A.N.: The "Helm's Deep" chapter. Writing this on what has been the hottest day of the year thus far is very odd! It is really hard to write battle scenes in general, I found!
I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos about different ASOIAF theories, particularly about Varys/FAegon and Dornish conspiracies. I have my own ideas for this story but I'll be fleshing out a lot of the politics with ideas inspired by these theories – particularly, Bloodraven's actions, the true identity of "FAegon" and a Dornish conspiracy for Rhoynish revival at the expense of a Targaryen (Valyrian) restoration.
Also, I was wondering whether the Azor Ahai prophecy – tempering his blade in the heart of his lover to defeat the darkness – is more metaphorical, or can come about a different way than most anticipate: my belief is that Jon sacrificed his love (Ygritte) for honour and duty, which forged him into the weapon that he has become to unite Men and fight the White Walkers. Since his resurrection Jon is also filled with the fire of R'hllor, making him the "burning sword". He is also technically a "son of fire", having been reborn through R'hllor's power (for which Melisandre is a conduit). Melisandre says "a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword": a warrior (Ser Davos – not a knight or soldier but someone who fights for what is right and just) drew from the fire (Melisandre) a burning sword (Jon). Without Davos' encouragement and belief, Melisandre would never have attempted Jon's resurrection.
Valyrian Steel
63
Fire
The roar of the dead was a harrowing battle-tactic that sent horror to their very marrow, freezing them in place, turning their minds to terror, anticipating their fates. As forks of lightning lashed the churning black sky, they illuminated the endless waves of the dead, churning and thrashing furiously. Rotting snowbears and ice-eyed direwolves; snowcats with gleaming fangs and innards trailing them like ribbons; and giants with blood frozen in their beards riding mammoths. They weren't the worst.
Fear was the greatest weapon of all.
And lines of dead children spanning the horizon, ice-eyed and broken, inspired fear like little else. They led the vanguard, inspiring true horror as they drew closer.
Not even the children had been spared.
Beast and babe alike would fall to his will, little more than meat in his army.
A chorus of gasps and startled cries, muted whimpers and yells of fright hissed around the castle. But here and there, dotted amongst the rabble, were grizzled warriors who appeared, not frightened, but resolved.
They had looked the Night King in the eye before and were prepared to meet him in battle once more. As the rabble turned to their leaders for reassurance, their stoic faces and steady hands spread calm through the ranks as nothing else could. Larra gave reassurance without hesitation, aware that it was to her that many faces turned, seeking courage.
"D'you remember when we were children?" Larra murmured to Theon, who gaped at the sea of the swarming dead, his eyes on the dead children that turned their ice-blue eyes to the ramparts as lightning forked overhead. "During storms, you used to frighten us with stories of the ocean rising up to consume the Iron Islands, giant krakens rising up from the deep to drag us to the depths and devour us."
Theon exhaled sharply, giving her an apologetic glance.
"This is why Winterfell was built," Larra said quietly, tilting her head as she watched the seething ocean of the dead. Tears dripped silently from Sansa's sapphire eyes as she gazed out, her eyelashes freezing together before she could blink. It was important she saw, that she knew: she would not fight but Sansa would know exactly what their people faced. Why they fought. Why every sacrifice was worthy. She wept silently. She was not alone.
Under the great weirwood, Larra had fled, her only focus putting one foot before the other. Not the storm lashing around her, the wights chasing her, Hodor and Summer, Leaf and Lord Bloodraven left behind to be torn apart… Now, she watched, feeling strangely calm – almost at peace. There was no more running: there was only this battle. Nothing else mattered. Her voice calm, almost dreamy, she sighed, "To defend the realms of Men… They will break upon Winterfell like water upon rock."
"You sound almost confident."
"To be anything else is suicide," Larra said quietly. She caught his eye and they shared a grim smile. They had to believe they might outlast the Night King. Belief was powerful.
"There are so many," Sansa breathed, her eyes wide with horror and despair.
"They were Free Folk," Tormund Giantsbane said throatily, his eyes glittering with tears as he gazed down at the Night King's horde, his eyes lingering on the children. "Now they are slaves."
"Kill the commanders and they will be free once again," Jon said simply. It all came down to killing as many of the Night King's commanders as possible.
During their meetings, the knights and lords had worried that Jon slaying the Other at Hardhome would put the Night King on the defensive: they had revealed his greatest weakness. No experienced commander would leave his army vulnerable by exposing that weakness. The Night King would never leave his commanders exposed. He would hide them. They would never get close enough to kill the commanders, thus their strategy was to eliminate as many of the foot-soldiers as possible in the hopes of evening the odds and increasing the likelihood that the commanders would be exposed.
It was the only hope they had.
A single short, sharp burst from a horn shattered the grip of terror the Night King held over them. They peered over the ramparts, squinting through the snow and the ice-rain, at the small figures moving gracefully through the snowdrifts. Behind them, a large figure sat astride a dying horse.
A fork of lightning seared through the sky and Larra's breath caught in her lungs.
"Open the gate!"
"What?"
"Open the gate!" Larra called, breathless with shock. She turned and descended the heavily-gritted steps, calling again for the gate to be opened. All around her, the rabble gripped their obsidian weapons, glancing wide-eyed at her as she passed, glowering in bewildered anticipation as strong men used great hammers to break the ice that had formed over the bars blockading the gate shut.
Stillness came to them as the newcomers slipped into the yard. The gate was set and bolted behind them.
All eyes turned to the new arrivals, half as tall as any man and clad in strange garments of woven leaves and tree-bark. The flickering torches – burning defiantly against the icy rain and snow – illuminated golden and green eyes that glowed like a cat, large ears and dark skin dappled like a doe. Claw-tipped fingers clutched bone-white spears tipped with obsidian.
Everywhere they stood, the implacable Thenns dropped to their knees, proffering their weapons and pressing their palms and brows to the ground in supplication.
As she strode through the crowds, those that sang the song of the earth turned their green-golden eyes unerringly to Larra. She greeted them in their custom, reaching out and gently, almost tenderly, clasping her fingers together, bringing them to rest over her heart.
"We believed we fought alone," she said in the Old Tongue, awed. The Thenns turned owl-eyes on her as they straightened: they left their weapons at their feet as a mark of respect.
"Our long dwindling comes to its end. We follow the giants into the earth, our bane and our brothers. They call to us from the stones and the trees where we are awaited, from the earth where we shall become one with all that shall ever be," their leader said gently. "In the dawn of your days, a great pact was forged that we may all live with the land. For thousands of your years, we honoured our friendship. When the Others brought the great winter without end, we fought and died together. We have come to honour the Pact we made with Men before the gods. We shall make right an ancient wrong. We bring word from he with a thousand eyes and one."
"Lord Bloodraven?"
"Once he was known by such a name yet never to us," sighed the leader.
"What does he say?" Larra asked sadly. To the greenseers, time was as fluid as any ocean. They could dive into its depths and surface whenever they chose. Lord Bloodraven had travelled through the weirwoods, through time itself, to leave this message with those that sang the songs of the earth.
In the common tongue, their leader said, "When the last arrow has been loosed, and your need grows dire, it falls to you, child of ice and fire, to wake those who have slumbered, bound to their oaths."
