A.N.: This chapter has taken me forever to get through.
Valyrian Steel
64
Blood
Night became day.
The moors glowed like an ocean of emeralds dancing in sunlight.
Lady Larra staggered back, as much from the force of the blasts as the shock plain on her face, the grim awareness that, along with the wights, they had condemned to death the Dothraki bloodriders still fighting with their flaming arakhs. Ser Gerold reached out a hand to brace her and gave her a grim look. They all understood that there could be no hesitation, no moral qualms – nothing to get in the way of their goal: to defeat the Night King. Nothing else mattered. Not their lives, nor the lives of any other.
They knew this battle may be their last: their lives were forfeited when they had committed to defeating the Night King. Whatever the cost. No matter how steep, their survival would be paid for in blood.
Still, the reality was far more devastating than anything they could imagine.
The sheer scope of the Night King's armies – men, women and children who had once been Free Folk and Night's Watchmen sworn to stopping them – was horrific. So much needless loss.
So many left unprotected.
It was shameful.
Ser Gerold's vows echoed in his ears and he sighed heavily. His respect for the King grew even more, for it was he and no other in history who had afforded the Free Folk the same protections that the people of the North – of all of Westeros – took utterly for granted. It was Jon Snow who had united the realms of Men and stood as their leader – and their shield.
So did his sister, shocked tears sparkling like the purest peridots on her cheeks without her notice as she stared, her mouth a grim line.
It grieved her. There was no triumph in her face as the moors burned, though a great chorus of cheers echoed all around them.
They must be allowed to relish this moment of relief, Ser Gerold thought, though it left a sour taste in his mouth to celebrate the massacre of innocents enslaved to the Night King.
He noticed Lady Larra's clenched fist and reached out, snatching her wrist and glowering a warning at her. She unfurled her fingers, as if she had not even realised she was clenching them, revealing smears of blood where her fingernails had dug into her palm. A habit whenever she was under duress.
"It would not do well," he warned gently, "to wound yourself before the fight truly begins."
Lady Larra pulled her gauntlets on, wiping her face distractedly.
While the wildfire burned, they assessed and regrouped. Lady Larra, the Greatjon, Ser Jaime, Lord Tarly and Lord Lonmouth bellowed orders, relayed by Gendry with his booming battlefield voice: archers were relieved and runners darted about with drinks to warm them, relighting torches. Men were ordered to clear any rubble they could, building a makeshift blockade to slow the advance of any wights that evaded the wildfire. They aimed trebuchet missiles wherever the moors were slow to catch alight, keeping the wildfire fed, ensuring it spread.
The injured were hauled away. Mercy was given. The dead were burned where they fell. Orders had been given: there was to be no hesitation in burning those who succumbed to their wounds. The bodies of the burning dead could be used as blockades.
It was heartless and considered by all to be in bad taste. Yet if they wished to survive, they would utilise every advantage they could create. And neutralise any weapon the Night King may use against them.
This was no war between Men.
They would not win this war with scruples.
It was a testament to their training and their constant drills that they moved seamlessly into another strategy, regrouping, allowing the archers to rest, mobilising their forces to repair the damage, utilising everything they could as a barricade, clearing the dead and injured.
The wildfire had not only cleared the vast majority of the Night King's forces but it had given them something even more precious: time. While the wildfire burned, they could catch their breaths. They could assess and redeploy people. They could rest. Share information. Take stock. And prepare themselves for the next onslaught.
They left the breach in the walls burning. Though smoke stung their eyes, the fire was an asset. It had stopped wights before: it did so again.
Hours later, during which Lady Larra nursed her son and relayed reports back to those who lingered within the protection of Winterfell's great halls, the wildfire burned itself out. It had taken an age and yet seemed to burn out all too soon. And though it was well past dawn, the night began closing in once more, swallowing the embers glinting emerald in the gloom.
Relief that the Wolfswood had not been engulfed was swiftly replaced by sharp focus as ice-blue lights glowed eerily in the darkness settling across the moors. The eyes of the wights.
A few legions of wights had evaded the flames and now marched across the charred, smoking earth. But far fewer than they would have had to contend with. Far fewer.
They had sacrificed the Dothraki but they all knew they would do so again if it meant ridding the Night King of his terrible host. What were the Dothraki to them but another threat they would have to face after the ice melted?
Leading the wisps of eerie blue lights, astride dead horses, armoured in black ice and armed with their great carved ice-spears, were the Others. More than they had suspected or even dreaded.
Larra remembered the heat of the flames disappearing in an instant as the Night King held out his clawed hand. The harrowing, jerky movements of the wights as he commanded them silently to attack. The predatory stillness of the Others.
They had eliminated the hordes. And perhaps that was what the Night King wanted: for them to clear the way, so that the satisfaction of claiming the kill would be his alone.
"There are so many," someone gasped, horrified.
Grimly, Dolorous Edd sighed, "Craster's sons."
Night's Watchmen spit on the ground.
"ARCHERS!"
The ground shuddered and their breath stopped short in their lungs as a new sound added to the din of the wights snarling and the strain of bowstrings, the echoing boom of trebuchet missiles exploding, and the sharp whistle of obsidian spears hurtling through the air, unleashed by the scorpion. The obsidian bolts were aimed at one of the dozen rotting mammoths charging headlong toward the curtain-wall.
"BRING THEM DOWN!" Lord Tarly bellowed. Sharp-eyed, assessing, he and Gendry bellowed orders at the top of their lungs; but Gendry no longer simply relayed orders. He assessed and issued them on his own instinct. Lord Lonmouth organised his men; Ser Rey Musgood growled in readiness as he raised his fists, his disturbing dual-knifed knuckle-dusters gleaming like liquid black fire in the firelight, anticipating the first onslaught; and Dag hefted his great-axe in his grip, his scarred face grim. Lady Brienne – Ser Brienne, knighted by Ser Jaime himself in the Great Hall for all to see – commanded her men, organising archers behind lines of infantry armed with vicious halberds that seemed to capture the intoxicating light of the flames, burning deep in the heart of the obsidian, red and purple and blue. Living weapons – to fight the dead.
"Aim for the eyes!" Tormund ordered, and the scorpion swung around. "The eyes!"
Larra caught sight of movement in the yard, beyond the barricade, and went cold. She caught Theon's eye across the ramparts. She gestured wildly at the internal redbrick wall, parts of it already crumbled beneath the weight of debris from the ramparts. "BRAN!"
Theon's gaze darted wildly until he spotted the wheeled chair disappearing into the godswood through the ancient oak doorway.
"IRONBORN!" Theon bellowed, brandishing his sword toward the door. "WITH ME!"
The first wights fell to the flames.
The next crawled over burning, shrieking corpses, hissing and snarling, reaching broken fingers to tear the flesh from their bones even as they shrieked and hissed and burned.
"SWORDS!"
Bottleneck, they had called it. Choke-points. Funnelling the army of the dead where they wished them to go. Controlling the onslaught as best they could. They poured through the breach in the wall like ants disturbed from their nests.
Those closest faced the dead, covered by archers. Flaming arrows whizzed past, explosions continued to make the earth tremble – both from trebuchet missiles and from mammoth wights throwing themselves headlong at the curtain-wall, trying to break through to the godswood beyond.
The dead swarmed them.
