November- December 31, 304 AC
Jon Snow woke slowly, his chest rising and falling as he filled his lungs with air. Somehow he was both sore and numb; he felt weak as a kitten as he lay upon his bed. The chamber around him was dark, dark as an abyss, save for the last embers glowing dimly in the hearth.
In his dream, there had been no light at all. There had been nothing, nothing but the cold empty darkness, the lifeless void deep as death which his brother haunted. Bran was no more than a drifting shade, a wisp conjured by weariness and guilt. No matter how many times Jon begged forgiveness, the shade always came back, desperate for help he could not give. No power could raise the dead.
Dreadful as it was, to dream of the brother he had failed, his other dreams were worse. At least Bran looked somewhat like himself, if older, with a pimpled face and a cracking voice. The rest of them, though... sometimes they came one by one, sometimes all at once, but they always came with eyes burning blue, grasping at him with hands black as pitch. They wanted him to join them, he knew, to follow them past the veil and into the cold.
Once, he'd woken to find himself standing by the window. It was the middle of the night, yet someone had opened the shutters, and the icy wind bit at his bare skin as he gazed at the ground so far below. Ghost had bitten him too; his jaws were clamped about Jon's wrist, drops of red blood upon his white teeth. Groggy and bewildered, Jon had closed the shutters tight and returned to bed, where the direwolf curled up half on top of him.
Ghost lay beside him now, as he always did. The direwolf took up most of the bed, better than any blanket. When he opened his eyes, they shone in the darkness, garnet-bright against his white fur. Jon stroked the direwolf's ears, trying not to shudder as he thought of the eyes that glowed in the darkness on the other side of the Wall, cold and empty and always watching.
"Snow," quorked Mormont's raven. He perched atop the bedpost, glaring down balefully. "Tree," he cried. "Tree, tree."
"No," Jon grumbled, rubbing at his eyes.
Why must the old bird keep plaguing him? He would find no peace praying to the weirwoods, not with wights standing vigil beneath its pale branches. The old gods never heard his prayers anyway, he thought, burying his face in Ghost's ruff. If they had, Lord Eddard would lead the North, not Robb. The Old Bear would have command of the Watch, and Bran would be alive, safe and whole at Winterfell.
Ghost still felt Summer, somewhere far away, but that gave him no comfort. After all, Sansa yet lived, long after Lady's death. It was not so strange, that a boy should die and his direwolf linger. As if sensing the heaviness in his chest, a warm pink tongue licked Jon's cheek.
"Easy, boy," Jon sighed, wiping away the drool and pushing away Ghost's snout.
The direwolf would not leave him be, waking or sleeping. Jon could feel his thirst for the thrill of the hunt, the hot blood of a fresh kill, yet the direwolf would not abandon even for that. Instead he ate scraps of meat and bones from the butchers, and haunted Jon's heels like a shadow.
Heaving another sigh, Jon stared at the window, wishing for a glimpse of morning light that never came. At his command, Dolorous Edd had nailed the shutters closed. "To keep out the chill," the lord commander had claimed, lying through his teeth.
Not that there would be any light even if they were open. It was the end of eleventh moon, and the days were growing even shorter. Dawn would not come for hours yet, long after the men awoke to begin their toil. Soon it would be the solstice again, gods help him. He could only pray this year did not end as the last one had.
"I keep my oath," he had told Ser Axell Florent, but he was a bastard, and a liar too. Jon might have kept the oath he swore to protect Shireen Baratheon as if she were his own, but he had shattered the rest of his vows to pieces. The Night's Watch took no part, it never had, not until he led them into folly.
Jon could still see the flames flickering when he closed his eyes. A hundred sworn brothers he had brought; the king's men outnumbered them four to one. But they were afoot, and dressed for the cold in wool and furs. Only a scant few wore mail, and even fewer wore plate armor. Meanwhile, Jon's brothers were mounted on garrons, and clad in ringmail as black as their cloaks.
When Jon charged, it was all too easy to cut men down. Longclaw's smoky blade turned as red as the blood that spurted when Ghost tore out Ser Axell's throat. The rest of the king's men fought desperately, slashing at the garrons and the crows who rode them.
Until King Stannis mounted the pyre. Until he cut Shireen down and draped her limp body over Jon's horse. Until he stood, silent, waiting for the flames to devour him. King's men and sworn brothers alike faltered and screamed and cursed as Melisandre sang her last spell, the one that hatched a dragon of ice and shadow.
With the king, his priestess, and his dragon lying dead, Jon had thought that would be the end of it. Yet when he returned to his own body, having left Mormont's raven shrieking at the host of wights beyond the Wall, he found the battle had resumed. Beneath the dim light of the half moon, half the king's men were fleeing through the snow, but the rest were rushing toward the lord commander.
It was Ser Godry Farring who led them. While Jon reeled, dizzy and shaken, the knight dueled Rory and Pate, who stood between him and their lord commander. Unlike the rest, Ser Godry wore heavy plate beneath his furs, with a warhelm over his brutish face. A savage forehand slash sent Pate to the ground, his helm dented. Rory had already lost his helm, and he lost most of his head to the next vicious blow.
Jon barely got his sword up in time to parry. Ashes fell around them as Ser Godry slashed and hacked as Jon dodged and slid sideways, his steps hampered by the snow. Longclaw glanced screeching off the knight's shoulder, and his cloak fell to the ground. For a blade of Valyrian steel, fur cut as easily as butter, yet even Longclaw could not cut through plate.
It was Pate who had saved him. The ranger lurched to his feet and tackled Ser Godry from behind, knocking off his warhelm. A slash of Longclaw, and the knight's head bounced to the ground, blood seeping into the snow. After that, some of the king's men began to throw down their arms; the rest died, one by one, until the night was silent but for the sobbing of wounded men.
Shireen Baratheon was sobbing too, when Jon found her inside the shelter of the closest ruined tower. Ghost sat at her feet as the princess leaned against Long Hal, her skin dark with smoke, her body wracked with coughs. Grenn stood beside them with a bloody sword, the corpse of Ser Clayton Suggs sprawled on the ground.
"He tried to take her, m'lord," Grenn said. "Said she had to burn."
When Jon left the princess, Pyp was waiting for him in the yard, streaked with sweat from climbing down the switchback stair. His cheeks were red, his lips trembling, but Jon silenced him with a quelling glance.
"We must needs deal with our prisoners first," the lord commander told him.
He was too heartsick and weary to panic, though he was sorely tested when Ser Richard Horpe tried to knife him. Ser Richard had demanded to surrender his sword to the lord commander personally, and gave it up without protest. Then he drew his dagger and lunged at Jon. Before Jon could pull Longclaw from his sheath, Pyp got in the way. As the dagger sank into his chest, he drove his own dagger deep into the knight's gut. Numb and calm, Jon watched as Longclaw descended once more.