She frowned at them, blinking snow from her eyes, and those who sang the songs of the earth held their hands to their hearts, bowing their heads. She pointed vaguely behind her, thinking of her journey to Winterfell's foundations. The crowds parted, drawing back and staring in awe as the Children of their ancient tales and legends moved gracefully past, drawn to the ancient oak door into the godswood that had stood untouched for ten-thousand years. The last Children to enter it may have been those who carved the face into the heart-tree. Brandon Stark had built Winterfell around the godswood; every generation of Stark since had prayed under the sorrowful gaze of the weirwood, soothed by the gentle sigh of the wind through the ruby-red leaves, bolstered by the enduring strength of the bone-white trunk, the ancient roots embedded deep into the earth. A symbol of the strength and the endurance of House Stark, some said – while the direwolf told of their ferocity and cunning.
To withstand the storm, it was the strength and cunning of all their ancestors that they needed now.
The Children melted into the gloom of the godswood, the shadows swallowing the glow of their weirwood bows and bone-spears, the wind eating the rustle of their footsteps in the snow. People stared openly. The Thenns gaped, their jaws slack. Even Tormund Giantsbane remained speechless.
Jon staggered past her, knocking her slightly, and Larra turned to watch him. Someone ran forward to take the bridle of the half-dead horse that had limped into the yard behind those that sang the songs of the earth. A tall, lean figure in a tattered cloak had climbed off the horse and now peeled back a threadbare hood.
"Uncle Benjen!" Jon gasped, striding toward him: they embraced as fiercely as brothers. Tears stung Larra's eyes – not for herself: Benjen's fate had eaten at Jon for years. It was ultimately how the mutineers had lured him to his murder. Releasing their uncle, Jon stepped back, scrutinising Benjen's gaunt, scarred face.
"You were beyond the Wall," Jon said, aghast, staring at Uncle Benjen's face, noting his unnatural pallor and the bluish tint to his lips. Benjen simply nodded. Jon deflated somewhat, a devastating sort of sadness emanating from him. Jon had held on to the hope that their uncle had found some way to survive against the odds. And, though he stood before them, Benjen was clearly not unharmed. Clearly…different. Not Other but altered.
"You've been busy," Benjen replied, staring back at Jon. And in that moment, Larra swore Father stood before them, his tired face radiating a rare pride so tangible it warmed her. Benjen reached out to clasp Jon's shoulder, his eyes creasing at the corners. He nodded, a fond smile shifting his features back to those of Uncle Benjen – their Benjen, the genial, observant uncle who devoted hours to them, listening to their triumphs and woes, soothing hurts, slipping them cups of wine at feast, dancing gaily with Larra, teaching Jon how to wield his hunting-knife without losing fingers. Their beloved uncle who brightened Winterfell whenever he flew down from the Wall to visit. Father had always been happier when Benjen was near: so was Jon. So was Larra. How often had she wished he had claimed them as his own and raised them in a holdfast, creating a home for them all away from the cold glares of Lady Catelyn? How much faith had she put in Uncle Benjen to keep Jon safe when he had taken her twin to the Wall? But it was Benjen Stark the First Ranger who looked at Jon now, his grey-blue eyes shining with pride, as he said, "A man gets what he earns when he earns it, Your Grace."
Jon snorted. Then he smiled grimly at a memory, the advice Benjen had given him before he set out for the ranging from which he had never returned – the ranging that had led to the Night's Watch's first discovery of a wight. Benjen's last ranging had set much in motion that could never be undone. As it should be. All this was as it should be.
So said Brandon. Larra believed in him wholeheartedly.
Benjen's grey eyes – Jon's eyes, Stark eyes – gazed around the yard, a smile in their depths. Proud. His unyielding gaze drifted over the Free Folk in their furs; Yohn Royce in his ancestral bronze armour that had been first worn by those that fought beside the Children; the smallfolk wielding obsidian daggers; Northmen in breastplates and boiled leather, hair tied brutally back; Unsullied armour gleaming like beetle-shells in the torchlight; Dothraki bowmen perched precariously atop towers and rooftops, held in place by ropes as on a ship in foul weather; and the siege weapons dotted strategically throughout the yard, precarious shards of obsidian jutting out lethally.
Larra gave him a tremulous smile. "I'm glad you're here, Uncle."
"I told you," Benjen said sombrely, reaching his hand out to touch Larra's cheek. His gaze lingered, as it always did, on her face – Lyanna's face. He said almost regretfully, "I still fight for the living."
"We are glad for your sword, Uncle," Jon said quietly. Benjen nodded.
"Where do you need me?" Benjen Stark, First Ranger of the Night's Watch, asked. Their reunion was over: there was much to do. Jon gave a hollow laugh. Where didn't they need him?
"Benjen!" boomed Donal Noye, his broad face creasing with a grin. The one-armed smith waved his obsidian war-hammer in summons and Benjen smiled, loping off to his black brothers, grasping forearms, clapping each other on the back in greeting – and in gratitude.
If Benjen had survived beyond the Wall all these years, he brought hope to all the rest.
And he had arrived in the company of those that sang the song of the earth. Larra pondered this but had little time to give it serious thought. They were here: that was what mattered.
They climbed to the ramparts once more, observing the Night King's hordes. They were still thrashing like violent waves in a storm: they were the storm. Larra gazed along the ramparts, to the rooftops and turrets where bowmen perched precariously; to the burly labourers who stood by trebuchets, ready to load them with carefully-crafted ammunition; the Unsullied positioned strategically along the ramparts, in command of smallfolk and soldiers armed with obsidian-tipped spears or halberds supporting archers, the Unsullied ready to relieve the archers at every crenelated battlement, drilled to rotate to give each other precious reprieve; and the lads…the young lads armed with obsidian daggers and torches. Torches to light the dead.
One thing that never changed, no matter what their strategy: burn as you go. Leave no fallen soldier within their walls to join the Night King's army.
If they turned on each other, they were doomed.
They had planned. They had drilled. They had done this over and over again over the last few weeks, through all weathers. They had prepared as best they could. And in the face of the unimaginable, Larra was proud to see that their resolve was unwavering. Though they may whimper with fear and horror as the army of the dead swarmed like a furious nest of hornets, no-one abandoned their posts.
Quietly, as if barely daring to speak lest it trigger an assault, Sansa asked, "What happens now?"
Looming over her, the horrendously burned Sandor Clegane grunted, "We wait."
They may not know the army of the dead but every knight and lord in Winterfell was raised on battle strategy – tactics in open warfare, yes, but specifically, to defend their own holdings and how best to lay siege to castles they intended to claim by force.
They may not know the Others. But castles were something the Others knew nothing of.
Beyond the Wall, they had had every advantage.
But here at Winterfell…thousands of generations had outlived siege after siege with worse odds – facing starvation, sickness and siege weapons.
At Hardhome, the dead had swarmed the unsuspecting Free Folk without hesitation. They had been deterred only by the precariousness of the frozen lake yet had attacked at the earliest opportunity. That was the Night King's pattern: to send out his legions to overwhelm with sheer numbers. No strategy whatsoever. He relied on those numbers and the terror that overwhelmed his soldiers' victims as they realised what their fate was to be. He relied on that terror to prevent anyone fighting back.