Across the yard, Arya was dancing around Sandor Clegane, coaxing the warrior as he gazed in senseless horror at a burning wight snarling and hissing its way toward him. She gripped Sweet Sister fiercely, her double-ended obsidian spear lost beneath a wave of wights. At Arya's scream of pain, Clegane lurched into action, a sight to behold as he tore through wights to get to her, clearing the way – and retrieving her spear. Their long journey together was clear in their fighting stance – no longer adversaries but partners, fighting side-by-side, or rather, Arya dipping and ducking in a sinuous dance around the ferocious, sturdy Sandor Clegane as he bellowed, commanding those around him to fight. And if he, who feared fire where he feared nothing else in the known world, could raise his obsidian weapons to decimate hordes of flaming, grotesquely decayed enemies, they could too.
Lord Carys and Calista Velaryon led a war-chant of discipline and courage, their fierce voices emboldening the spearmen they commanded. Obara Sand channelled all her rage as she fought beside Ser Jaime, who wielded the morningstar Ser Gerold had retrained him to bear with his left hand, stabbing out with the obsidian pike that replaced his golden hand. Beside him fought his squire, the seven-foot, gangling Hoster Blackwood, his slim shoulders bulked out by obsidian pauldrons and gorget, his big black eyes glazed with horror but his movements swift and elegant as a willow in a storm as he whipped away with his obsidian gladius and dirk. Lord Lonmouth slashed out artfully with twin gladius blades of obsidian, his ice-blue eyes wicked, his firm lips a grim line, fighting beside his son Ser Rhaegar: Lord Ivar, untroubled by the sacrifice of his uncle, grinned from ear to ear, his straight white teeth flashing brilliantly from his grime-splattered face as he danced among the wights, dodging flaming arrows with a mad laugh and a wink at Lady Arya, who rolled her eyes and twirled Sweet Sister in her hand before reaching beneath Clegane's arm to strike down a wight screaming as it hurled itself toward Clegane's unguarded back. She seemed to sense things before they happened, always in the right place at the right moment to strike. Her movements were fluid and seemingly without effort, an elegant and terrifying dance.
Lord Tarly wielded Heartsbane, leading a charge of Free Folk, Night's Watchmen and smallfolk to clash head-on with the wights. In battle, they were all equal in his eyes.
Gripped by a vice of familiar terror that the barricades and wights stood between her and Bran, Larra began her dance, willing calm into her veins, focusing on nothing but holding her ground and swinging her sword. Dark Sister sang as she sliced through the air, cutting down wight after wight. She switched between Dark Sister and her shorter obsidian dagger, light on her feet as if dancing, her expression calm but extremely menacing, her presence heavy and commanding, splattered with gristle and black blood, relentless and ruthless. She led those around her, fierce and fearless.
As grim and ruthless as any she-wolf of Winterfell who had come before her, Lady Larra was a ferocious, implacable leader, a winter warrior-queen. And people followed her example. They forgot their fear in the face of her subtle menace. She went where courage wavered and bolstered those she fought beside: those not filled with hope by her fighting beside them were filled with awe. Their lady, a she-wolf of Winterfell, a new mother with everything to lose, fought with inspiring tenacity. And she expected the same of them. There was no other option but to rise to meet her expectations.
She acknowledged their fear but challenged them to confront it, to use it, to let it make them quick, and strong. To be defiant.
They remembered the rumours: that Larra Snow had survived the True North and all its unimaginable horrors through sheer strength of will alone. If she could do that – and dragging her crippled brother no less – then what did they have it in themselves to do?
The first of the Others sauntered calmly through the breach, cutting down charging smallfolk without breaking stride, without any emotion flickering across his face. Lord Tarly let out a roar of fury and brought Heartsbane down upon the Other: the wretched creature shattered into thousands of shards of ice. All around them, wights dropped like stones, taking them by surprise, throwing many off-balance. Commanders bellowed orders, recovering quickly and ensuring none lost focus, startled by the reprieve – too late for some, as a fresh onslaught of wights took them by surprise.
They were losing ground. Flaming arrows whizzed past, striking their own men as they fell, lest they should rise again.
The Others strode through the breach, calm and eternal as glaciers. Flaming arrows and obsidian felled some but more merely strode relentlessly past, dealing out brutal blows to any brave or hopeless enough to charge them.
They were slow as glaciers but deathly as silent, sudden ice-rain.
A great surge of wights swept through the breach, filling the yard with their shrieks and howls, the snap of bones and the sickening squelch of guts spilling out, causing the gritted ground to become slick and unstable underfoot. Everywhere, men and women fought with unwavering ferocity, obsidian gleaming eerily in the firelight that choked out smoke and spit embers that alighted on wights' ragged furs, some catching, most not.
The yard was in chaos, flames burning brightly in defiance of the ice-rain, wights shrieking as they burned, blue eyes blazing, tumbling over each other in their mindless pursuit of any living creature they could reach to tear apart with broken fingers. Archers aimed carefully, felling wight after wight, even a few of the commanders, their bodies bursting into thousands of shards of ice that riddled those nearest.
Fearsome bellows drowned out the screams of the dying and the shrieks of the wights. Coded orders were shared.
Those who could climbed. They clambered out of the yard by any means possible: all around the yard, lining the ramparts and battlements, archers turned their arrows on the Others. Working in concert, they had a far greater chance of finding their target. Arya scooped a bow from the ramparts and shot without thinking, Anguy's words echoing in her ears: Your eye knows where it wants the arrow to go. Trust your eye.
She trusted her eye. Shot straight. Killed one of the Others then a second in quick succession.
Yelled as someone knocked her off-balance. A spear of ice whistled past her head, so close she felt her hair stirring.
With a roar, Clegane hurled his great axe into the yard, its wicked blade embedding itself in the skull of the White Walker glaring maliciously at its missed target. Clegane grabbed Arya and hauled her through the gate into the greater yard as the command came to retreat. The first yard was lost.
Hideous, tortured screams rent the brittle air as they retreated to the next yard, the portcullis dropping to bar the way, trapping any too slow to slide beneath it to safety. They were torn apart, their harrowing screams cut short by a swift arrow. Yet the wights could go no further: the latticed grille of the portcullis had been heavily fortified with foot-long spikes of obsidian, and any not impaling themselves upon the spikes were targeted by those standing by with obsidian-tipped spears. Earthen jars suspended high above were targeted by flaming arrows, shedding fire down upon the wights, clearing their bodies, sending flames licking out into the yard where more traps lay in wait. Another volley of explosions shook the foundations, this one far smaller though no less vital.
Flaming arrows collided with barrels of pitch dotted about the yard, setting off another, larger volley of explosions.
A cheer came up from the Unbroken Tower, celebrating as the death-roar of another mammoth echoed on the air, its feet lost beneath it as it tumbled to the ground, broken, an obsidian spear jutting from its rotting skull.
The fires burned brightly, their warmth invigorating. The flames gave them hope.
And yet shouts came from the Unbroken Tower, those atop it waving a torch frantically in signal. As wildfire had lit the moors with emerald-green, now ice-blue fires glowed from within the castle. Screams of panic echoed. Orders were barked across the ramparts.
"It is the Children!" Larra shouted, even as dread gripped her like a vice.
"The curtain-wall is breached!"
"Bran!"
"Go!" barked the Blackfish, sparing a glance as Lady Larra hurtled toward the tumbling redbrick wall at the far side of the yard, shadows and fog shrouding the godswood beyond, illuminated sporadically by the eerie ice-blue fire. Her eyes caught those explosions, turning them into living violet flames, vivid against her grime-streaked face. She was covered in gore, her hair slick from blood and gristle and the braids sewn in place were messy. Blood smeared from her nose where she had taken a hit, colouring her lips crimson. She seemed not to notice the taste, or her limp, or a slash to her left upper-arm just shy of the obsidian rings glimmering in the light of many torches. The Blackfish fell into step behind her, covering her flight to the godswood and his niece's last living son, who had snuck out of the castle, as reckless and defiant as any of his father's family. The Blackfish remembered the Wild Wolf, Brandon: his ruthless fury shimmered in Lady Larra's eyes. Bran Stark shared his namesake's defiance and stubbornness. Brynden hoped his grand-nephew did not follow the Wild Wolf's fate.