Thanks to the gods and his suit of mail, Pyp's wound was shallow. It was almost healed by the time their garrons staggered back to Castle Black. No one seemed to give a damn about their prisoners, or Stannis; all was in an uproar over the host of wights that stood vigil just out of arrow range beyond the Wall.
They should have cared, Jon thought bitterly, turning to hide his face in his pillow.
Once he had played the oathbreaker at Qhorin Halfhand's command, but now he was one in truth. Jon had not thought of the Watch, or his vows, only of the girl bound to the stake. At the time he thought he was right to do so. Yet the longer he brooded as the cold deepened, the more he doubted himself. Was it his interference that made the spell turn sour? Or would the spell have failed entirely, if not for Stannis taking his daughter's place upon the pyre?
Worse, he had compounded his shame by taking charge of Princess Shireen. It was not the lord commander's place to meddle in the affairs of the realm. Yet that had not stopped him from sending the princess to Eastwatch, and from there to Braavos, accompanied by Devan Seaworth, her ladies, and her few loyal knights. They had not known what Ser Axell intended when he carried his great-niece away, and were shocked and appalled when they learned what had transpired.
Perhaps the nightmares came from the gods, punishing Jon for breaking his vows. No matter how long he slept, he never woke feeling rested. The dreams of his brother had plagued him every month since the new year. Though he welcomed the sight of his brother's face, his only respite from the dreams of the dead who clutched at him with cold black hands, somehow those dreams left him even weaker than the others.
Jon knew he should rise. There was work to be done; his burdens would grow no lighter if he tried to shirk them. Yet he was still abed when Dolorous Edd Tollett came to wake him. He was still abed as the steward built up the fire, still abed as he poured red wine into a kettle and added scant amounts of cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, raisins, and nuts.
"Out of dried berries, I'm afraid, m'lord," Dolorus Edd said when he brought over the steaming cup of mulled wine. "T' Old Bear would have growled for days if I served it like this." He pressed the cup on Jon, his grey eyebrows furrowing when the lord commander struggled to sit up.
"Another... spell, m'lord?"
When he received no answer, Edd's plain face looked more dour than ever. He gripped Jon by the elbow, the old squire tugging him upright, then pressing the cup to his dry lips. Jon could barely taste the wine, but warmth spread through his body as he sipped. By the time the cup was empty, he could manage to stand, if only barely. Dolorus Edd helped the lord commander dress, and braced him as he crossed the room to sink into the chair at his desk.
While the lord commander stared blearily at scrolls, ledgers, and account books, his steward returned to the fire. It took time to make frumenty. Water must be boiled, then taken off the heat so pearls of barley could steep, growing fat and soft. Then broth was added, and the whole lot boiled again. Last came the eggs, which were stirred in while the frumenty finished thickening.
Jon's wits felt as thick as his breakfast, as faded as the motheaten banners that hung on the walls. It was only two years since winter began, yet it seemed an age. Was it really summer when he left Winterfell? Six years it had been, not sixty, but somehow he could not recall the warmth of the summer sun.
Some of his men thought summer might never return, no matter what the maester said. Maester Turquin claimed there was no truth to the belief that a long summer meant a long winter; the lengths of the seasons were as varied as they were unpredictable. Why, the winter could end at any moment.
For now, though, it was winter that reigned over the Wall, not the lord commander. The cold sank into men's bones, so deep no fire could drive it out. Brisk men became slow, clever men dull, brave men full of doubt, until at last a day came when they did not rise from their bed.
Maester Turquin could not explain it. Melancholy was a sickness, but it should not stop a heart from beating. True, the men's appetites had dwindled before their deaths, but not so badly that they should starve. Armen the Acolyte pored through books, yet he could find no answers, no more than he could find Roone when he glanced at the table where the boy once studied. Annoying as the novice's gossiping had been, the sickroom was far too quiet without it.
Jon reached for another scroll with a pang in his chest. When he unrolled it, he stared at the list of names. Duties might be reassigned, but there was no forgetting gaps left behind by the absent dead.
Short Pate had whistled as his went about his work. Jon of Woodbridge liked to boast, his stories growing wilder every year. Tom the Bald was sullen, but was the only one who would put up with Roger of Tumbleton and his sharp tongue. When Willem the Mummer shirked his work, he could usually be found with Hobb's boys, juggling or showing off his sleight of hand.
On and on the names went. Ser Wynton Stout, died in his bed at the age of ninety. Richard of Applegrove, died of a burst belly. Jack the Jester, died from weeping sores which festered. Paxter of Brookton, slipped on a patch of black ice, and fell from atop the Wall.
That one was a lie, a last kindness to the dead. The septons would not say funeral prayers over the bodies of men who slew themselves, not even one of their own.
Septon Cellador had been the first to jump. Unable to get drunk with the septons of the Vale dogging his steps, he had ridden the winch cage to the top of the Wall, with a wineskin hidden beneath his robes. The approach of the host of wights had soon turned him sober. Whilst the rangers on watch raised the alarm, Cellador had calmly returned to his cell. After scrawling a brief sermon on the wrath of the gods who had forsaken the realms of men, he returned to the top of the Wall, blessed the trembling rangers, then flung himself to the ground seven hundred feet below.
Since then, a few dozen men had followed his example. Jon Snow and the First Ranger Black Jack Bulwer had tried changing the guard schedules, giving the men shorter watches, or assigning only men who seemed in good humor. Nothing seemed to make a difference. Matthar was smiling until the moment before he tried to jump. He did not manage it, thanks to Satin tackling him to the ground, breaking Matt's ankle in the process.
Once they were friends, when they were new recruits together. When Lord Eddard was killed, Matt asked the septon to light a candle for him. When Jon tried to desert the Watch, Matt was among the boys who dragged him back.
Jon had good hopes that Matt would recover. He was young and strong, and the ankle had broken clean. Alaric had shattered both legs, yet he still lived. Granted, he required a wheeled cart to move about the vaults beneath the Wall where he worked, and could not manage stairs nor the snow and ice outside. But Alaric was as skilled a carpenter as ever when he was strong enough to resume his duties. Matt never resumed his. They might have carried his body down from the Wall, but the rest of him was already gone. He would not speak, nor eat, and wasted away, forgotten as the maester struggled to handle an outbreak of grippe.