Lightning whipped across the sky. Thunder boomed so loudly Larra felt it reverberate in her belly. The sea of the dead churned as if discontented, irritated.
"What are they waiting for?" Arya murmured. This Arya, trained by exposure to years of brutality in the Riverlands and in the arts of the Faceless Men, showed her fear in a different way than she might have as a girl. Scowling and impatient, rather than wide-eyed and uncertain.
"They're not waiting," Larra said, sighing heavily. She had seen the wights frozen still as statues, waiting for their orders. It was the eeriness that sent shivers up her spine. She still remembered the sight of them standing beyond the kiss of flame as the Night King held out his hand.
"What are they doing, then?" Sansa pressed.
Larra sighed heavily again. "They're frightening," she answered.
"The Night King thinks to break our courage," said Lord Beric Dondarrion. Larra noticed that though ice clung to Arya's eyelashes and Sansa's unbound hair, Lord Beric stood lightly steaming as the snow whirled around him. The Lord of Light's fire burned within him, she supposed. The same fire that had brought Jon back to them.
"Horned fucker," Sandor Clegane swore, scowling.
"I'd rather we didn't have to wait," Arya frowned. "Waiting is interminable." Larra snorted.
"You've no idea," she muttered, and Arya glanced at her. Larra simply gazed out over the ocean of the dead. Years, she had been waiting, almost a decade, lingering beneath the weirwood, gripped by the fear of – this.
"They came for you," Sansa said softly. Larra nodded. "You survived."
Larra sighed, her breath pluming before her, and she glanced at Sansa, her expression grim. "Not all of us."
Hold the door… She flinched.
Sansa watched her carefully.
"We should walk," Larra said, sighing softly. "They need to see our faces."
"I do not think they wish to see what my face may show," Sansa said. Larra glanced at her.
"They need to see your fear," Sandor Clegane growled softly. Larra glanced at him as Sansa frowned bemusedly. "They'll fight all the fiercer to protect you."
"I would rather they fought for themselves," Sansa said quietly.
"Sometimes that's not enough," Clegane grunted. "When it comes down to it, nothing matters but the ones you'd die to protect. And a beautiful young woman… Half the lads here have convinced themselves they are in love with you… They'll fight for you."
If Sandor Clegane was capable of a declaration of love, that was it.
Larra hid her smile and edged away toward Darkstar, murmuring with several of their commanders who had been sent off to relay information to different parts of the castle. She frowned at the sight of the unfamiliar weapon he held reverently in his grasp. The blade was milky white and seemed to radiate its own light. Or perhaps the torchlight reflecting off the snow made it appear so.
"A new sword?"
"Hm?" Darkstar appeared distracted, unusual for him. He raised his purple eyes from the milk-glass blade and blinked at her. "A very old sword. It is Dawn, the sword of my family."
Larra raised her eyebrows. "The Dawn?"
"It is sharp as Dark Sister," Ser Gerold said softly, his tone wondrous. He raised the blade for Larra to examine. "As bright as Valyrian steel is dark. Forged from the heart of a fallen star, it is said in my family, during the Age of Heroes."
"Given to the Sword of the Morning when he has earned it… Yet you claim you are of the night… How did you come by Dawn?" Larra asked, awed. She had heard stories of Dawn from her father, who had carried it back to Starfall as a mark of respect to Ser Arthur Dayne – his loyalty and his sacrifice, Larra now realised. Her heart panged and her arms felt suddenly bereft: she missed her son's weight in them, his warmth against her chest.
"I stole it. Rather, my mother stole it on my behalf," Ser Gerold said, his tone thoughtful as he gazed at the glowing blade.
"Your mother stole it for you?" Larra smirked, and Darkstar grinned, his eyes flashing.
"You have not yet met my mother. If ever there was a time to wield swords of legend, even stolen ones, it is now." Darkstar's cunning gaze swept over the army of the dead.
"Your mother could never have known you'd be facing this when she stole it. I am afraid there is no rewriting the past," Larra said, with a heavy sigh; Darkstar simply smirked in response.
"You believe that the means are not justified by the ends?" Ser Gerold suggested. Larra glanced at Ser Gerold. Darkstar's eyes glittered in the torchlight, his silver hair snatched around his head by the wind, and for a heartbeat, she was reminded of Lord Bloodraven, leeched of all colour, all life, his single eye glittering in the faint light, surrounded by bone-white roots. Throughout his life, Lord Bloodraven had always justified the means with the ends, and the more she thought of him and the circumstances of her and Bran reaching the great weirwood, she could not help but wonder how often Bloodraven had meddled in the past. How often had he committed acts considered heinous even to the old gods? Kin-slaying, dark sorcery, skin-changing into other men…
What had Lord Bloodraven done to ensure that she and Bran reached him beyond the edge of the world?
What had he done to ensure she and Jon stood here, waiting to face the Night King?
"When the last arrow has been loosed, and your need grows dire, it falls to you, child of ice and fire, to wake those who have slumbered, bound to their oaths."
What had Bloodraven done to get them here?
What had he done to ensure they were born? Children of ice and fire – born of the blood of both the First Men and of ancient Valyria, both wargs and dragon-riders.
The very thought made her blood run cold.
And it was not the time to dwell on it.
Ser Gerold said darkly, "I know only this; she feared I would need a sword that holds its edge."
Larra wondered if Ser Gerold had perhaps come to some trouble in Dorne. Given his skill and nature, she would not be surprised if he had, though doubted very much any answer was as simple as that. There was always much that Ser Gerold kept to himself; he revealed very little. Sometimes, though, his anger and bitterness shone past the irreverent mask he kept assiduously in place. She had often wondered at the anger but was more intrigued by the cunning in his purple eyes. His anger was honed like a weapon; he was not lost to it, as others often were. He wielded it as he wielded his cunning and his charisma. Darkstar gazed out over the churning masses. He swung Dawn with a loose wrist, the mark of an expert swordsman. Weighing it in his grasp, familiarising himself with it, already imagining himself slicing off wight heads. "Now that I have it… Perhaps my cousin Ned may yet grow to wield it himself."
"Ned?" Larra frowned, glancing at Ser Gerold. His smile was almost cruel.
"Edric Dayne. Nicknamed for the honourable man who returned Dawn to House Dayne in place of the knight who wielded it," Ser Gerold said, giving her a sly look.
Larra frowned. The Daynes had named their son and heir after Ned Stark? "Odd." Ser Gerold nodded his silent agreement. The Daynes had named their son in honour of Ned – after he had slain their brother and left his bones in the mountains of Dorne, and, it was rumoured, either he or Brandon Stark had dishonoured and impregnated Lady Ashara Dayne at Harrenhall. Lady Ashara, who had flung herself from the tower of Starfall in her grief over a stillborn child possibly fathered by a Stark, her body never recovered. That was the rumour, anyway. So why honour Ned?
Now was not the time to think on the implications – and there were many.
It was tempting, though, to think about the far-distant Starfall and the legendary knights and beauties that had come out of that place as a reprieve from the writhing masses barely leashed from overwhelming them. More comforting to dwell on furious Darkstar than on calculated Lord Bloodraven's historic and potentially horrific intervention.