The death-shrieks of the wights were harrowing: they thrashed as they burned, blue eyes full of mindless malice as they slashed out with gnarled fingers and rusted weapons. Among them, the Others stood stoically.
Waiting.
The fires burned lower. Then extinguished. Yet still smoke curled everywhere, thick, stinging their eyes, spreading long fingers to choke them. Wherever one of the Others walked, the ground hissed and cooled, ice spreading and cracking from their footsteps, until they walked amidst steam that entwined their legs. Smoke and salt-grit, and amidst it all, eyes burning, coughing but resolute, warriors fought on. Their bellows echoed on the quiet air. The sound of the sea – of the churning wights thrashing and hissing – was gone; the wind had dropped. It was eerily calm now.
Along the ramparts, people were relieved and others redeployed to cover the yard and the gaping hole that had been battered into the curtain-wall. Wights entered the godswood for the first time in tens of thousands of years.
Slowly, patiently, the Others dawdled under the eaves of ageless trees.
Beyond the Wall, not even nature had dared make a sound in the presence of the Others: the trees of the godswood were ancient, strong and full of memory. They sang their joy at those that sang the songs of the earth returning amongst them: a non-existent wind whipped them into a fury of creaks and menacing groans as the Others, those abominations of nature itself, trod beneath their boughs once again.
From the ageless trees, those that sang the songs of the earth took up their last vigil. Their last stand. They sang and they prepared. They waited, bone-white weirwood bows strung tight, obsidian spears sharpened. Here and there among the trees, torches flickered defiantly, the source from which archers dotted throughout could light their arrows before letting them loose. And they did.
With dogged determination and unceasing focus, wights pelted through the godswood, stumbling as the snow snared them, drifts up to their knees in many places, halting their advance. Drifts of soft snow, treacherous and unstable, encrusted by the ice-rain so that unwary wights attempting to pelt across the snow found themselves snarling, hissing and shrieking from within the snowdrifts, thrashing – and clawing their way through the snows. Others hurtled ever forwards in one direction. They were guided not by their ice-blue eyes glowing in the dark but some instinct – some command. They were drawn to their target like maesters' magnets.
Larra hurtled through the godswood, knowing her way even in the dark. It felt…strange – the same as before, yet different. The creaking and groaning of the trees, the shrieks of wights as they thrashed in the snows, the sting of the snow and ice-rain – it was all the same. Her flight from the great weirwood come again. Yet this time, she was different. Not malnourished and exhausted, driven to the very brink of her tolerance and sanity, blinded by grief and guilt.
Now she was calm. She was sure.
She knew what the Night King wanted. Had always known who they wanted. Now she knew they had the strength to defy him. To protect Bran.
Her blood was full of fire yet her hands were steady. Her breath came in sharp bursts as the ice-rain bit at her face, her ribs aching from an earlier blow, her breasts agony from being unable to nurse Arthur for the last few hours. Though she tasted blood she could feel no pain – not in the cold, not like this. Not when Rhaegal's strength sang in her veins, their bond igniting the fire in her blood.
She felt Rhaegal's strength, their heat, their ferocity.
And she was not alone.
It was not Meera with her this time. It was not one but many: Sandor Clegane and Lord Tarly and his son Dickon with a battered breastplate; Darkstar and the sisters Obara and Lady Nym; the enormous Dag Storm and the charismatic Ser Arthur Wylde, his cloak billowing about him as he stood tall and proud in his armour. Ivar Dondarrion, grinning like a madman as he slashed and hacked at his foes, dancing with Arya while Gendry roared and sent wights flying in shattered pieces as he heaved his tremendous obsidian war-hammer. Ser Rey Musgood, one eye-socket now empty and freely bleeding, bellowed as he fought wights seemingly with his bare hands – his wicked knuckle-dusters shattered wights as he punched and sliced, roaring and heaving like an angry bull. They had followed her into the godswood, among others. Ser Jaime, Ser Brienne – there was no sign of Podrick – and Ser Rhaegar, fighting side-by-side with Hoster Blackwood, Qhaero and the other kos sworn to the Lannisters. Night's Watchmen and the Blackfish, Lord Barahir. The eerily calm Hobb with his obsidian hog-splitter and knives. Lady Karstark, her bowstring singing.
And the Ironborn… Ironborn that had once taken this castle, had drowned Mikken and murdered Ser Rodrik, had chased her from her home and murdered little boys in her brothers' places…now stood vigil around Bran in his wheeled chair, an honour-guard, tirelessly defending him. A grim smile lingered on Larra's lips as she exchanged a glance with Theon, Robb's ancient jokes echoing in her ears, Ironborn… Aye, they're ferocious fighters. They'll keep fighting – because they're too stupid to die! The memory gave her a surge of warmth, like donning a fur-lined mantle, the warmth golden and good as it shone in her heart and spread, the memory of them – of her and Theon and Robb and Jon, idling away a miserable afternoon over a cyvasse board, laughing and arguing good-naturedly.
Beyond the godswood they could hear the shrieking clamour of the wights, the howls of the dying and the clash of weapons. Every now and then, wights would drop like stones without warning as the Others were slain in different parts of the castle. They were starting to get wise, separating commanders from their legions. Or perhaps they did not care. Larra thought it likelier the latter. The Others needed no great strategy, after all.
The godswood became unearthly. Thunder rumbled low and incessantly threatening while the sky was torn apart by lashes of lightning. The ice-rain thickened, leaving everyone breathless. And amidst the lightning and thunder, great explosions of icy-blue flame shattered horrifying shadows throughout the godswood, distorting sound, making the entire godswood seem an eerie echo of itself, leafless and barren, the great trunks of ageless trees bending and warping, groaning in agony, rage and despair as twigs snatched like gnarled fingers at their hair and faces.
They fed their fires and hoped that the flames would outlast the ice. And, somehow, they did.
The wights lingering elsewhere in the castle were but a diversion: the bulk of their forces remained on the ramparts, forestalling the legions with trebuchet missiles, with fire, with arrows – with everything they had.
But everyone who could reach it gathered in the godswood.
It is before the heart-tree of Winterfell that the doom of Men shall be decided, Jon thought, racing through the snows and severing wights' heads as he passed them tearing apart one of the smallfolk, no longer screaming. He scooped up their obsidian dagger as he went, tucking it into his belt. Longclaw had grown heavier in his hand through the night; they were all beginning to feel the weight of exhaustion. Of hunger and cold and pain. They were becoming slower. That was the danger. The Night King's commanders had sat back on their rotten mounts and watched, waiting.
Now they struck.
She moved ever closer to Bran, evading blows that would have taken too much energy to block, preserving her strength to slash out fierce and fast. She darted and danced, engaging with Other after Other, almost forgetting her exhaustion. She felt no pain, her blood singing in her veins, spurring her ever on. She struck down wight after wight, challenged and defeated the Others unflinchingly.
This was her home. This was her place of strength. They would not frighten her.