Eastwatch was the first to suffer, but not the last. The grippe spread along the Wall from east to west, starting in early fourth moon and lasting for several months. Those who took ill suffered headache, fever, loss of appetite, and severe coughing. Jon's fever subsisted after a few days, but the cough lingered for weeks. While most survived the grippe, many died soon after, succumbing to other illnesses, or to the cold, or to melancholy.
Old Ser Denys Mallister was among the dead. For his successor as commander of the Shadow Tower, Jon had chosen his squire, Wallace Massey. Properly, the lord commander should have appointed Blane, the second in command. It was he who replaced Qhorin Halfhand, and he was one of the few to survive the fight on the Fist of the First Men. Even so, Jon did not trust him. The man was from Lannisport, a fact Jon misliked as much as the ranger's cool green eyes. Blane had backed Ser Denys at the choosing, even after the old knight threw his support behind Jon.
Less than five hundred men remained at the Shadow Tower, with the Valemen outnumbering the sworn brothers two to one. At Eastwatch there were four hundred, outnumbered three to one; at Castle Black, eight hundred, outnumbered three to one.
All the rest had scattered across the lesser keeps, save for the Nightfort, whose cursed stones remained abandoned. Jon could have garrisoned it, if he wished to lose every man he sent. There was a dread that hung upon the air; messengers rode past it as fast as they could, stricken by sudden terror.
No, it was not worth the trying. Bad enough that the garrisons of Westwatch-by-the-Bridge, Hoarfrost Hill, and Rimegate had all perished to a man. It was seventh moon when the messengers found the keeps silent, naked men strewn haphazardly about the yards. They had died with their arms outreached, their frostbitten bodies lying in burrows which they had dug in the snow drifts.
Clearing the dead was the unpleasant task of the wildlings who replaced them. The King in the North had made them swear to come at the lord commander's call, and they were the closest men at hand. From the New Gift they had come, near a thousand of them, arriving over the course of eighth and ninth moon.
By Jon's command, there were no spearwives among them. The lord commander had not had to geld anyone of late, and wished for it to remain that way. Even without women to cause a fuss, sworn brothers had given the newcomers a dubious welcome, put off by their queer customs.
No matter their clan, every single wildling kept close together. None was ever alone; they shared their fires, their food, and their beds. Skalds followed them about, telling tales over every meal, and from the youngest boy to the eldest greybeard, the wildlings tended to hum or sing whenever they stepped foot into the cold. Though truth be told, their songs were often chattered through their teeth; many of them could not have carried a tune in a bucket.
"You might try it sometime, lord crow," Tormund Giantsbane had told him, the day he set out to take command of Hoarfrost Hill. "Gives a man sommat to think of, other than t' cold."
And with that, he had set off, with his men following at his back. The wildlings were as good as northmen at journeying through the snow. Like northmen, most of them favored bear-paws, strapping the frames of bent wood and leather strips to their boots and to the hooves of their few garrons, who pulled carts on long runners instead of wheels. Similar long runners called skith served to speed their messengers. With their skith and long poles, they could travel perhaps as many as seven leagues in a few hours, though then they had to stop and rest until the next day.
Jon resisted the urge to slump into his chair as he picked up a letter with the latest report from the Shadow Tower. Soren Shieldbreaker and the Great Walrus continued to maintain order over their garrison at Westwatch-by-the-Bridge. Despite the storms blowing in from the Bay of Ice, they had lost less men than any of the keeps which reported to Wallace Massey.
Cotter Pyke's last report from Eastwatch said the same of the wildling garrison at Rimegate. Sigorn, the young Magnar of Thenn, had charge of them, a charge he uneasily shared with Devyn Sealskinner. Sigorn would rather have had Morna White-Mask, but when Jon refused her spearwives, she had vanished, taking her folk south.
Mole's Town lay sad and empty. The men barely complained about the brothel closing; less and less of them could be bothered to dig for buried treasure, when it meant braving the snow and the cold. Queenscrown was abandoned too. Freltha had taken Tormund's folk south, and Dorsten had followed her, bringing all the women and girls who had once escaped from Craster's Keep.
Jon wondered if they had found the warmth they sought. It was fifty leagues to the edges of the New Gift, whose border jutted against the lands of the King in the North and his bannermen. Were the winds milder there, the snows less deep?
The wildlings had wanted to send their folk further south. Clan chiefs and war chiefs alike, every single one of them had sent messengers to Castle Black, begging for the lord crow to intercede on their behalf. There must be abandoned villages in the North, places without a lord where they might shelter for the winter without imposing on some kneeler's good graces. The lord crow was born a wolf; surely his kingly brother would heed his plea.
Jon Snow had known the answer long before the raven came from Winterfell. As he feared, the King in the North refused to even consider the notion. Had the lord commander not already done enough to coddle the wildlings? Had he forgotten the host of a hundred thousand men which once assailed the Wall, intent on pouring into the North and slaughtering folk in their beds?
Hardly, Jon thought bitterly. All of them are standing below the Wall once more.
Nor would the King in the North let him forget their last quarrel. The king had been very angry when he learned that Jon had been diverting casks of meat and grain to the wildlings settled in the New Gift, rather than adding them to the Night's Watch's caches beneath the Wall.
It did not matter that it was the lord commander's prerogative to choose how to allocate his supplies. No, the king accused him of betraying the Night's Watch, of forsaking his vows out of misguided pity. What good was it, letting the wildlings through the Wall, if the men defending it starved to death for their sake?
Perhaps Robb is right. Jon's shoulders drooped as he pressed his hands to his face, glad that Edd was not here to see him crumple. What did Jon know, anyway? He was a bastard, born of lust and shame. Robb was the one born to rule, the one raised to be a leader of men. Even as children, it was Robb who led, and Jon who followed, mindful of Lady Catelyn's suspicious gaze, as if at any moment he would drive a dagger into her son's back, and claim Winterfell for his own.
Well, he had shown her. Jon Snow would father no sons who might raise arms against their trueborn uncle. No, he would live and die at the Wall, and be buried in a cloak as black as his heart. His heart must be black, for him to hate Robb so much. The brother he loved was a stranger now, a stranger who had all Jon wanted and could never have.
"Jon gets jealous because he's a bastard," he recalled Sansa saying once, or so Arya had told him before they left Winterfell. She had been right, almost. To be jealous was to fear losing what he had, and Jon had nothing. It was envy that choked him, envy of his perfect brother.
It was not enough that Robb had Winterfell. No, he was a hero too, the Young Wolf, the victor of every battle he ever fought. He had crushed Lord Tywin, had survived the treachery of the Freys and Boltons, had become a legend, and lived the life of one.