"Dawn has not been wielded since Ser Arthur Dayne was Sword of the Morning," Larra said, and Darkstar's eyes pinched slightly at the corners, as they tended to whenever anyone mentioned his famous cousin.
"No," Darkstar agreed.
Larra cleared her throat and sighed heavily. Her breath plumed before her, mingling with the snow and ice-rain that spit at them. "That means it was last wielded in the defence of my mother."
Darkstar gave her a sidelong look. She smiled grimly and gazed out across the ocean of the dead. They had been born under Ser Arthur's protection. Now his sword, the sword named for the morning, forged, legends claimed, as the Others brought the Long Night, was active once again, just as darkness threatened to consume the world and everything in it.
Larra glanced down at Dawn. As it glowed she imagined it shone as with the light of a star.
What had Maester Luwin said of the Sun? That it was itself the greatest star in the sky, that the other stars were themselves suns an unknowable distance away. Larra had once posed the question to Maester Luwin, whether those distant suns warmed distant worlds. And whether the Long Night of Old Nan's stories was possible, because the Long Night implied the Sun was destroyed, yet how could the Others have the power to freeze a star? Maester Luwin had been unable to answer; they had spent an afternoon discussing the possibilities, though when she had mentioned that perhaps there existed another world wherein bastards were not punished for being born while wrathful wives considered pious were put in their places for their true wickedness, Luwin had steered their conversation to Valyrian irrigation systems, the crop-rotation system newly employed across swathes of the Reach for greater yield and categorising different regions by their agricultural exports.
She had forgotten that afternoon, that conversation. A just world, where the innocent were protected and those who believed themselves superior because of rules people like them had created to protect and enhance their own positions over others were held to account.
Here at the end of it, Larra sighed and pushed from her mind the possibilities of a better world.
Theirs was flawed to its foundations yet it was still worth saving.
Every man, woman and child who bore arms to fight the Others was a testament to that.
There was still something worth fighting for – they were worth fighting for.
Arthur and Aella, Neva and Briar and Cadeon, Ragnar and Little Jon, Narcisa and Delphine, Crisantha and Calanthe, Altheda and Rosamund and Leona.
Bran and Arya and Sansa and Jon.
Gendry.
Her chest ached and she winced as she raised a hand to rub it over her heart. The action spread warmth through her. The weight of Dark Sister in her other hand grounded her, soothed her. The calls and shouts of their armies drew her focus, reminding her.
It was tempting, all too tempting, to delve into the past, to drift beneath the waves, to let them wash over her, avoiding the threat, avoiding her life. That was the danger Bloodraven had always warned them away from. He had lost himself to it, purposely Larra believed: he had warned them not to delve too deep or too long, never to delve into the minds of others. Never to do as he had done, what he had forced himself to do, justifying every action as a means to the end – this end, Larra believed. The end of the Long Night.
It all came down to this.
To Aegon's dream, Larra understood.
"From my blood will come the prince that was promised, and theirs will be the Song of Ice and Fire," the blade of Sweet Sister read, in hidden runes embedded by pyromancers before the Conqueror's death. Everything Bloodraven had ever done, from the very first Blackfyre Rebellion, was for House Targaryen – its survival and its security. Everything for Aegon's prophecy.
She wondered if the Conqueror's dreams had only ever been his, or whether – with his First Men blood through his mother Melissa Blackwood – the Bloodraven had delved deep into the past through the weirwoods and through warging to sow the seeds of this moment, of her and Jon standing on the ramparts of Winterfell ready to stare down the Night King, to end the Long Night.
The Bloodraven had been loyal always to House Targaryen…but perhaps also to this fight.
And though he had sacrificed his own honour, had become a kin-slayer and violated his gods' most holy sacraments, had ultimately sacrificed his life, he had warned both her and Bran from doing the same – from delving too long and too deep on the temptations of the past, of doing what was convenient over what was right, because they still had a future that could be honourable. Brynden Rivers never would. He had accepted that. He had done everything in his power to secure House Targaryen…to honour the Conqueror's vision of a united Westeros to fight the Others when they roamed free of the frozen North once again.
"All this waiting," Ser Gerold sighed, frowning out into the fathomless, churning sea. "We have waited for months, now this Night King wishes to make us wait longer."
"You wish us to make the first move?" Larra asked quietly. They had planned and prepared. Casting doubt now would only be detrimental.
"I wish to do something," Ser Gerold muttered. "This…impotence is infuriating."
"I did not take you for an impotent man," Larra replied, earning a sly smile from Darkstar, his eyes glittering. Dark humour drew him out of the worst of his moods, she had learned. "Don't fret: it won't last long."
The Night King had proven time and again he knew nothing of patience or strategy. Outside the great weirwood he had not waited; nor had he lingered at Hardhome. He had been too hasty, desiring the end of the Bloodraven and of Brandon: and too arrogant, sending his commanders amongst the rabble at Hardhome. He had revealed his weaknesses: Meera had slain a White Walker with an obsidian-tipped spear, Jon another with a Valryian steel blade.
No strategy, just pure, single-minded purpose. Find and eliminate the Three-Eyed Raven. Exterminate all life.
Why?
Those that sang the song of the earth had created the Others as a weapon against Man. Yet they had turned on their creators.
Perhaps that was why.
Perhaps…and she had never considered it before…perhaps there was some part of the man still lingering deep within the mind of the Night King, the one who remembered – remembered who had made him… Perhaps they remembered who they were. Perhaps they understood exactly what they were, the monster they had been made into. Perhaps they sought answers, as to how they could be unmade.
History had become legend, legend had become myth. All was forgotten…except by Brandon. He knew all the vilest truths of the world. He saw through the tangled mire of time to the very heart of things.
"Do you see them?" Darkstar asked.
"In all this? Even my eyesight's not that strong," Larra said grimly, sniffing. She wiped her sodden face, wincing at the sting of leather against her ice-chapped skin. "When we were under the weirwood, he strode ahead of his infantry… But at Hardhome, and the frozen lake, he remained astride his dead horse, observing from behind the bulk of his forces."
"Then that is surely what he will do now," Ser Gerold scowled, his purple eyes sweeping the horizon as lightning lashed at the churning black clouds. Ser Gerold sighed. "A Far-Eye would be useless…"
"Wargs less so," Larra said, glancing over her shoulder. They had wargs amongst them, and she caught the eye of one in particular, bonded with a dire-eagle. It made her wonder whether she should not have put her efforts into strengthening the bond she had with the dire-eagle she had nursed and released…but no, that creature was wild and free. She scanned the skies. The snow and ice-rain was not so violent that birds could not take wing.
She left Ser Gerold at his station, his sharp attention on the horizon as he swung his wrist, Dawn held in his hand, keeping himself warm, keeping his joints loose, ready. The warg from the Ice River clan gazed sightlessly, her eyes milky-white as Dawn. She was so accustomed to it from Bran that Larra did not react, though many around the warg shot her unnerved looks. After a long while, the woman's eyes returned to their usual muddy brown colour and she focused slowly on Larra.