A gentle lull in the onslaught. She heard the grunts and clashes of warriors fighting nearby. Lightning rent the air. The thunder seemed to subside, leaving everything in eerie silence broken only by the occasional shriek of a wight or the ringing clash of steel. The sound of obsidian taking impact was eerily beautiful, almost like a song.
She ached. Her back ached, her thighs burned with spasms and her palms, she was sure, were blistered. She yearned to put her hands to her knees and pant for breaths. In the time between one attack and the next, all she could do was stretch out her back, flinching as pain smarted through her body.
"They are coming," she told Darkstar, whose shimmering starlight-silver braids were now bloody and mussed. His fierce expression and the hairstyle reminded her, ever so suddenly, of the Rogue Prince fighting in the Stepstones. Darkstar's hair was shorter, though, and his eyes were a vivid violet rather than the mercurial lilac of Prince Daemon's. But the ruthlessness was the same.
"You can tell this?" Darkstar murmured, glancing at her. She adjusted her grip on Dark Sister. Her ancestors' sword – wielded by Queen Visenya, the architect of the Iron Throne itself who galvanised her brother as a weapon to unite the realms in the face of this threat, and by the Rogue Prince himself. She could not help wonder what they would have made of the armies of the dead. What the Rogue Prince would have made of her and Jon, his descendants, defying the Night King.
She wondered whether Queen Rhaenyra would have thought it all worth it. Whether the ends justified the means.
Their shared relative Lord Bloodraven had – believed the ends justified the means.
Larra nodded silently. "In all of nature there are signs – warnings. I have not the time to teach them to you."
"How did you learn them?" Darkstar panted, wiping sweat from his brow with an angry swipe of his forearm.
Larra listened carefully, tasting the air, scenting it. Even the cold could not eradicate the stench of rotten meat – not in such quantities, not when they wore matted, stinking furs. A single wight, alert and hunting, could be incredibly dangerous. But a band of them, heedless and aimless… She had learned how to bypass them. Had learned how to listen and scent for them. Many of them were clad in furs embellished with bone and seashell that clicked and clacked against each other with the jerky, erratic movements of the wights.
Grimly, Larra muttered, "Experience." She listened and breathed, "On your right. Be ready."
Ser Gerold glanced to his right. She had known, before he saw the tell-tale blue eyes glowing, before the wights surged out of the shadows. She had sensed them, as a wolf senses its prey. Had heard them, perhaps, with hearing sharper than his own, and senses and instincts that had been honed over years. She knew these creatures. Here in this place, they had become her prey. As he engaged with a small band of wights, despatching them with brutal efficacy, he flicked the blackish blood from his milk-white blade and scanned the shadows, assessing for more glowing ice-blue eyes. Lady Larra felled one of the Others that had dawdled idly through the woods without Ser Gerold's notice, a decisive thrust through the heart: ice shattered everywhere and the She-Wolf of Winterfell straightened, sighing heavily, her expression full of calm, chilling menace to rival any of the Night King's commanders.
He had seen her face every adversary head-on, unflinching, implacable – undaunted. Beneath the warmth, humour, cunning and kindness she showed to those she loved, her children and friends, Larra Snow was a hard woman who had survived an even harder place. Ever since the battle had commenced, a light had shone in her ferocious violet eyes that Ser Gerold had been trying to name. Now he believed he understood what it was: relief. He wondered what she had endured that this horrific battle was a relief to her.
Ser Gerold fought side-by-side with Larra: she was undaunted, relentless. Her calm menace was chilling as it was steadying: he felt calmer in her presence. As he sliced another wight's head off, he caught a glimpse of Larra dancing in the snow, her dark blade flashing in the lightning as she drove the tip of Dark Sister into the heart of an Other. It shattered into thousands of shards of ice: Larra turned without reaction to engage and fell more wights, another of the commanders striding through the snow toward her. As Ser Gerold clashed with an Other, he was aware – always aware – of his surroundings, of more wights circling and heading around their conflicts, tearing toward the heart-tree, and of Larra, courting the Night King's commanders in a deathly dance. She was utterly unmoved. Undaunted.
So he was stunned when his own adversary exploded in a shower of ice shards and he saw beyond, to a cluster of wights now haring doggedly through the snowdrifts toward Lady Larra.
Dark Sister drooped in her grasp.
She took a step back.
A giant of a man lumbered toward her, wearing roughspun and tattered rabbit furs, bearing no weapons, his eyes glowing icy-blue in his ripped but otherwise preserved face.
And Lady Larra gasped in horror, tears splashing down her cheeks.
Ser Gerold's heart lurched and he snarled, slashing through the wights trying to encircle him, felling them, and raced for Lady Larra. She had engaged the Others without a hint of dread, felled wights with brutal efficiency, some larger and most more gruesome than this one. Yet something about this wight terrified her.
He had never seen Larra Snow afraid.
The strength in her fingers failed; she felt Dark Sister slipping from her hand.
Because it was Hodor.
Her sweet giant.
Hodor, his face ripped to shreds, his tattered furs failing to conceal the body that had been ripped apart, revealing his ribcage… They had torn his heart from his chest, she was sure of it, ripped his innards out as he screamed, as he – as he held the door and gave her and Meera precious moments to flee with Bran.
The gentlest creature she had ever known, ripped apart while he still lived, his mind shattered long ago as he saw his inevitable and unconscionable demise.
Hodor.
Hodor here.
Bumbling toward her. One of the Others wandering casually behind as if he knew… He knew…
She had been relentless, undaunted, fury firing through her veins, her love for Gendry and Bran and Sansa and Arthur and Aella and everyone else pushing her ever onwards, fighting not just for her life but theirs. She was unstoppable. Fierce, powerful, undaunted. When she had already endured the worst, what had they left in their arsenal to break her?
Hodor.
The most tragic of all her regrets – for she alone had cost Hodor his life.
Hold the door… It was her screams that had echoed through his mind since his adolescence. All that he knew once Brandon had shattered his mind. Her voice, echoing in his ears. All his life he had known her dark form disappearing into the snowstorm, as monsters behind tore him to ribbons. All his life, he had known his fate – the fate she had condemned him to. She had chosen a broken boy over the man he had broken.
She was ashamed. And heartbroken. Hodor.
Her sweet giant.
Her gentlest protector. Now turned into a weapon against her. To cripple her. Shame choked her as grief blinded her.
She heard the hisses. His ice-blue eyes blurred in her vision, becoming many, closer and closer. A sob escaped her. Hodor roared a hideous inhuman shriek – and crumpled.
A gleaming white blade skewered him. Obsidian flashed and Hodor's blue eyes dimmed.
More wights dropped around Hodor.
"Sword up!" growled Ser Gerold. His chest rose and fell as he panted like an angry bull, his violet eyes glowing furiously as he glared at her. He killed the last wight with a careless flick of his wrist, sending an obsidian dagger to its throat, and reclaimed Dawn.
He gripped Larra's chin roughly, painfully. His gloved fingertips were slick with blood and rough with gristle, scratching against her skin.
He glared at her.
With surprising tenderness, Ser Gerold said, "Dry your eyes, Lady. You must fight if you wish to live and weep for the dead."
As the Other lingered closer, it smiled.
The pure malice of it ignited a fury in Larra like nothing else ever had.
It knew.
It had pinpointed where she was and unleashed Hodor upon her as a weapon to break her as nothing else could, as even the Night King's commanders could not withstand her.
Fury simmered in her veins like molten obsidian. That malicious smile galvanised her fury and her grief and shame and too late the Other realised its mistake in believing it could break her with her greatest shame.
Hodor was her greatest shame but by no means her sharpest sorrow.
