing pain around his wrist pulled him up short. The Night King had caught him and where his white-blue skin made contact with Jorah's, the pale skin was starting to frost over. Twisting Jorah's arm to breaking point, the Night King threw Jorah down before him, but as he fell, Jorah grasped the Night King's forearm in his own, pulling him down into a bent double position.

As Jorah hit the ground hard on his tailbone and felt the tremor threaten to make him release his hold on the Night King, he saw Clegane rising up, lifting his broad frame to carry out the final attack. He stuck his dagger point up just as Clegane collided with the Night King from behind and their combined force impaled the Night King on Jorah's blade.

Thousands of white and pale blue crystal shards exploded over Jorah, showering him in the dust of his and Clegane's final kill and the din that Jorah could have mistaken for far-off thunder shut off as suddenly as a candle was extinguished in a high wind. Then all was quiet, but not with the air of doom impressing down upon them. It was just quiet, undisturbed.

High above, there was a break in the storm clouds and through the snowflakes sprinkling down to rest on Jorah's eyelashes, he could see a scattering of stars for just a moment. The pain in his shoulder was far and away, the cold was but a distant memory.

"Mormont?" came Clegane's voice, breaking the silence and stillness of the aftermath. Jorah struggled to find use of his own voice to answer him. His throat seemed to have forgotten how to work in the last few minutes. Then, Clegane shouted in a panicked, insistent tone, "Mormont? "

"Here," Jorah whispered, for that was all his throat had to give.

"Jorah Fucking Mormont, you'd best answer me, you shit."

"Here," Jorah choked. "I'm here."

On his knees, he could see the shape of Bronn's body with his hand still outstretched to hold the Night King's ankle, his last act of service. Jorah tried to find his way to his feet several times, but his boots would find no traction in the snow and he could not find the coordination to walk. He had already expended far too much energy in tending to a man who was beyond help this night, but of the many thoughts he should be having, the one that was most prominent in his brain was the one telling him to get to Bronn.

He couldn't do it and as he gave in, he felt Clegane's large, rough hand on the back of his neck, scuffing the skin there as he lifted Jorah by the bit of tunic that he found there. Clegane half-carried Jorah some dozen feet or so and then once again stood him upright to walk the remaining steps on his own. Jorah stumbled and came close to toppling a time or two, but in the end, managed to make it on his own to Bronn and dropped back down onto his knees beside the sellsword.

He was still alive.

The one open hole that Jorah had not cauterized continued to bleed onto the already blood-soaked ground and the man's body was almost transparent now, but he was still alive, holding on for something. Waiting…for something.

Jorah lifted Bronn's head into his lap but there was no acknowledgment from the man's eyes or mouth that he knew Jorah was there. He was twitching, not violently, but just enough to render him as a shivering child caught in the cold. The eyes that were once that devastatingly unforgiving blue were pale grey now and Jorah knew no sight would ever return to them as they continued to spill dying tears. There was nothing that could be done for him, no way to help him pass quicker or easier. He was past the point of feeling the pain and even if Jorah slit his throat, the man was already dead.

Bronn could not hear Jorah, could not see him, could not feel him, did not know he was there. Whenever his senses had failed him, however long ago it had been, he had been alone when it happened. The last thing he knew was that he was going to die alone and that was enough for Jorah to lift the man properly into his arms, cradling him from behind as he held on.

He prayed, for the first time in a long, long while, for this man in his arms. He prayed to whoever would have him, whoever would guide him out of this horrible, agonizing death, that they would do so kindly and lead him to whatever lay beyond. He prayed for this man to know that in the end, as he drew his last breath, he was not alone.

He heard the heavy footfalls of Sandor Clegane coming to stand beside him, stand guard over the moment in which a brave man, a man sorely misjudged by Jorah, went to rest in the halls of noble fallen soldiers.

Jorah cast a lingering eye over the thousands upon thousands of bodies around them and then looked to Clegane. It was not an expression of hope or relief Jorah saw, but one of sorrow, of not understanding. So many dead, so many…

Clegane rested a hand on Jorah's shoulder, squeezing harder than the bigger man likely intended but undoubtedly needing to know that at least someone was still alive. After a time, Jorah stood up and faced the east, standing as a vigil over the body of Bronn of the Blackwater.

A tinge of whitish-blue was on the horizon, stretching slowly toward them as if invitingly, comfortingly. Dawn was coming.