"The Others ride 'mongst the dead," she said, tilting her head sharply in fierce imitation of a bird watching its prey. "The King…" The woman shuddered, gazing out over the ramparts and pointed north-east. "They can see the torchlights. They watch. And they wait."
"Wait?" Ser Jaime Lannister muttered, frowning at the woman. Here in Winterfell, many had learned to take it on faith whenever Brandon – or one of those he was often in the company of – spoke, no matter how outlandish their words.
"For the dead to march past," the warg muttered, her eyes widening. "He led the army here. Now they surround us. Most to the north and east, though. None to the northwest – thanks be to the gods for the Wolfswood."
"None to the northwest?" Larra repeated, frowning, glancing at Ser Jaime, who gave her a bemused look. To reach the godswood one was best served approaching it from the northwest, through the Wolfswood. Winterfell's twin curtain-walls and battlements, not to mention the newly-Unbroken Tower, still stood between an advancing army and the godswood, but strategically, the most direct path to the godswood – and the great weirwood at the heart of it – was from the northwest.
"They would draw our forces away from the godswood," Ser Jaime said, "focusing only upon the North Gate and the northeast defences? Why?"
"A diversion," Larra answered grimly.
"Your brother said their target will not be your people but him," Ser Jaime told her, deeply earnest. "Will the Night King expect your brother to be in the godswood?"
"Likely so," Larra answered.
"Then the King will not want his rabble blocking his direct path to him," Ser Jaime said. "The armies are a distraction, to keep us occupied long enough to…"
"To breach the walls and find Bran," Larra said, her stomach heavy. Of course, they all knew this: Bran had insisted for months that the Night King sought him – and him alone. He had insisted – the brave, fierce, protective little boy of Larra's memory shining through – on being the bait, the lure to coax the Night King to take the risk and expose himself. They knew what he wanted – though not why – and had accounted for it in their strategy meetings. And they would use it to their advantage, though it tasted sour in Larra's mouth to think of using Bran as the lure, after so many years evading danger.
"He is arrogant," Ser Jaime declared, aghast. Larra nodded distractedly.
"How long until the his armies surround us?"
"Within the hour," the warg sighed heavily.
"You saw no movement in the Wolfswood?" Larra pressed.
"None as I could see, though the storm and lightning made it hard to tell a shadow from the Others," the warg admitted. Larra nodded.
"I'll spread the word," Ser Jaime said grimly. He shook his head, his weaker hand gripping the hilt of Honour at his hip. "An hour. May I be relieved we shall not endure a siege without end in sight?"
"I have endured a siege without end, waiting for this," Larra said quietly. "Swift, brutal conflict, I prefer."
"Battles are like wounds – best dealt swiftly and cleanly, without much warning," Ser Jaime said sagely.
"Those who worry suffer twice," Larra replied, and Ser Jaime gave her an ironic little smile. He strode off, spreading word of the warg's sightings. Larra did the same, going along the ramparts, giving encouragement to those gathered, sodden and cold but dutifully remaining at their stations. She spoke with their commanders, confirming her suspicions with the others: Carys Velaryon and his sister Calista, who kept an eye on Rohanne Lantell, armed with obsidian; Ser Arthur Wylde and his brother Dag; Lord Ivar Dondarrion, grinning madly, his vivid eyes alight with anticipated bloodshed; Ser Rey Musgood, murmuring the names of his children as he traced his fingertips over their names scratched into the battered leather of his vambrace, a prayer; and the devout Ser Jorian Gower, who, when asked, had sombrely but dutifully led a simple service of the Faith in the small sept Father had built, bringing comfort and strength to those who needed the Warrior's courage with them. Ser Crissofer Caron, Ser Cassander Swann, Ser Lyn Corbray and Lord Yohn Royce silently knelt in prayer, while the Penroses huddled outside the sept, quiet but grateful in each other's company.
They were grateful to fight beside their brothers.
Larra climbed up the ramparts and called to Qhaero, Calanthe's sworn bloodrider, conversing with him in the Dothraki tongue: he was sharp eyed and fearless but leery of the storm as forks of lightning lashed closer. Qhaero nodded and tested the strength of his dragonbone bow, gazing out over Winterfell, and Larra turned away.
"You speak the savage's tongue well," said Lord Tarly with begrudging respect.
"Maester Luwin said I had an ear for languages – though not the accent!" Larra said, and Lord Tarly gave a rare chuckle. "How do you do, my lord?"
"I have made another tour of the ramparts and yards," Lord Tarly reported. "All appears in order. The archers – "
"Father!" a voice called, and, shivering and blinking quickly in the snow and ice-rain, Samwell hurried across the yard. His thick black cloak billowed behind him but he wore no gloves; he had left the castle in a hurry. And the reason why was carried haphazardly in his arms.
"You were to blockade yourself with the others," Lord Tarly scolded Samwell, who stopped before them, puffing.
"I – I know," Samwell stammered, and he offered his father the package he had been carrying with great difficulty. Lord Tarly's stern eyes dipped to the offering and his expression went suddenly slack. "Heartsbane. I stole it from Horn Hill – I know, I shouldn't've – only I'm glad I did."
"You knew the value Valyrian steel had against the Others, when none believed the Others were anything more than a legend to warn us away from the North," Lord Tarly said, slowly taking the sword from Sam. He unsheathed it even more slowly, almost reverently. The thousands of ripples in the steel seemed to move in the torchlight, smoke dancing rapturously over silver.
"I knew it was doing no-one any good hanging on the wall at Horn Hill," Samwell admitted. "And someone here was bound to be able to wield it."
"But not you," Lord Tarly said, and Larra noticed it was one of the rare times Lord Tarly's tone lacked heat or accusation when speaking with Samwell of what he had historically considered to be Samwell's weakness, his cowardice. Slowly, and with some discomfort, Lord Tarly had started to understand the true strength of his firstborn son, his cleverness, his loyalty, his decency and his courage.
"I'd love nothing more than to be able to defend my family with it," Sam admitted, adding without shame, "but I can barely hold it upright." Lord Tarly scoffed softly but did not insult his son.
"Then it is I who shall wield it," Lord Tarly said, looking his eldest son in the eye, "to defend my family."
Samwell stared back at Lord Tarly. "Thank you, Father."
It was no small thing, what Lord Tarly had said. Veiled though it might be – Lord Tarly was still a proud man – he had claimed Samwell, Gilly and Little Sam as his family, after outright rejecting Samwell, threatening his life and condemning him to the Wall.
Accepting the sword from Samwell meant accepting that Sam would never be a burly warrior, a knight who led men into battle – and it was no longer shameful, as Lord Tarly had once believed. He knew his son's true worth – as Sam had always known Jon's, Larra thought, in spite of Jon's bastard birth.
Lord Tarly unsheathed Heartsbane, handing the jewelled scabbard back to Samwell – there was no need of sword-belts and scabbards. They would not be sheathing their weapons. They would die with them in their hands or remain clutching them as the last wight fell. Every trained warrior knew that to lose one's weapon meant death. Every untrained soldier feared the same.
As Sam hurried back to the Great Hall, Larra glanced at Lord Tarly. She cleared her throat quietly and said, "He's the best of them, you know."