Rickon's execution and Robb's murder had not shattered her. Years of isolation had not broken her.
Beloved as Hodor was to her, he did not have the power to break her. Her shame and grief had no place in the battlefield. Except to use it to destroy those who had hunted them, those she blamed for forcing her hand. She had left Hodor behind…because the Others had hunted them. And Hodor alone had the strength to keep that storm at bay. He had given them precious moments.
He had given them life.
She would not waste it.
But she would eradicate anyone who tried to use that against her.
She would fight. She would avenge Hodor. And Summer. And Leaf. And Lord Bloodraven. And Jojen. And every single one of those hundred-thousand Free Folk and Night's Watchmen who had fallen to the Others.
Ser Gerold nodded distractedly to himself as he engaged in another duel: Dark Sister sang to his left as Lady Larra danced her lethal courtship. She fought on.
They fought their way to the weirwood tree.
Carcasses had been piled high and stood burning, choking out putrid smoke: the Ironborn had used these makeshift pyres to create a flaming motte around the weirwood, both as a defence and as a means of lighting their arrows. Beyond the motte, the snows were carpeted with the dead. In a lull, covered by archers within the motte, the Ironborn retrieved their precious arrows and covered the other warriors. A snarling Lord Tarly cleaved through wights, as the willowy Hoster Blackwood wielded Ser Jaime's Valyrian steel sword Honour, the hostage squire fighting side-by-side with his knight. Ser Brienne fought two Others at once, easily cutting down the first and making short work of the next: she grimaced in pain but set her shoulders, brilliant blue eyes glinting with fury, and stalked several wights now thrashing toward Dickon Tarly.
Uncle Benjen swung his flaming crucible and wielded a short sword of obsidian. Sandor Clegane barked orders to smallfolk while Arya danced around him, hastily plucking obsidian daggers from the corpses of fallen wights, adding them to her belt: she had lost her spear but now wielded with even more confidence the Braavosi-style sword of obsidian that Gendry had crafted especially for her. Some of the Mormonts fought side-by-side with spearwives and Lady Nym whirled elegantly, brandishing her obsidian-tipped whip and a gladius sword; her sister Obara snarled and bellowed her rage – and horror – as she fought beside Darkstar, now moving hastily toward the weirwood, analysing quickly where they needed more cover.
Another lull: the godswood was quiet. No more wights could be seen or heard amidst the trees. Larra could only sense the nearness of the Others and said so.
"Why do they stay away?" Obara Sand snarled, panting and heaving like a wounded rhinoceros.
"We are giving them a fight they did not expect," Ser Gerold said, as Ser Jaime panted, adjusting the obsidian pike that had replaced his gilded-steel hand. Hoster Blackwood reached out and hastily tightened the bindings for him.
"They plan to take us unawares," Lord Tarly growled, bleeding freely from a deep cut along the side of his head. "Overwhelm us with numbers."
"We need someone up high," Karsi said, beside Theon, tending to his sister as she bled freely from a gash under her eye. Yara spit a mouthful of blood on the snow at her feet.
"Which is the tallest tree within earshot?" Ser Jaime asked, turning to Larra, who raised her eyes to the trees.
Using Dark Sister, she indicated the ancient redwood, panting heavily and suddenly, in the quiet and the inaction, starting to realise her pain.
"I will climb it," Lady Karstark was saying behind her. The Ironborn gave her a quiver of arrows and one of the Thenns gave her a boost to the first branch, and she disappeared into the snow-laden boughs of the ancient tree.
Larra staggered to the weirwood, to Bran. She braced herself against the weirwood, panting and shaking, her breath coming in agonising bursts of sharp pain. Bran withdrew a wineskin from the folds of his furs and uncorked it, passing it to her. His dark eyes on the arm she used to brace herself against the weirwood as she drank deeply of cold, clean water, Bran retrieved a roll of fresh bandages from inside his furs. His eyes followed a thin but steady stream of blood falling from her left arm. Her blood shone like rubies in the snow, glinting in the light of the fiery motte. His head tilted to the side and his lips quirked at the corners before he reached up, taking the wineskin from her and tenderly wrapping the bandage around her upper-arm. She hissed and winced in pain but Bran simply smiled, knotted the linen and sat back in his chair, looking complacent.
A shrill whistle pierced the air some time later. Lady Karstark called, "More are coming!"
It began again. The archers covered them but fewer arrows were loosed as they fought the wights. Dozens of knights and warriors felled hundreds of wights as they continued an onslaught – irregular bursts of activity, sometimes a handful of wights attempting to draw them out and another hundred lurking beyond their sight ready to tear them apart. But they had trained for this: they were too efficient. They covered each other.
Free Folk, Dothraki, Dornishman, Ironborn, Northman, Stormlord – it did not matter. They were the living: they fought side by side.
But fewer and fewer arrows were loosed. And more and more wights came.
And after a flash of lightning, Lady Karstark, up in her perch, screamed that a sea of black waves had crashed over the breach in the curtain-walls. The dead were pouring from the Wolfswood, where they had lurked, hidden, protected from their sight by the trees. Thousands of them were pouring through the breach, into the godswood.
Their strategy had succeeded…until now. The Night King had held some of his forces in reserve, hiding them. The rest hadn't mattered: he only needed a few hundred to take the castle now that the walls were breached.
Larra gazed past the weirwood, glowing in the light of the fiery motte, at Gendry, her heart aching with sorrow. He was scowling and snarling, his enormous chest heaving as he panted, heaving his great war-hammer higher in his grip as blue eyes glowed in the gloom, snarls and hisses echoing everywhere. He was magnificent.
"We're out of arrows," Theon said dully.
Behind him, sat tucked in his furs, Bran caught Larra's eye. Pride and anticipation seemed to glow in his eyes.
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…
Though legions of the dead stalked the godswood, it remained quiet. The flaming motte around the weirwood crackled and hissed, the firelight dancing merrily, and the weirwood leaves – eternal, glowing like brands in the firelight – sighed as they brushed against each other in a soft breeze that coaxed the warmth of the flames to them, taking the bite out of the cold and bolstering them like a dose of hard liquor. Lord Beric's sacrifice endured, heartening them.
All around them, blue eyes shone in the gloom.
The hissing and groaning of the wights grew to an ear-splitting roar as they converged, surrounding the weirwood. Ice-blue eyes glowed like stars in the gloom, endless as the skies. It drowned out their pants for breath, Obara's dark curses, Yara Greyjoy's yell of pure rage as one of her men set her dislocated shoulder, wrapping her hand in a bandage, and even Gendry's voice was lost, cracked and hoarse as he shouted a reply to Lord Tarly and Lord Lonmouth, who, with Ser Brienne's help, had dragged his son's body within the circle of flaming pyres and plunged an obsidian dagger into his heart himself, weeping silently.
More than one of them started and gazed around, perplexed, when the sound of singing broke the silence. A low, mournful, beautiful song echoed gently off the snow and seemed to gentle the trees waving in the wind. It was not a funeral song, though Lord Lonmouth bowed his head over his son's body as if it was. They listened, entranced; even the godswood itself seemed to sigh with something like reverence…
The sound of the sighing grew louder, and louder, until they could almost make believe that they heard the march of thousands of people walking in step, the echoes of the bright ringing clang of weapons, the deep rumbling boom of spears and axes and war-hammers drumming against shields, the creak of boiled leathers and the soft hiss of chainmail, the whip and snap of cloaks caught in a high wind.