Once Jon had daydreamed of wedding some lesser lady, of holding a keep in his brother's name and filling it with their children. But no lesser lady would do for Robb. No, Margaery Tyrell, the most beautiful maiden in the Seven Kingdoms, had cast one king aside only to cast herself upon the mercy of another. They said she had begged to be his bride, having already come to love him from afar. Robb could not help but be touched by her beauty and sweetness, and soon they were wed. Now she shared his bed, and soon would bear him the sons Jon could never have.
His eyes stung. Poor Arya would never have children either, according to the terse note added to a recent raven from the King of Winter. As their sister was barren, her betrothal to Hoarfrost Umber was no more. Rather than foster at Last Hearth, his little sister had ridden south at the end of tenth moon, along with a small host of winter wolves, greybeards and callow youths thirsty for Lannister blood.
As for his other sister... gods. Jon did not know what to think. Robb had told him little enough, and only as a courtesy. It was all well and good that Sansa would soon be returned to the bosom of her family in the North, but the rest of it... hidden princes were the stuff of songs, fanciful nonsense, as unlikely as the return of dragons. Yet dragons had battled over Volantis, and one of them belonged to the same man who had wed Sansa, his royal blood disguised by a bastard's name.
Aegon Targaryen, they called him now, or would, once he landed. The King in the North was grimly pleased with the prospect of his coming, though he assured the lord commander that the Night's Watch remained his foremost concern. Let the southerners battle amongst themselves; the true enemy lay beyond the Wall. When the war for the dawn began, the King in the North would march for Castle Black, accompanied by the might of the North.
For now, though, the lord commander must shoulder his burdens alone.
Several days passed before Jon felt well enough to leave his solar. When he did, he soon regretted it. Drafts of cold air nipped at him in the halls, and when he went outside, the wind cut like a knife. The scars Orell's eagle raked across his eye tingled; he could feel the mark of Ygritte's arrow, and every lash Harma Dogshead once laid across his back.
Sore and aching, Jon went about his rounds, with Grenn, Pyp, Long Hal, and Tom Barleycorn trailing at his heels. His officers might visit his solar regularly, but it was important to see the men at their work. He could not recall who told him that; it might have been Lord Eddard, or Jeor Mormont, perhaps even Bowen Marsh.
When Jon returned from the Nightfort, he had found Bowen Marsh awaiting him in his solar. The Lord Steward's face was pale, his jowls as trembling as his voice as he informed the lord commander what he had done, of the raven he had sent to the King in the North. One moment Jon was listening; the next he woke to find himself shoving Marsh against a wall, his hand upon his throat.
The old man made no attempt to resist, only cowered. Jon loosened his grip, thoughts racing through his mind. He might have executed the man for insubordination, as he had executed Janos Slynt soon after the choosing. But Slynt had defied him in public; the men knew nothing of the quarrel over the stores, and if they learned food meant for them had gone to fill wildling bellies...
"You will resign, my lord," Jon told him. "Your injuries from the battle on the Bridge of Skulls trouble you too much to continue in your post. You shall train your successor, and keep your silence, and in exchange, I shall permit you to keep your head."
Jon's mercy had not availed him much, in the end. Marsh's heart gave out a fortnight later whilst he was crossing the frozen yard. His successor, Left Hand Lew, still struggled to make sense of all the records which filled the lord steward's chambers. Lew was a man in his prime, literate and well liked, but Marsh had served as lord steward for nigh on twenty years.
Keys and chains rattled as Left Hand Lew bade the guards let them into the storehouse vaults. Deaths were not the only bitter reckoning he could lay at winter's door. While some men languished with failing appetites, others grew desperate and hungry. Theft was a persistent problem, one that could only be solved by posting guards and lopping off the fingers and hands of thieves.
They would all starve, if the food gave out before winter ended. Better to lose a few fingers than die shivering in an ice cell. They could not count on the shipments from Eastwatch, not with storms tearing across the Shivering Sea and the Bay of Seals. Thank the gods the King in the North could now buy grain from Highgarden, whose ships sailed north to the makeshift docks of Sea Dragon Point.
After the storehouses, Jon returned to the yard. Appearances must be maintained, even if sparring no longer brought him any satisfaction. Iron Emmett was his first opponent, then he found himself challenged by the knights of the Vale. He acquitted himself well enough. The lord commander won three bouts and drew two before the darkness and the bitter wind drove everyone indoors.
As the solstice drew closer, each day seemed colder than the last. Ulmer of the Kingswood shortened his men's archery practice, and Iron Emmett did the same for those that bore swords and spears instead of bows. Black Jack Bulwer gave orders that all his rangers don even more layers before standing guard atop the Wall, and Left Hand Lew did the same for his stewards, at least them who had to work out in the cold. Firewood must be hewn, the roads plowed to keep them clear.
Twelfth moon was half gone when Castle Black echoed to the sound of snapping chains. The winch cage plummeted to the ground, landing with a crash that crumpled metal as easily as a man might crumple a parchment in his fist. Othell Yarwyck's builders took charge of the repairs; Manfrey Ironarm and his smiths toiled in the forges, inspecting the old links for cracks, and melting them down to make new ones.
With the winch cage gone, Jon was forced to climb the switchback stairs. It took every spare ounce of will he had to reach the top. There he paused, panting, his lungs burning almost as badly as his legs. Beyond the Wall, the trees of the haunted forest swayed and creaked in a vicious wind. And between the Wall and the forest...
"You know," Jon made himself say, keenly aware of his tail. "It's pitiful, really. There they wait, as if we'd be stupid enough to come down and give them a fight. At least Mance Rayder and his folk were brave enough to try the gates." He shook his head, made himself sigh. "They don't even have the wits to try climbing. Not that it would do them any good."
"The Wall defends itself," Pyp said. His face might be covered by a scarf, but Jon could hear the grin in his voice. "You said that, m'lord, right before we sent Mance Rayder and his men running."
"M'lord did," Grenn rumbled. "They can't reach us, they can't hurt us."
"And if they did, they'd soon regret it," Tom Barleycorn chimed in. "The lord commander would do for them just like he did for that dragon."
"Bigger than Balerion it was," Pyp said, ignoring the sharp look Jon gave him. "You should have seen it, Tom, looming out of the dark, with eyes and flames like frost. And what does the lord commander do?"
"Charged straight at it, bold as brass," said Long Hal, and Tom Barleycorn gasped so loud he might have been in a mummer show.
When Pyp carried on with his tale, Jon ignored him. Let the men have their distraction; his face could give nothing away if they were not looking at it. The Wall felt reassuringly solid beneath his feet, as eternal as the seasons. The ice dragon's breath had never touched it, just as the wights seemed to have no way of assailing it.