"He is just like his mother," Lord Tarly said mournfully.
"She must be an exceptional woman," Larra said, and Lord Tarly nodded fiercely. They made their way along the ramparts, Lord Tarly barking orders and ensuring everything was as it should be. Larra made her way around to her own position, greeting the soldiers beside whom she would fight, conferring with the knights and Free Folk, the Unsullied and the Dothraki who looked to her for courage and leadership.
She hated the waiting, though knew the moment the Night King commanded his armies to act, they would endure chaos they could never imagine. She had had a taste of it, the Night's Watchmen and Free Folk even more. So had Gendry, and Beric Dondarrion, Obara Sand and Lord Barahir, Lord Tarly and Sandor Clegane. They understood the true scope and horror of the Night King and his hordes.
Larra paused by Ser Gerold, who had tied and braided his hair away from his face with leather cords, throwing his handsome features into stark relief as he glared over the ramparts at the writhing masses. He was one of the many who had never seen the Night King's army yet he was one who had trained more viciously than any other in preparation for battle against them. He had trained not only Larra, keeping her sane, but also Gendry.
"There is much I owe you, Ser Gerold," Larra told him.
"You owe me nothing, Lady," Ser Gerold replied quietly, his expression softening for a heartbeat as he gazed at her. A particularly vicious volley of lightning made her flinch, holding a hand over her eyes, which seemed to dance in the flashes of blinding light and inescapable blackness. The booming thunder that followed almost instantly made her bones ache. It continued, longer than ever before, and she exchanged a look with Darkstar, whose eyes glowed vivid amethyst in the blasts of lightning, his expression stark.
As far as the eye could see, the moors were covered in the thrashing undead. The Night King's armies flooded the moors as waves flooded the shores.
In an instant, the tide stopped.
The wights froze.
The lightning ceased. The thunder was stifled. Though it tore at them, snatching at their hair and slicing at bared skin, the wind made no sound.
Silence fell.
"Archers!"
Slowly, the Night King's vanguard of beasts and babes marched forwards. Orders were passed along the curtain-walls, bellows ringing out over the swirling snow and ice-rain thrashing the castle. She heard Lord Tarly's voice – and Gendry's, booming louder than anyone's. Robert Baratheon's battle voice had been legendary: his son had inherited it. Larra heard Gendry's voice and was heartened. He sounded confident and in control.
This battle would turn many men into true warriors. She suspected it would make a leader out of Gendry. He had always been a fighter, fierce and courageous, smacking down bullies, defending the innocent. But he had never been tested like this before. He had never had opportunity to show his true potential. It would be the making of him.
She heard his voice and was bolstered by it.
"Here they come," Ser Gerold said grimly, and Larra nodded, watching carefully. They had dug a deep trench, raising a motte around the castle and fortifying the downward slope closest to the curtain-walls, riddled with obsidian traps.
The archers let loose their arrows. In a heartbeat, hundreds of once-thrashing wights stilled on the obsidian traps, stopped short by obsidian-tipped arrows. The more wights they shot down, the higher the motte grew, the harder it was to scale. Single-minded as the wights were, driven by pure purpose dictated by their King, the wights' rotting bodies did not hold up against the strain of ever-shifting ground.
They were a snarling, writhing mass, their unearthly shrieks shattering the air, the snap of shattering bones echoing gruesomely, the squelch of impaled bodies sickening. In the next flash of lightning, another volley of arrows struck their targets and the motte grew taller once again, dead wights tumbling down the near slope, caught on obsidian traps, mangled and entirely immobile. Their eyes were hollow, no longer glowing ice-blue in the darkness.
The order came to ceasefire. They nocked arrows, waiting for the order to draw.
This was part of their strategy. Use the dead themselves to increase their defences, slowing the advance of the army but not entirely halting it. Because they needed some of the Night King's soldiers to advance, to come within range.
They needed to give a little to gain a lot.
They needed to light the biggest fire the North had ever seen.
The Night King's own soldiers would be the kindling that swept wildfire through their ranks.
They could be sparing with their arrows, for they needed some of the wights to get close, to come within range. They all knew it.
The onslaught was relentless.
They sent volley after volley, felling wights, building that motte higher and higher, allowing some to evade their arrows between volleys. Flashes of lightning showed the wights haring frantically headlong toward the curtain-walls, heedless of any danger.
A short, sharp burst of lightning faded slowly, revealing the true scale of the Night King's hordes. Across the horizon, as far as the eye could see, the wights pressed ever onwards, churning, relentless. The light lingered long enough to sow terror into the hearts of those who had been so far unshakeable, duty-bound to remain at their stations. The true scope of the Night King's armies was daunting.
"It's hopeless!" one soldier whimpered. "There are so many!"
"We are not without hope," Larra told him sternly. She called, "Nock!"
"Do you hear that?" Darkstar asked, frowning. A clap of thunder had followed the lightning and faded moments ago yet she heard it…a relentless thundering, booming louder and louder.
"The sun is rising!" someone commented, for light had begun to spread. Rich, golden light, chasing away the shadows.
"Since when does the sun rise in the south?" Larra shouted back, whirling, bewildered, blinking rain and snow out of her eyes and gaping at the river of firelight spreading around Winterfell from the south.
She heard it, then: screaming.
Qhaero hollered in answer. Dothraki. A horde of Dothraki screamers, too many to count, the combined din of their horses' hooves like ceaseless thunder.
They watched in awe as a river of fire spread around Winterfell, bloodriders screaming their battle-fury as they rode heedlessly into the sea of the dead, their raised arakhs aflame.
Around the curtain-walls, cheers rang out, louder and louder, answering the Dothraki's battle-cries.
The river of fire pushed back against the sea of the dead.
Archers waved their bows over their heads, cheering.
The Dothraki's screams echoed on the air, thousands of tiny flames dancing on the surface of the water. The river of fire was pushing back a great swathe of the Night King's infantry yet now…now the tide was turning.
Larra's heart sank like a stone.
"They're charging the Dothraki!" she shouted, and all along the ramparts, orders were bellowed, a swift change in strategy. The wights were no longer charging toward Winterfell but around it, toward the east, where they were less heavily fortified.
"Their fires are burning out," Darkstar noted, and Larra saw it, too. It had been tremendous to witness the horde charging, their arakhs alight, yet now the river of fire, the column of Dothraki charging with flaming arakhs, was shorter, narrower. The Dothraki were dying. Their battle-screams became screams of terror, of agony as their horses were torn apart under them, pulled from their saddles. Here and there, dotted amongst the rabble, Larra was awed to see glimmers of firelight, burning brightly, persistently, surrounded by the churning waves of the dead. The Dothraki fought.
And they died.
"When the Night King raises those fuckers, we're dead!" Sandor Clegane bellowed. The shout went along the curtain-wall to those on the eastern ramparts. As their own men nocked arrows, Larra glanced across the castle, watching a volley of flaming arrows soar through the air amidst the dying Dothraki.
An echoing thud boomed around them, the stone beneath her feet shuddering, and Larra frantically peered over the ramparts, anxious that the wights had made it to the North Gate. But no, the sound had not come from mammoths charging the gate or giants hurling missiles at their walls.