Lord Tarly stumbled and stared, and Ser Jaime gaped in open horror as figures of shadow and moonlight emerged from the gloom. Standing beside Hoster Blackwood and Sandor Clegane, Arya's lips had parted in awe. For a long moment, the defenders of weirwood stood and stared, bewildered, lost for words, gazing around as they witnessed the impossible.
They gripped their weapons tighter and the Ironborn uttered a prayer to their Drowned God as a strange silver mist seemed to unfurl from the depths of the pond beside the weirwood, taking the form of ancient men with straggly beards; hard-faced young boys whose eyes glinted with cunning and fury; handsome men with laughter on their lips and bloodlust in their steely eyes; long-faced girls comfortably holding weapons in their hands, their hair unbound beneath circlets of steel; wizened men with sorrowful eyes, stooped but proud, their grasp on their sword-hilts sure; fearsome women with axes and daggers looped into their belts and the Crown of Winter set firmly on their heads; solemn beauties with their hair braided and adorned, draped over breastplates embellished with the direwolf of House Stark. Some rode astride destriers, others…direwolves. All bore weapons.
Legions of the dead, called from their uneasy rest to fulfil ancient oaths.
An army of them.
The strange mist thinned but the shades of the Kings and Queens of Winter remained, armed and armoured, the standard of House Stark flying amongst them as they beat their weapons against their shields and marched side-by-side, intangible yet ferocious in their presence. Thousands of them.
Thousands of Starks bound to their oaths.
Theon inhaled sharply as one of the shades took up their position beside him, battered armour rattling softly. He nodded solemnly at Theon then gazed past him to Jon, whom he gave a grim, determined smile.
Somewhere in the distance, beyond the godswood, a wolf howled a signal. Larra knew that call: it was Last Shadow. It filled her with strength even as the others shivered with instinct that warned them of danger.
The wights advanced, hissing and snarling, roaring.
Without a word or signal or even a sound, the Kings and Queens of Winter charged.
And dotted here and there amongst the wights, the Others stumbled back, startled and frightened, as the Kings and Queens of Winter charged headlong through the throngs of the dead, intangible yet laying waste to everything in their paths. Whatever dark powers animated the dead were neutralised by the Kings and Queens of Winter as they rode through the legions: everywhere they looked, the rotting corpses crumpled, blue eyes instantly dim.
The strange silvery luminescence of the Kings and Queens of Winter illuminated the godswood as they swept through the legions of wights, like a pale imitation of dawn.
It was enough, though. They could see: it made the world of difference. Any wights that evaded the Stark shades were felled swiftly by any one of the weirwood's many defenders.
Yet while they seemed to fear the echoes of the dead, the Others could not be slain by them.
They converged around the weirwood, a tangible rage emanating from them like a chill, pure menace in their every movement, anger etched into every line of their eerie faces. Before, they had been superbly confident – even indifferent: something about the dead rising had unnerved them as nothing else.
The screams of the wights and the echoes of the clash and clamour of shadow weapons wielded by the Kings and Queens of Winter grew softer, more distant, yet the light of the echoes of the past remained, giving everything a silvery glow even as the Others raised their hands in unison and the burning motte around the weirwood flickered and extinguished. Black smoke billowed from the pyres, obscuring their view of all but ice-blue eyes glowing in the dark. The godswood felt instantly colder. Yet the light of the Starks remained.
Dark Sister gleamed in Larra's hands, the Valyrian steel blade an almost living thing, silver and smoke swirling together, glimmering and glinting in the eerie light of the dead. Beside her, Ser Gerold's milk-white blade glowed bright as starlight – no, as daylight. Bright as dawn.
The pyres, choking black smoke, hissed and crackled but no heat nor light emanated from the charred remains of wights they had felled. In the distance, wights screamed and people bellowed orders; small explosions boomed; the echoes of the Starks swept through the godswood and the yards, hunting down every single last wight, to the horror and awe of the living.
"They do not know fear," Ser Gerold murmured in his soft, sultry accent, his eyes vicious and calculating as he gazed past the smoking pyres to the Others. "Let us teach it to them before they die."
"Don't get cocky," Larra warned, her voice scratchy and hoarse.
Darkstar gave her a sidelong smirk, his eyes twinkling in the light of Dawn. "I must be as I am, Lady," he purred, twirling Dawn, his wrist loose, as if he wasn't exhausted and battered, his breastplate dented painfully. Blood splattered the snow at his feet.
"What are they waiting for?" one of the Ironborn groused.
"For us to do something stupid," Yara Greyjoy muttered, then snapped, "Hold your ground! Reform the line. No-one gets past the pyres."
Theon glanced at Jon, needing to know if Jon had seen what he had.
"It was Robb, wasn't it?" he panted, swiping blood from his nose. "He's here with us."
Solemnly, Jon nodded. "Aye, he's here… They're all here."
Jon knew Uncle Benjen had fallen – only because his ghost had charged the wights with the rest, younger and more carefree than Jon had ever known him, running ahead of the vanguard with his brothers.
Jon's heart thundered in his chest but his hands were steady, assessing the Others. There were at least three dozen in front, more joining them from other parts of the godswood. They were waiting, as Yara said. Waiting for them to something both very brave and very foolish.
"Hold your ground!" he called, finding that his voice was choked by the smoke and by strain. They seemed all to be feeling it. And while his voice was scratchy as he had heard Larra's was, they had heard him. And they knew: they had to hold the line. Wait for the Others to make their move first. Defend the weirwood. Defend Bran.
He had been right all along. They would come directly for him. He was the perfect bait.
Without warning, the Others acted.
Ser Gerold engaged two at once, Dawn glittering and glowing as it carved through them, turning them to shards of ice that tinkled as they fell to the ground. Ser Jaime and Hoster Blackwood slew one together while Gendry, every inch his father's son, swept through a great swathe of Others converging on him, swinging his great war-hammer, sheer brute strength overpowering them: his bellows of encouragement to Hoster Blackwood, the Ironborn, Karsi and the Thenns echoed on the air, though a roar of purest anguish from Lord Tarly cut through everything as Dickon was skewered before his eyes. Trembling with grief and fury, Lord Tarly squared off against the Other that had slain his son.
Gendry chased after an Other and shattered it with a single swing of his hammer, snatching a winded Lady Nym by her wire-wrapped braid before she could buckle into the steaming pond and drown. He set her on her feet, covering them both as two Others stalked them, giving her precious moments to suck in a breath, then another, and another, and picked up Benjen Stark's obsidian crucible. Larra covered Bran. The ground glittered beneath her boots as she darted and danced with her sister, Arya's eyes wide and harrowed but gleaming with determination.
A Thenn engaged in a brutal battle with one of the Others was losing ground, and stumbling over Dickon Tarly's prone body, the Thenn roared in pain, sustaining a death-blow before roaring and throwing himself at the Other, which shattered into thousands of shards of ice – and the dying Thenn collided with Larra, knocking her off her feet out of nowhere.
Dazed and winded, Larra blinked up at the stars, glittering in and out of view as heavy thunderclouds tumbled swiftly past. Arya was dancing off near Bran, fending off two Others with her tiny obsidian Needle. She hissed in an agonising breath, her lungs crackling and searing with pain, and scrabbled about, feeling for the hilt of Dark Sister amidst the shards of ice.
One of the Others advanced on Larra, his smile cruel.
Poised to skewer her, Larra caught her breath – and screamed as a dark figure jumped over her, running into the spear of ice meant for her.
With a roar, Theon decapitated the Other. Its body shattered, and he stumbled back.
"Theon!" she cried, but he shook his head, pulling the ice spear from his chest.