Even the Horn of Winter had not brought it down. Jon could still recall the horn he had seen in Mance Rayder's tent, eight feet long and banded with gold. A few days later someone had blown it, its voice strange and sad, as ancient as the earth itself. Nevertheless, the Wall remained unmoved.
On the day his folk passed through the Wall, Tormund admitted it was him who sounded the horn. Mance saw no other way, not with their host scattered by Stannis and his men. Tormund had heard no music, no ancient voice. Instead he heard the rumble of mountains cracking, felt the thunder of an avalanche, smelled the scent of stone and earth. The few remaining giants in their company had startled at the sound, then vanished into the forests, never to be seen again.
Jon rather wished he could do the same later that night, when he dined with the lords of the Vale. He could not stand Ser Ossifer Coldwater, or his preening as he passed around a box of pepper for the guests to sprinkle on their roasted turnips. Ser Edmund Belmore soon surpassed him, producing a small jar of peaches in honey which were ladled atop slices of oatbread.
Every knight and lordling seemed to have some personal cache of rare delights, either for their own use or for showing off when they dined with the lord commander. Whether it was pride or flattery, Jon could not tell, but it grated on him. A dash of pepper and a bit of peach and honey were paltry recompense for having to endure long hours of conversation, rather than be left in peace.
Thankfully, no one expected him to do much of the talking. They said nothing of Yohn Royce, or of the brethren they had lost, or of the war to come. No, they talked of everything and anything else.
When the raven arrived from Septon Tim back in fifth moon, announcing he had arrived at Harrenhal to speak with the High Septon, Jon thought little of it. Why should he care for southron affairs? Even if the High Septon did not dismiss Septon Tim as a raving madman, there would be no swords from Harrenhal, no wayns filled with supplies.
There was, however, a raven from High Septon Paul himself. It arrived in seventh moon, bearing a lengthy sermon for the septons to deliver to the sworn brothers who followed the Faith. To Jon's nonplussed bewilderment, the High Septon believed all that he had heard of their plight. Not only that, but he swore to pray for the brave brothers of the Night's Watch seven times a day, and have the Most Devout and all the folk who followed him do the same.
How that was supposed to help, Jon was not quite sure, but there had not been another suicide for more than a moon's turn, and when they resumed, there were less of them. Senmorn services were packed every week; in an act of irritated protest, many who followed the old gods had taken to praying by an old tree stump in the yard each evening. Jon should have joined them, but he could not be bothered, just like he could not be bothered to care about the argument which had just broken out.
"Seven save me, you're a fool," Ser Ben Coldwater said, exasperated. "The mountain clans fornicate with goats, they don't climb like them."
"They could do both, ser," Lonnel Redfort said, with all the stubbornness of his fifteen years. He was always raring for a quarrel, ever since his brother Jon died of the grippe. "If they could get up to Snow and Sky—"
"The bridge between them is gone, lad," Ser Vardis Waynwood said pompously. "If Lord Nestor and his maester and his masons cannot manage to find a way across, there is none to be found. The supplies will continue to dwindle, and your cousin Adrian shall join the Seven in the heavens above. You should light a candle for him in the sept, as I do for sweet Jennis."
Lonnel Redfort huffed, crossing his arms, but a glare from burly Ser Edmund shut him up all the same. Sullen, he watched the main course be set before them, stewed beef and onion pies, the same as usual.
With Dolorous Edd needed elsewhere, it was Three-Finger Hobb's kitchen boys who served at table. For boys of twelve and thirteen, Alyn and Ben were remarkably well scrubbed. Little Hal's work, he suspected. Their brother was most unhappy that they were allowed the honor denied to a boy of nine. Hobb had told the boy he was too young, and told the lord commander that he misliked the wheeze that Hal had suffered since having the grippe. With so many stairs to climb to reach the lord commander's chambers at the top of King's Tower...
"Now," Ser Vardis Waynwood said pompously, eyeing Lonnel Redfort. "What else can you tell me about your cousin Anya? She must be very grateful to Lord Horton for finding her such a worthy match. Ser Harrold—"
Jon tuned him out, focusing on his stew. A few perfunctory nods were enough to keep them happy; he had no interest in yet another hour of speculation over the succession of the Vale. God forbid Harrold Hardyng should ever visit the Wall. Jon might punch the man out of sheer spite at having to hear about him for months.
When they finally moved onto the latest news from the south, Jon deigned to pay more attention, though it exhausted him. Sure enough, there was fresh news from King's Landing. Hearing of the Lannisters' difficulty holding onto the Iron Throne should have pleased him, yet he felt nothing. What did it matter? Whether or not Tommen Bastardborn kept his throne, the wights would still be waiting beneath the Wall.
Jon tried not to think about them the next day as he strode through the wormwalks, bound for the library vaults. Ben and Alyn trotted at his heels, carrying food and drink. Three-Finger Hobb kept a close watch over the men at mealtimes, and Samwell Tarly had not been seen for more than two days.
When Jon found him, Sam was bent over a desk, his hands stained with ink as he painstakingly copied text onto a fresh page of parchment. Stacks of notes littered the desk, organized using some method known only to Sam. Ever since third moon, the steward was a man possessed, determined to bring some order to all that he had learned from the wildling elders he had visited.
"Tarly." Jon's voice was sharp, sharp enough to pierce the fog of concentration in which Samwell Tarly was lost. He looked up, his pale eyes wide and round.
"My lord." Sam swallowed, blinking in confusion as the boys set the meal before him. "I- there was no need to trouble yourself."
"It was no trouble," Jon lied. It was not Sam's fault that everything troubled him. "Henceforth, you are to present yourself for dinner each evening. That's an order. Alyn will fetch you if you forget."
"Hmph," said Alyn, jerking his head in a satisfied nod, overwhelmed by his own importance. Ben scuffed his feet; Jon would have to find some other task for the boy, though his eagerness to serve the lord commander continued to baffle him.
"Yes, my lord." Sam put a finger to his mouth, gnawing at the nail. "Is there- is there any word of—"
"Your sister." Sworn brothers did not have sisters. Yet if Jon could receive news of Arya, why should Samwell not hear of his family? "Queen Talla remains in good health," Jon assured him. How strange it must be, to have a sister for a queen. Though Talla Tarly was unlikely to keep her crown for much longer. "We heard she gave a feast for the poor of Flea Bottom, with jugglers and singers."
"Oh." Sam gnawed at his nail. "Is there any word of Dickon?"
"None," Jon had to tell him.