A hideous shrieking wail startled her. Larra's heart sank like a stone as the familiar clap of dragon wings unfurling drew her gaze behind her.
Perched on the ramparts, people scrabbling away from his spiked tail and mighty wings, Drogon roared. People fell about, clutching their ears – the din was ear-splitting. A diminutive figure began to climb Drogon's back, her white fur coat shining in the light of thousands of flaming arakhs.
"What the fuck is she doing?!" snarled Darkstar.
Larra's mind seared white-hot with rage. The taste of copper coated her tongue.
"She's trying to be a hero," she sneered, fury enveloping her. She had worried that the Little Bear would insist on sneaking out to join the fight. She would sacrifice Lady Lyanna's life gladly if it meant Daenerys didn't do the stupidest thing possible.
"She will cost us everything!" Lord Tarly shouted.
"Light the moors!" Larra shouted back urgently.
"And if Drogon and Lady Daenerys are caught up in the wildfire?" Ser Jaime shouted, squinting in the snow and ice-rain.
"So be it!" shouted Lord Tarly. "Rather that beast dies by obsidian and wildfire than returns under the Night King's command!"
Gendry bellowed at the Unbroken Tower, commanding men to arm the scorpion with obsidian bolts.
"What is she thinking?!" Darkstar hissed, signalling their archers.
"She's thinking the only people in the world loyal to her are being slaughtered," Larra said grimly. "If we don't light the moors now, they'll all join the Night King."
"Foolish girl!" Lord Tarly bellowed.
"DON'T!" Larra screamed at Daenerys, imploring. If she did this, they were as good as dead.
Larra took stock of the wights now tumbling freely over the motte and the river of fire that had dried up to little more than a stream.
"Archers!" Darkstar bellowed. "Trebuchet! LIGHT!"
Enormous projectiles were loaded onto the trebuchet and set alight. All along the ramparts, lads ran to light arrows with their torches. Archers nocked their flaming arrows and waited for the signal.
Lord Tarly gave the order. "LOOSE!"
They held their breath. Their hearts sank as the trebuchet missiles soared through the air, the ice-rain and winds smothering the flames that engulfed them. They collided, and exploded with echoing booms that shook the earth, sending shards of obsidian a hundred yards in every direction. But the flames did not catch.
The storm seemed to worsen in a heartbeat. Not because it became more violent but because it became crueller. Snow ceased to fall. Freezing rain thrashed down, pounding their heads, tearing at their faces, obscuring their vision, making it precarious underfoot. Maester Luwin called them glaze events; the smallfolk called them silver storms. They were gentle – and deadly. They left the world covered with a thick glaze of heavy ice.
Drogon took flight.
He soared into the air, shedding the ice-rain that covered his enormous wings, knocking people over with the sheer force of his wings beating.
Another volley of trebuchet missiles were launched.
Drogon soared, circled high above Winterfell, and dived.
No-one saw it through the ice-rain.
A single spear of ice, hurtled with horrifying precision.
Agape, Arya saw the spear soar through the air. Cringed at the deep, resounding thud of impact.
Screamed in pain, clapping her hands over her ears, as Drogon's shriek shattered windows of Winterfell's high towers. Ravens burst forth from the maesters' tower, their cries lost on the winds, and dropped, their feathers weighed down by the ice-rain that froze them in mid-flight.
Drogon fell, hurtling toward the Wolfswood.
Larra watched, her heart in her mouth.
"Archers!" she screamed. Darkstar ordered half their archers to cover Drogon as he hurtled to the ground. The Unbroken Tower aimed its scorpion, prepared.
Drogon had not gained height. He did not fall far but he fell hard, and his screams were agonising to hear – eardrums shattered and many flailed about, writhing and screaming in pain, clutching their heads as they felt they would burst.
The Dothraki fires were burning out.
Wights clambered over the motte.
Drogon screamed and flailed, a spear jutting from his chest, sending spurts of flame into the air, thrashing and contorting with pain.
"RUN!" Gendry bellowed – a moment's warning before Drogon flailed violently, thrashing his tail, and screamed, vomiting fire.
The North Gate was destroyed, wiped away as if it had never been. Drogon's fire blasted through two curtain-walls, sending debris a hundred yards into the air, missiles colliding with Winterfell itself, peppering the yards, great chunks of ageless stone colliding with the ramparts, the towers. There was no outrunning it. No anticipating where it fell; some were pinned by debris, others crushed outright, all knocked off their feet by the force of the blast.
Flames licked at the charred holes now gaping in the curtain-walls. People scurried about, some screaming in agony as they fell to their knees, disintegrating to ash, blanketed by Drogon's black fire; still more fled, clutching bleeding stumps and supporting each other as they bled freely. Others held onto their weapons, resolutely taking up new positions, covering their new weakness. Archers aimed their bows at the now-gaping hole in the curtain-walls.
"The godswood!" Larra shouted.
Drogon had burned a hole through the curtain-walls. The godswood lay vulnerable. The one place they had not fortified. Because how could they fortify a forest?
The Dothraki fires had burned out.
The wights still charged the motte.
But more hared toward the breach in the walls.
"Archers!"
"We need to light the moors – whatever it takes!"
Drogon screamed one last time; the ice-spear shattered.
He flapped his wings once and took off, fanning the flames now licking at the curtain-walls.
He disappeared into the darkness, the beat of his wings nothing more than the sound of thunder rumbling far into the distance.
He was a wild animal in pain. Drogon was no trained warhorse nor fool: when he suffered pain, he fled.
"The fire may yet keep the wights at bay!" Lord Tarly shouted, commanding archers to cover the gaping breach.
"Not for long!" Darkstar bellowed back, scanning the advancing armies. There was no order to them now. They ran pell-mell, unpredictable, and in such numbers they would be overwhelmed in moments.
"The missiles won't catch!" Lord Lonmouth hollered.
Calm, smiling, Lord Beric Dondarrion said in his rich voice, "I know what must be done."
He shrugged his cloak from his shoulders, handed off his obsidian weapons, took hold of a pitcher of oil and descended the steps into the yard, his one remaining eye fixed on the breach.
"What are you doing?" Sandor Clegane growled, his scarred face alarmed.
"Where are you going?" Arya screamed, hurrying toward Lord Beric.
"Fear not," Lord Beric said, pausing by Arya. His smile was deeply affectionate and he rested a hand on Arya's shoulder. "I'm to see your father. I shall tell him all you've become."
She gaped at him.
Lord Beric Dondarrion strode fearlessly through the breach. Covered by archers, he strode through the fallen wights, his steps never faltering, and, Larra noted, barely breathing, into range.
The Dothraki's flaming arakhs had not ignited the wildfire; their flames had been extinguished by the wights before they could ever touch the ground.
Lord Beric cut his way through the advancing armies, covered by their arrows.
He reached the marker.
Doused himself with oil.
Murmured a prayer and lit his sword. Closed his eyes, smiling. Finally at peace, he pressed the flaming sword over his heart.
Arya cried out as Lord Beric Dondarrion burst into flame.
He stabbed his flaming sword through the frozen earth.
For a moment, all was quiet.