"Bran!" he groaned, blood on his lips. Larra glanced around, scooped Dark Sister from the ground and hurtled toward Arya, now alone and losing ground against a monstrous Other wielding a crucible of ice. As she ran, Larra picked up a fallen Ironborn's shield and flung herself between the Other and Arya, who was stumbling closer and closer to Bran. Larra threw herself between Arya and the crucible, screaming in pain as the shield burst into splinters on impact. Bran handed Arya an obsidian dagger from inside the folds of his furs: she hurled herself through the air while the Other was distracted, leering at Larra, and embedded the dagger into the Other's shining blue eye. Larra jumped, startled, and covered herself as the Other shattered into shards of ice; she shook them off, with the splinters of her shield and gripped Dark Sister, though pain seared up her arm.
Jon yelled over the tumult, shouting and gesturing toward the weirwood even as he duelled two Others, a third joining them. Larra and Arya glanced around, saw Bran now undefended…and the Night King, strolling idly toward him, his eerie gaze hungry.
With growing horror, Arya raised before her eyes the obsidian dagger Bran had given her. His only weapon.
They ran for Bran.
Two Others blocked their paths.
Larra's heart stuttered, then soared, as beyond the Others, a familiar figure appeared, hair braided back and bloody, armour dented, his sword shining and shimmering like snow in sunlight, and calmly engaged the Night King.
All around them, the fight continued: Lady Nym cracked a whip around the neck of an Other bearing down on her sister, while Lord Tarly covered Hoster Blackwood, blood streaming freely down his arm, and Ser Jaime duelled side-by-side with Ser Brienne. Encircled by Others, Dagonet Storm and his brother Ser Arthur Wylde fought back-to-back, protecting each other. Karsi and Yara Greyjoy held their own as Thenns hunted the Others. Ser Jorian Gower and Lady Calista Velaryon fought on, the latter bleeding profusely from a head-wound.
Longclaw had been sent flying from Jon's grasp by a brutal hit: with no time to seek his blade, he fought with obsidian daggers.
Darkstar and the Night King engaged in a duel, the like of which had not been witnessed in generations. They watched, not daring to interfere lest they break Darkstar's concentration.
He was an exquisite swordsman, focused, intent and intuitive, anticipating the King's movements, deflecting and aggressing in turns, a beautiful, lethal dance. Calm, lacking any arrogance whatsoever. Dawn held firm against the King's blade, shimmering and glowing, but Darkstar was injured and exhausted, and the sight of the blade itself seemed to anger the King. His lip curled and he redoubled his efforts, snarling.
The King had the advantage. Yet even so, Darkstar fought on.
He stumbled.
Dawn went flying.
The King smiled cruelly as he made to deal the killing blow.
Dark Sister sang as she deflected the hit meant for Darkstar.
The King slowly raised his gaze to Larra. Recognition gleamed in his eyes: his expression grew gloating, almost intrigued. With every beat of her heart her arm seared with pain, her head spun, her lungs ached but every beat of her heart was a victory against him. Every second she stood in his presence and did not flee was a victory.
He remembered her.
She had fled him once.
She would not flee now.
She held her ground. Held it for them: for Arya, who took up her position by Bran, and Gendry, who raced to Bran, reaching to scoop him out of his chair and carry him to safety – where, he did not know.
"No," Bran said gently, adjusting himself in his chair to watch Larra push back the King through sheer force of will. Unflinching, undaunted, Larra stared the Night King in the eye and raised her sword. She was bloody and battered, more injured than she knew, but she held her own against the King. Because she had to.
Darkstar had taught her well.
But he had no strength left and slumped to his knees, Dawn falling into the snow, its light dimming.
No-one dared interfere with Larra's duel.
Swift as shadows, nimble as a cat, Arya advanced on the Night King, joining Larra in her lethal dance. The King's eyes narrowed as they pressed their advantage, pushing him back, challenging him. They gave him nothing.
He had to fight harder, faster.
As Jon joined them out of nowhere, the King hissed his frustration.
The three of them continued their joint assault yet the King was dauntless, unmatched. He seemed to anticipate every action before they had decided it, blocking and deflecting every hit, redirecting their blades toward each other. He used them to distract each other, knowing instinctively that no matter what they had agreed upon, that every sacrifice was worth it, it went against everything they were to harm each other.
Arya was sent sprawling in a spray of ice and blood. The King smiled maliciously as she stirred briefly in the snow then collapsed, her obsidian Needle still in her grasp.
Jon found an opening and stabbed the Night King with his obsidian dagger.
The Night King paused.
Glanced down at the blade embedded in his breastbone. Tilted his head to the side. Backhanded Jon across the clearing.
Larra's heart thundered as the Night King pulled the dagger out of his chest. Dropped it idly at his feet as if it was no more than a splinter.
Her arm in agony, she raised Dark Sister.
Larra continued the duel alone.
Though the weirwood's defenders made them earn every inch they took, the Others gained ground.
And Larra was tired…so tired, and in agony – she realised too late, gasping, her heart thudding with sorrow and regret, that she could see Bran over the King's shoulder… He had manoeuvred his way between them.
The King smiled.
Dark Sister was knocked from her grasp. The King reached out, his eyes glinting, and wrapped his hand around her throat, lifting her off her feet.
His expression creased, frowning bemusedly, as an obsidian-tipped arrow whistled out of nowhere, glancing off his pauldron into the snow.
Sharp as any predator, the King's attention shifted to the redwood.
Larra struggled against his grip.
Collapsed in a heap, stunned, as he released his hold on her. Coughing and spluttering, she gasped and glanced up, squinting in pain at the bright light emanating from the King's chest. A shard of solid light, so bright it was like gazing directly into the sun, piercing his chest.
Behind him, his hand still wrapped around the hilt of Dawn, stood Jon.
Simultaneously, every single one of the Others burst into thousands of shards of ice. Arya stirred as she was sprayed with debris, and she lifted her bloody face from the snow, her fingers convulsing instinctively around the hilt of Needle.
The King seemed confused. His grey eyes gazed down at the blade and for a heartbeat Larra thought he was weeping.
She stared. Grey eyes.
The King was not weeping.
The ice was melting. The horns of his crown dripped steadily, melting away, revealing dark hair. Natural, pale skin.
Jon wrenched Dawn from the King's heart. He stumbled, grey eyes wide, bewildered.
They fell on Larra, who remembered… The petrified grey eyes of a man bound before those that sang the songs of the earth, their killer, now their captive, soon to be their weapon.
He stumbled again. Larra caught him, lowering him to the ground as his legs gave out. Blood glowed crimson on his lips as his gaze darted unseeingly, writhing in confusion and pain. He gazed at Larra, almost as if he recognised her, and his bloodstained lips parted soundlessly as he writhed, agitated. She lifted her hand from his chest: blood, warm and sticky, soaked her glove. His grey eyes struggled to focus but landed on her hand and he blinked, confused, at the sight of his blood soaking her glove.
As the first songbirds started to chirp high in the trees, Larra whispered in the Old Tongue, "Now you are free."
He sighed softly, relief shining from his grey eyes, and his body relaxed. Blood pooled around him, crimson as the weirwood leaves sighing above them.
The ice melted away, leaving a man.
Just a man.
They heard his last breath, a soft slow sigh as if drifting into the deepest sleep.
Hoster Blackwood collapsed to his knees, his armour rattling; beside him, Lord Tarly patted his shoulder, weeping silently. The Sandsnakes embraced each other, picking their way through the debris to the weirwood, to Ser Gerold who sat propped up against the trunk of the weirwood, exactly where Ned Stark had once sat cleansing Ice after the execution of the Night's Watch deserter who, in what they had then believed to be his own madness, had reported seeing White Walkers.