There was much and more of Lord Randyll Tarly, Hand of the King, but Sam would not want to hear it. Sam would want to hear of Gilly's return; so far as Jon knew, she was still in Sansa's service. But then, she might have died in the long years since they left Dorne; best not to get his hopes up. Even once Sansa returned to the North, there was no reason she should visit the Wall, or bring a wildling maid with her for the sake of a lovelorn black brother.
While Sam dug into a rapidly cooling turnip pie, Jon glanced at the page which he had been copying. Whilst away, he had taken reams of notes, filling every piece of parchment which he had brought with him. This page boasted particularly small writing; Sam must have written it after he realized he would soon run out. The writing in the margins was even smaller, cramped and tiny, with letters omitted so as to fit more in limited space.
"The Citadel probably has a lot of this already," Sam had admitted. "Or we do, buried in the depths of the vaults. But it would be handy, to have it all in one place."
Jon eyed his friend as he ate. In truth, he suspected Sam had made himself far more work than was necessary or useful. At least when he was down here, he wasn't fretting over the wights, or the family who had sent him away.
Instead, he had spent ages fretting over how to sort the vast amounts of knowledge he had gleaned from the wildlings, trying to make sense of his jumbled notes. Every page was labeled with runes and numbers in different inks, to what end Jon could not possibly guess. At least Samwell Tarly seemed to understand it, even if no one else could.
The task he laid before Sam had seemed simple enough. He was to speak to the wildlings, in particular their surviving elders, and learn all they knew of the Others and their wights. Somehow, Sam had decided that meant he must learn the history of every single clan, or as much as the wildlings would share with him.
Without quill and ink, they passed their knowledge on by rote, handing them from father to son, mother to daughter. Skalds and storytellers were not merely trotted out to entertain, but entrusted with passing down stories unchanged over the centuries. Maester Turquin found the idea absurd; skalds were always changing stories to suit their audience.
"Not these skalds," Sam insisted. "Not these stories. It's a sacred trust; they swear vows before the old gods to keep every word the same."
Whatever the truth of the matter was, the wildlings claimed to know their history going back thousands of years, to the dawn of days.
Grisella the beastling claimed her clan lived beyond the Wall before it was built, driving their herds through the valleys of the Frostfangs. Devyn Sealskinner's grandmother claimed their clan once lived on the northern shores of the Shivering Sea, in the Land of Always Winter. Several hundred years ago, the Great Walrus's clan had lived on the southern edges of the Bay of Ice, until they fled the ironborn and the Mormonts rather than be taken as thralls or forced to kneel.
On and on the stories went. As the Land of Always Winter grew, more and more clans had died of cold, or moved south to survive. Though most clans kept to themselves, spreading over the long leagues of empty land in increasing numbers, the choicest lands near the Wall were hotly contested, their fertile soil watered with blood. The winning clans took the land; the losing clans turned to raiding in hopes of gaining the steel and wealth to take back their lost villages.
"Adga All-Seeing says the raiders used to make alliances with the lords of the Gift, and only raid their enemies," Sam had told him. "The gates of the Wall were always open, so wildlings could come south to trade, or find wives. But eventually, as their numbers grew, some began to wonder why they should be content to remain beyond the Wall. There were rich lands further south that the southron petty lords were always fighting each other over, why should they not do the same?"
Jon did not like the sound of that. Nor did he like Sam's rambling about how when Raymun Redbeard came over the Wall, some of the smallfolk of the Gift had joined his cause, eager for glory and plunder. Raymun and his host had slaughtered the rest, of course, those that had not already fled when they heard of his coming.
"My lord?" While Jon was lost in thought, Sam had finished his meal, and looked up at him, with crumbs in the dark beard that clung to his moon-shaped face. "Did you need anything else?"
Jon shook his head, as if that would clear the cobwebs from his mind. "Nothing, no. Unless you know some clever way to disperse the host of wights at our doorstep."
Sam gnawed at a nail. "No, my lord." He hesitated. "There... there would not be so many of them, if we had let Mance Rayder through the Wall."
"Have you lost your wits?" Jon flared. "The man tried to bring down the Wall; he would have doomed the whole Seven Kingdoms, if it meant his folk could flee to safety. Mance Rayder did not come under a peace banner, he came with steel and fire to take what he wanted."
"If he had come under a peace banner," Sam said softly. "Would the Old Bear have listened?"
Jon stared at him. "Of course he would have. We went beyond the Wall to learn why rangers kept vanishing, why dead men were rising in the night."
"Did we?" Sam had worried the nail down to the quick; he switched to a new finger.
"We fortified the Fist to fight Mance Rayder, not to treat with him. Their outriders slew ours, and our outriders killed them, or took them to be questioned sharply. Mormont didn't send out Qhorin Halfhand as an envoy, he sent him as a scout. When the battle was joined on the Fist, it was the Others who slew almost all of us, not the wildlings, just as the Others slew what was left of Rayder's broken host."
"The wildlings killed plenty of us," Jon reminded him. "How many brothers did the Weeper blind? How many did Alfyn Crowkiller kill to earn his name?"
And with that, he left.
Ghost and his tail of guards trotted at Jon's heels as he weaved through the wormwalks, his thoughts uneasy. Even Tormund, who persuaded his fellow chiefs to treat with the Night's Watch, even he boasted of slaying crows in his youth. Once, drunker than Jon had ever seen him, the old whitebeard dared to say it was a matter of defending himself.
"I stole my first wife from the south, y'see," he had slurred. "A princess, aye, from a great stone castle. Tall and fair, she were, with hips to birth fine babes. Har, it were a fight, getting her back over the Wall. Had to have a woods witch give her a draught to stop her squirming, else I'd have dropped her. Later, the crows came a hunting for her, following the trail. Killed every one of 'em, and took her back to the Ruddy Hall. She came to love it, in time. The bees never did better than when she was tending them; the mead was the sweetest you'd ever taste."
Tormund heaved a great sigh. "It was Dryn that killed her, poor lad. The birth left her weak, and when she took sick, that were the end of it."
"Tormund Giantsbane, Tall-talker, Horn-blower, and Breaker of Ice," Jon had said. "What, was Princess-Thief too many titles?"
"Har," Tormund hiccuped. "Nay, lad. I like living. Weren't wise, to paint a target on meself, less someday the princess's kin came looking for vengeance."
Jon imagined Arya slung over some wildling's back, limp and helpless. Yes, he would want vengeance, no matter how much time passed. Tormund might be a good man in a fight, a faithful ally, but he was a raper still. Yet what could Jon do, slay him for a crime committed long before he was born? Dead men could not make amends, though he did not know whether Tormund's defense of the Wall would please the shade of the woman he had once stolen.