Then the first explosion erupted. It knocked them off-balance, gaping at the sheer power of it. Explosion after explosion shook the earth itself.
Wildfire spread, turning the frozen moors to an ocean of emerald fire.
It consumed everything in its path.
The fires spread, igniting more caches of wildfire, the explosions more distant but more violent, consuming the Night King's armies.
Inside the castle, people crowded the windows, gasping.
Sansa stared, rocking a troubled Aella in her arms as she whimpered. She was fussy without Larra; even Arthur's nearness could not soothe her. Sansa squinted in the unearthly glare of the vivid emerald fire spreading away from Winterfell across the moors.
It was as if the sun had risen; the entire castle was bathed in the emerald glow she was so familiar with. Wildfire.
It burned for ages, greedy and demanding.
Lord Tyrion had limited the damage caused by wildfire to King Stannis' fleet out on the Blackwater. She had never seen the burning husk that Baelor's Sept had become. But Winterfell…
She wondered what the moors would look like after the wildfire had sated itself.
It occurred to her that because the moors burned, they may yet survive to see dawn.
Sansa smiled at the ladies gathered around her, wringing their hands in worry.
"Larra's strategy has worked," she declared; she would give all credit where it was due. Lord Tyrion had never received a word of acknowledgement or appreciation for his efforts during the Battle of the Blackwater but from Ser Garlan Tyrell. Now, she glanced down at Lord Tyrion. "Your calculations were accurate, my lord."
Lord Tyrion took a deep drink from his wine-skin.
"If only I were out there, I could –"
"Die," Sansa said bluntly, giving him a reproving look. "You have done all you can; but our part is not out there. This is where we must be. This is where we are needed most." To keep everyone calm and feeling as if they were safe, that there was hope. The explosions they had heard, the shrieks Lord Tyrion had admitted with great dread were dragon screams, had made them all leery.
"We might see something everyone else is missing," Lord Tyrion said. His tension and helplessness were tangible. He was desperate to be out there, to be useful. To be doing something. "Something that makes a difference."
"The wildfire has made all the difference, Tyrion," Sansa told him gently. It was Ser Jaime's contribution yet Lord Tyrion's calculations had ensured the strategy could succeed.
"Remember the Battle of the Blackwater?" Lord Tyrion reminded her. "I led the charge through the Mudgate –"
"And had your head cloven nearly in two," Sansa retorted. Lord Tyrion frowned.
"You might be surprised at the lengths I'll go to avoid joining the armies of the dead," Lord Tyrion remarked. "I can think of no organisation less suited to my talents."
"Yes, I'm told they're mute," Sansa said, and Lord Tyrion's eyes glittered. "Your almost-witty remarks are unhelpful. Your ceaseless pacing and doubt is unhelpful." She spoke sternly and fairly; his gaze softened as he stared at her. Lady Sansa was a woman now, no longer a little dove trapped inside a gilded cage. Solemn and stern, she was straight-backed and proud, settling the fretful babe in her arms and humming to herself in between speaking with the people gathered in the halls. She would wander in and out of the Great Hall, to speak with those lining the corridors and crammed into chambers. She sighed, gazing around the hall. "There is nothing we can do. That's why we are here." She sighed and stared at Tyrion, her smile sad but accepting. "It's the truth. It's the most heroic thing we can do now…look the truth in the face."
Lord Tyrion gazed up at her. She was a true beauty, and always had been, but now the true Northern steel he had seen glimmers of beneath the silks and half-smiles revealed itself in full force. Lady Sansa had grown up. She was a woman now, and a fearsome one at that. Her experiences had made her who she was: Tyrion wondered how much credit or blame she gave him in that.
Tyrion sighed. "Last time we spoke like this, we were at Joffrey's wedding." He still remembered the cold look on Sansa's face as the dwarf actors had jousted astride pigs and dogs, making a jest of the War of the Five Kings – making a cruel joke of her brother's murder, among others. "Miserable affair."
"It had its moments," Sansa said tartly, and Lord Tyrion grinned. She sighed and gazed down at him. "I owe you an apology for disappearing."
"It was rather uncomfortable, trying to explain how my wife disappeared moments after the King was poisoned by his own wedding pie," Lord Tyrion mused, shrugging. "Had I been in your position, Sansa, I would not have hesitated either."
"I do regret leaving you," Sansa admitted. "In awful circumstances, you remained only ever kind to me." Lord Tyrion nodded. "Somehow, we both survived."
Lord Tyrion gazed up at Sansa. He remembered the fragile, pale girl with red-rimmed eyes, weeping uncontrollably over the lemon-cakes he desperately wanted her to eat, somehow pulling herself together, squashing her grief down deep, lacking the freedom to indulge in mourning her beloved family. He had tried to reassure her that she could mourn them freely, in their rooms, under his protection…but Lady Sansa had learned quickly not to trust. It had saved her life.
"Many underestimated you," he said softly, appreciation rich in his voice. He was one of the few who had not. I will pray for your safe return, my lord…just as I pray for the King's. His lips twitched at the memory. "Most of them are dead now."
She gave him an unreadable smile. He recognised it, vaguely, from King's Landing, yet there was an edge to it now, a wryness. She no longer had to hide her intelligence. She had embraced it, as others would a sword. He pondered, "Perhaps we should have stayed married."
Lady Sansa's smile lit up the room brighter than any wildfire.
"You were the best of them," she mused, after a long moment. She rocked the babe in her arms and Tyrion was gripped with the sudden vision of what life might have been for them. He had always admired her beauty and had had a growing appreciation for how deftly she had learned how to navigate court politics, outliving almost everyone who had ever abused her.
"What a terrifying thought," Lord Tyrion stammered, flustered.
Sansa's smile was beautiful but sad. She sighed and said, "The truth is either terrible or boring."
"I could use some boredom in my life," Lord Tyrion mused.
Sansa eyed him shrewdly. "I do not believe the gods love you enough to allow you that privilege."
"You are likely correct," Lord Tyrion sighed heavily.
"As long as we are speaking terrible truths," Lady Sansa said, "what shall you do once this battle is won?"
"I do admire your optimism," Lord Tyrion deflected. Sansa arched an eyebrow imperiously. He remembered Ned Stark had rarely wasted words when a single look would suffice. Larra utilised the skill to tremendous effect, her beautiful face harrowing in its iciness when angered. "But why ask now?"
"What better time to discuss it?" Sansa asked. "The survivors of this battle will determine the fate of the realms. They will shape our world. Dornishmen, men of the Reach, Knights of the Vale, Stormlords, Ironborn, Dothraki, Riverlords, Free Folk – they have all gathered here, they have followed Jon into a battle against death itself. When the snows melt and the survivors return home to lands rife with troubles, who will they trust to call on for aid?"
Lord Tyrion sighed.
The game continued, as it always did. There was no reprieve from it, especially not in wartime. War was a time of opportunity.
Chaos is a ladder, Littlefinger had once claimed.
Outside, they fought with swords.
In the Great Hall, they duelled with words and ideas.
A.N.: This chapter was tricky. Trying to balance the tension with action and perspective shifts and the action with moments of calm to contrast inside/outside, showing that what happens inside is just as important as outside during a siege.