Yara Greyjoy took a knee beside her brother's body, bowing her head. Ser Jaime crawled through the snow and ice-shards, his obsidian pike lost, and he fumbled to cradle Ser Brienne's head in his lap, clumsily pushing her bright blonde hair from her face. Her eyes, clear as the purest sapphires, glittered with tears as she smiled up at him.
"The sun is rising," she said faintly. She squirmed and panted a breath, blood trickling from the corners of her mouth.
All but Ser Jaime turned their gazes to the sky, stunned to realise that heavy thunderclouds were being chased away by a glorious sunrise, retreating as if scalded by the gold trimming their edges from the sun's rays as it rose bright and unyielding above the treetops, painting the entire sky a hazy rich orangey-yellow, its caress warming them.
Birds chirped and started to sing throughout the godswood. Ser Brienne smiled but caught Ser Jaime's gaze. A frenzied gleam came into her eyes, her expression earnest as Ser Jaime had ever known it, and she panted, whispering urgently, "Don't waste it… Don't waste it, Jaime."
Ser Jaime let out a sob, openly weeping.
Sigurd of the Thenns growled, lifting his weapon as a rustling startled him: he went to aid Alys Karstark as she clambered down the redwood. Her empty quiver was still strapped across her back; her bow trailed in the snow beside her as she drifted toward the weirwood.
Her gaze landed on the dead man in the snow.
Jon said in a low, hoarse voice, "It was your arrow."
"I saved my last," said Alys, who lived only because Jon had insisted she not pay for her father's treachery with her life.
She had used her last arrow to distract the King before he could throttle Larra.
She had allowed Jon to take up Dawn when a bleeding Ser Gerold offered it and take the King unawares.
Jon's mercy had saved them all.
He kissed Alys' brow, thanking her on a breathless murmur.
The sun rose higher, hotter. The birds sang.
"He was just a man," Lord Tarly said hoarsely.
"Taken. He tortured and mutilated by magic," Larra said, wincing. She could barely speak above a strange squeaking whisper, her voice strained.
"Now he is at rest," Bran said softly. His dark eyes drifted sadly around the godswood. "Now they may all rest."
A deep knock echoed on the thick Northern oak doors, barred and braced. The sudden quiet had woken many of them. Sansa peered at the sunlight streaming bright and dazzling through the high windows as she neared the doors.
"Come on out of your cage, little bird," a gruff voice said gently, and Sansa gasped with recognition – and relief. "Tis over."
"Open the doors!" she gasped.
Sansa glanced up into Sandor Clegane's face, afraid even to ask. He knew what she wanted to hear: "They're alive."
The fight over, he had not known what to do except…find the little bird.
She clutched his hands, unafraid to gaze up into his face and beam at him.
Sansa sobbed and raced out of the castle. Sandor called for maesters and healers and Nestor Maegos' surgeons and sank onto a bench, bloodied, exhausted, and finally, finally, started to weep. Relief swept through him. They were alive. The wolf-bitch and his little bird. He grinned to himself, a swell of affection invigorating him as he thought of Arya and of Sansa, and started to laugh through his tears.
The sun rose higher, hot and bright, making the ice and snow sparkle dazzlingly. The light played merrily on the surface of the pond and a light breeze sighed through the weirwood trees, which trembled and shivered as if aching to embrace each other.
Though a breeze coaxed the thick white smoke to dissipate as it rose, nothing could cause the echoes of the ancient Starks to waver. And though the sun shone hotly and the snow glittered, the light of the Kings and Queens of Winter could not be dimmed. Their silvery glow seemed brighter, their shadows more pronounced, more tangible, every detail discernible as they gathered. Wiry old warriors and buxom queens, fair maids whose veins had once flowed fiercely with the wolf-blood, solemn beauties and hard men, they gathered, armed and armoured, tall and proud, even the most stooped of them – the Old Man in the North – and the youngest of them, sad-eyed and grim but fierce. The ones who had been dead so long, their names were lost. Ones whose names were legend. And the ones who lived on in the hearts and memories of those they had left behind. Those they had risen to fight beside.
Arya's eyes stung and she wept openly as a familiar face gazed with soft, solemn pride at her, his eyes saddening terribly as they rested on Jon, on Larra. He stood beside a fierce-looking male with a wild glint of wicked humour in his eyes, and Uncle Benjen, a gentler, wry humour twinkling in his eyes as he nodded proudly. Their father stood beside them.
And Robb…
Robb smiled softly beside Father, handsome and bearded and stern.
Sansa edged through the godswood, picking her way past the dismembered dead and the rotting corpses of the wights. The stench was unbearable – rotting flesh and soot and smoke yet the breeze was crisp and sharp and carried the worst of it away. Her steps slowed as she approached the shimmering mass of intangible bodies, armed and armoured, many of them crowned with the familiar crown of the Winter Kings – and Queens, she noticed. The shimmering figures parted silently as she drew closer, and she noticed their grim eyes and proud smiles and some dipped their heads in acknowledgement, as if they knew her.
From the windows, they had seen the silver glow seep out of the godswood and spread across Winterfell yet Sansa had no idea what they were. She knew where they had come from, though: as she approached the weirwood, her eyes blurred with tears of shock and she watched Larra struggle to her feet, clearly at the limits of her strength. She was almost unrecognisable, smeared with blood and muck and who knew what else, her armour battered, her clothing torn, bloodied bandages tied hastily around her arm, her braids tangled, but her violet eyes glowed vivid in the sunlight, sparkling like the finest amethysts.
Jon stood, covered in grime as he had been after the Battle of the Bastards. But there was no rage in him now; she did not have to snap him from his bloodlust, his desperate drive to punish those who had harmed her. He was exhausted, drained of vitality. He stood with his hand on Arya's shoulder as her sister wept openly: their identical grey eyes lingered on a grim, tired-looking man standing silvery under the weirwood. Bran's dark eyes shone as he, too, stared at the ghost of Ned Stark.
Ned, Robb, Benjen…even Brandon and Rickard Stark let their proud gazes linger upon Bran and Arya and Jon and Larra, and Sansa, as she stumbled toward her siblings, half-blinded by tears of relief and shock.
Jon reached out and took her hand, steadying her.
Larra stepped forward, slowly. Exhausted, she could focus only on Father's face.
"It's alright, love." Ned Stark's voice was gentle and tired and seemed to come from the sighing weirwood leaves.
Larra stared at Father, her heart aching to let them stay, to keep them here, with them…
They had done their duty.
Tears streamed down her face, hot and scratchy. She gazed at Father's ghost, and as she said the words, she spoke not only of his actions this night but every day of her and Jon's lives. He had protected them not merely this night but every single moment he drew breath from the moment he had claimed them as his own.
"I hold your oaths fulfilled. Be at peace."
The Kings and Queens of Winter, long interred beneath the weirwood, restless to fulfil their ancient oaths, sighed in contentment, and as a gentle wind picked up the shimmering silver figures faded to nothing more than a glint on the wind and disappeared, leaving nothing but birdsong and the sigh of weirwood leaves behind.
A.N.: I finally did it! I liked the idea of the Night King being an imperfect, unpractised swordsman by Westerosi standards, and that it was a group effort – the lone wolf dies but the pack survives – to hunt and fight the Night King. And Jon ultimately getting the kill.
But it's important that Ser Gerold was there with Dawn. Remember that later.