Somehow, Jon thought of Ygritte, of her sigh as she lay dying. At least he knew she did not stand among the host of wights beyond the Wall, eager for his blood. If Mance Rayder proposed a parley with the Night's Watch, Ygritte would have denounced him for a fool. She would have rather slain Jeor Mormont than bandy words with him, just as she had slain the old man they found in Queenscrown.
Ygritte had slain his honor too, the moment she vouched for him to Mance Rayder. Jon could hardly be seen to push her away when she crawled into his bedroll that night. She had straddled him like a horse as she undid his laces, his manhood hardening at her touch. After that, Jon never let her ride him. If he was to sully his honor, he should at least have the courage to do it himself, be taken like a blushing maid. Soon enough he found pleasure in the act, and where pleasure led, love had soon followed. He would never know love again, nor the feel of a woman's touch.
"You know nothing, Jon Snow," her shade whispered as he stepped out into the bitter cold.
He pulled his hood over his face, and bent his steps toward King's Tower. Nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Jon did not know why the Others should attack in force on the Fist and at Hardhome, yet only harry Tormund and his folk, and remain content to toy with Stannis Baratheon, rather than slay him and every one of his men. Were they like lords, content to rule over their domain whilst the wights defended them from attack?
Somehow, Jon did not think so. Yet what did the Others want? Even the wildlings could not say, and Sam had asked every single one that he had met. How could you fight an enemy when you knew so little about him?
The thought only troubled him more as the solstice came on, inexorable. While the men busied them with preparations for the celebrations to mark the ending of the year, their lord commander struggled to force himself out of bed each morning. Each day wearied him more than the last; he did not go about his duties so much as trudge through them.
The day before the solstice, Ghost lost patience and shoved Jon out of bed with his snout, his landing thankfully cushioned by the furs in which he slept.
"I don't want to," Jon mumbled at the direwolf.
Pyp had begged that the lord commander attend the last rehearsal of the show the Black Mummers were to put on during the meager feast. It was a dismal prospect, one which became even more dismal a few days ago. Little Ben, excited beyond measure, had accidentally let slip that the play was about the lord commander's triumph at the Nightfort.
"Is it?" Jon had said, too disappointed to be angry.
He should have suspected as much, with how intent the mummers were on secrecy. The lord commander had let them have it, and now he must pay the price.
"Should have made them choose another play," Jon said groggily to an unsympathetic Ghost. Of course, it was far too late for that now.
When the rehearsal ended in the middle of the afternoon, Jon was strongly tempted to change his mind. As usual, Pyp had given himself the lead role. To his consternation, Pyp had somehow contrived to mimic both his lord commander's stiff walk and a passable imitation of his voice. There, however, the resemblance ended.
Lord Snow was a leader of men, a hero of the songs. Lord Snow was dauntless, fearless, able to rise to any challenge so long as he had time for a good long brood. Lord Snow was a man of honor, a man who took his vows so seriously that he did not act until the poor princess played by a beleaguered Satin begged him for aid.
Then, of course, Lord Snow charged forward on his garron. An actual garron, not a false one. The poor beast had been chosen for his diminutive size, which allowed him to fit on the stage, and for his poor eyesight, which left him unperturbed by the sight of a massive dragon made from plaster and a wooden lattice frame that allowed a pair of men to stand underneath and move the bedamned thing.
Whether the stewards or the builders were to blame for that monstrosity, Jon could not be sure. The dragon he slew was not much bigger than a mastiff, and distracted by draining the life from the red priestess. Not that you would know from the play. The prop dragon had to be at least eight feet tall, and Pyp dueled the thing for what seemed like hours, dodging flames made of blue ribbons as he slashed with a blunt tourney blade.
"Tomorrow," Pyp said eagerly, when they were through, "the head is supposed to come off when I make the final slash. Hobb's got bladders full of pig's blood for us to stick inside—"
"Absolutely not," Jon said grimly. "No. This farce is bad enough already."
"Farce, m'lord?" Pyp said. His face reddened, as did the tips of his prominent ears. "What farce?"
"This," Jon said, waving an exasperated hand. "Gods, Pyp, you were there. You know it didn't happen like that, and half a hundred men can say the same! The dragon is far too large, I didn't slay Ser Godry Farring or Ser Richard Horpe in single combat, and I definitely did not climb atop the Wall to deliver a stirring speech to a host of Others who fled screaming, leaving their wights behind!"
The lord commander paused, trying to choose what to bring up next. Much though he despised Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon, neither deserved to be cast as cackling villains. Mad as she was, Melisandre thought her spells would forge a weapon to bring the dawn; she meant to fight the dark, not make it worse. And Stannis had rescued Shireen from the pyre of his own accord before Jon could reach her, his last act to save the daughter he had betrayed—
"The men like it, m'lord," Pyp said stubbornly, tired of waiting for him to speak. "The dragon had to be bigger, for it to be seen from across the hall. And you could have taken them both in single combat, if you weren't half dead from slaying a dragon."
"A puny one," the lord commander told him firmly. "Bent on devouring a fresh kill. Any fool could have cut off its head, I just got there first. That hero on the stage isn't me."
Pyp made a noise like a strangled cat. "Permission to be impudent, m'lord?"
The lord commander glanced about. No one else was in earshot; the mummers were busy with their props and costumes.
"Fine," Jon snapped. "You might as well, given you had the impudence to come up with such a play."
"The hero on stage is you, you utter ass." For once in his life, Pyp's voice was deadly serious. "Does it matter if we altered a few small details? Working on the play has lifted the men's spirits. Alaric did half the work for the dragon's frame by himself, after we promised to carry his cart up from the vault so he could watch. You slew a fucking dragon, Jon, but this isn't about you, not really."
Pyp huffed. "Granted, seeing you endure makes it easier for the rest of us to do the same. But watching you stomp about the yard no matter how bad your melancholy gets is not the stuff of songs."
Jon could only blink at him, appalled. "I don't have melancholy," he said thickly.
"Right," Pyp flared, heedless of Ghost padding silently up behind him. "So sorry, m'lord. I forgot that requiring Dolorous Edd to noisily putter about the room for ages before you manage to pry yourself from your bed is a sign of perfect health and good humor."
Ghost sat on his haunches beside Pyp, his garnet eyes fixed on Jon.
"Traitor," Jon muttered. In answer, the direwolf scratched himself.
"And you didn't even hear the song, m'lord." Pyp grinned, sensing that he was weakening. "You're going to hate it, so I had them leave it out. Every line rhymes with Snow, and it's so catchy Grenn has been humming it for weeks."
Pyp whistled a jaunty little tune, then began singing under his breath.
The winter wind began to blow
began to blow, began to blow,
When out of the night strolled our Lord Snow
our Lord Snow, our Lord Snow
A cloak from his shoulders black did flow
black did flow, black did flow,
His hair as dark as the wings of a crow
wings of a crow, wings of a crow
To the Nightfort I think I'll go
think I'll go, think I'll go,
Said the bold and brave Lord Snow
our Lord Snow, our Lord Snow
"Stop," Jon rasped, resisting the urge to back away.
"Are you sure, m'lord?" Pyp asked, deceptively guileless. "I managed to rhyme aglow and tableau, though the rest of the rest of the verse is so contorted it's cursed hard to say—"
"I believe you," Jon said, unable to resist the smile tugging at his lips. "And I will suffer through it tomorrow, I swear."
That night, the tune was still stuck in his head as he curled up against Ghost and his pillow. Perhaps the solstice on the morrow would not be so bad. Awful as the play might be, it was kindly meant. Judging from Ben and Alyn's raptures of delight when he found them after the rehearsal, the rest of men would enjoy themselves. And the new moon had come and gone without a nightmare of his dead brother, or the debilitating weakness which always followed. His heart almost light, Jon drifted to sleep.
The void engulfed him once more. He floated there, confused, until suddenly a thousand red eyes glared out of the darkness. There was no brother, no plea for aid, only a knife to his gut that sent stardust pouring into the void. A blazing red star consumed it, swelling larger and larger as his heartbeat slowed, until there was a sound like the flutter of wings, and it let him go.
I am dying, Jon realized dimly.
He hovered in the darkness, caught on the threshold which could only be crossed but once. Yet a part of him was in the waking world; he could feel Ghost turn frantic, so frantic he knocked a table to the floor with a crash that brought Dolorous Edd running. When shaking the lord commander by the shoulders proved futile, he dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks as he prayed.
The room seemed to shrink and fade, his bond with Ghost fraying like a thread. Death could not be so bad, not really. His mother was dead too; it would be good, to finally learn who she was. But... what about his men? It did not matter what he wanted, they were depending upon him.
Jon gritted his teeth and reached for the fraying thread, for Ghost. He could not move, he could barely think, but he could hold on, just a little longer—
"Wake!"
Warm lightning flashed through his veins, renewing his strength. Suddenly his brothers and sisters floated beside him, and in their midst was Bran, not dead but full of life.
"I need to wake now too," Bran said, his wan face determined. "Can you help me?"
Five bolts of lightning flashed as they returned a part of their brother's strength, and then Jon Snow was alone again. He could wake now, he knew, for he could feel his heartbeat growing stronger, yet there was some instinct that made him linger, some foreboding that gave him pause. Absurdly, Pyp's ridiculous song echoed through his head as he waited, for what he did not know.
When a searing burst of red light blazed across the sky, he knew.
Jon opened his eyes.
"My brother is alive," he told Dolorous Edd. He knew that now, as surely as he knew that his brother had vanquished his unknown foe. Almost giddy, Jon leaped from the bed, seizing Edd about the shoulders and whirling him in a circle. "He's alive, he's alive!"
"I know, m'lord?" Edd stammered, bewildered. "The King in the North—"
"Not him," Jon said. "Bran!"
Letting go of the old steward, he raced for the window. Air, he needed air, good clean air to fill his lungs so he could whoop with joy. The nails were stuck fast, but he wrenched and yanked until the shutters burst asunder.
Outside was all blackness, save for the Wall glowing faintly beneath the thin sliver of a waxing moon. He did not care that it was the middle of the night; Jon let out a great whoop as if he were a boy again. Let the solstice do its worst, he could take it—
AAhoooo.
Faint as a whisper, a horn sounded in the distance, its call ending almost as soon as it began. How odd. Some drunken fool, no doubt, overeager to begin the solstice celebrations.
Yet though the horn had gone silent, somehow it kept echoing off the Wall, growing ever louder. The wind was growing louder too, louder and louder until the world shuddered with a sound like the cracking of ice on a winter lake.
And before Jon's eyes, a deep blue gash raced up the Wall like lightning, growing wider and wider until it split apart as the wind screamed in triumph.
Holy. Fucking. Shit. Can't wait to see the comments for this one.
Thus ends Part IV: Desert Wolf, save for the epilogue. Hooooooo boy.
NOTES
1) The grippe is influenza. I took some inspiration from the 1557 influenza epidemic, which was caused by a highly infectious strain.
2) To be clear, Jon is suffering from depression. Winter plus wight host plus nightmares = massive strain on his mental health, even before all of his regular duties and responsibilities. That depression has a huge effect on his thinking and behavior.
In canon, 16 year old Jon decides to FLAGRANTLY break his oaths to run off to rescue Arya, and thinks "No man can ever say I made my brothers break their vows. If this is oathbreaking, the crime is mine and mine alone." Bullshit, kiddo. This Jon is older, and far more stressed and broken down. He was absolutely in the right to save Shireen, and initially had confidence in his decision, but depression has a way of making you doubt yourself more and more as time goes on. Oh, everyone else thinks Jon did the right thing? Well, they're lying, or wrong, clearly he's the worst.
3) I've mentioned frumenty, a medieval porridge, before. It's made from barley or wheat, with variations on the liquid used for sweet or savory versions. Think like oatmeal; it's a thick, stick to your ribs sort of dish.
4) "Fun" fact, in the end stages of hypothermia, people sometimes strip naked and try to burrow/dig themselves a shelter.
5) Bear-paws exist in canon; they're just snowshoes. I came up with "skith," which are just skis. Did you know that people have been using skis for over 8,000 years? :D
6) The wildling tradition of oral history in this fic is based on the practices of "a href="https//article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/"the aboriginal peoples of Australia.
"Without using written languages, Australian tribes passed memories of life before, and during, post-glacial shoreline inundations through hundreds of generations as high-fidelity oral history. Some tribes can still point to islands that no longer exist—and provide their original names."
7) Look, I like Tormund's paternal bromance with Jon, but… in canon he's also a raider who endorses stealing women, aka rape. Ugh. "Good" men can do shitty things. The "princess" he stole was Mors Umber's daughter; he flavored his tale by turning the timbers of Last Hearth into a stone castle. "Giantsbane" indeed.
8) It is weirdly tricky to write a deliberately bad song/poem which is bad in the correct way for the intended author (in this case, Pyp and several accomplices).
9) Due to a cursed and inexplicable chain of events, I was listening to "We Like to Party" by the Vengaboys when I finished the last few sentences of the chapter. For that I issue my most sincere apologies xD Look, I wrote 8,782 words in the last 24 hours, things got a little weird. Words are currently gibberish.
