In Winterfell's courtyard, Danaerys' dragons lifted off. Still reeling from Jon revealing the truth of his birth, she did not particularly look forward to the battle or to putting down Viserion, but it had to be done. For the sake of all men, and her future kingdom. Jon clung grimly to Rhaegal's back.
As the Dothraki assembled themselves before the main gate, Melisandre rode up to them. After some hesitation, Jorah Mormont relayed her order for the warriors to lift their swords. Grabbing one, she spoke to it in High Valyrian for some time, and tongues of fire sprang to life upon all the blades, a great wave of flame spreading over the ranks of the cavalry.
Melisandre continued back towards the gate, exchanging her final words with Grey Worm, but her smug expression faltered when she saw the Wolf standing at the back of the infantry blocks next to Wun Wun, grinning at her and holding two long poles. He spoke to her in the very same language, and while none in earshot understood they certainly understood the tone of crude mockery. Grabbing the pommel of her saddle to steady herself, she carried on into the castle where the gate was unbarred to let her through.
Jorah gave the order. The Dothraki host moved out, whooping and yelling. From the battlements, the defenders saw the vast blob of flame surged forward, galloping confidently towards the dead. Soldiers went to work on siege engines, lighting boulders and pulling ropes, burning projectiles filling the sky and preceding the cavalry.
But the echoing warcries soon gave way to silence, and worse, screams of terror as the distant pinpoints of light were extinguished. Lone and terrified horses came galloping back, their eyes wide, one bearing Jorah on its back. The charge had failed, and many of the Dothraki were now temporarily among the ranks of the sleeping dead.
The wights approached in a great unbroken mass. The Unsullied showed no fear, shifting into battle formation with long-practiced ease. The Winterfell soldiers, Ironborn and Free Folk did their best to imitate the Essos soldiery, but many were secretly glad to be behind the reassuring bulk of the Wolf's warriors, who had insisted by means of shoving and aggressive glares on being in the frontline, more than thirty spread out before the footsoldiers.
Their armor was of leather and strips of metal, their shields were of wood and only carried axes hastily refitted with dragonglass heads, yet they seemed no more afraid than the Unsullied. In fact they made more noise than the other soldiers, calling out to each other and laughing in response to whatever boast or wager had been made, or banging their weapons against their shields.
As the dead drew closer, the shield-banging became universal among the outlanders. One or two of the warriors started trembling and snarling, eyes fixed on the horizon, bringing their shields to their mouths and biting heavily on the rim. As the dead closed, they could restrain themselves no longer and hurled themselves screaming into the fray, each swipe smashing through wights like an oar through water.
Under the battlement, Theon struggled to keep from trembling as the desiccated horde approached. He had volunteered to battle them, and he was not about to let the name of Greyjoy suffer from his cowardice again, even before barbarians who barely spoke their language.
Sven Swordeater, standing atop the crate, motioned to the two marauders accompanying him, who swung their swords onto the ropes keeping the crate shut. Hurriedly the two men grabbed long poles tipped with a glowing green shard of crystal, staying well away from the door as it fell open.
In the flickering light it was hard to tell what was going on, but there was a definite impression of movement, and suddenly there was no need for the torches anymore.
A hideous, shapeless monstrosity poured out of the cage, multicolored flames flaring into life all over its deformed body. Iridescent skin explored every shade of blue and purple, from the delicate hue of a duck's egg to the liver-color of a corpse swinging from a gibbet. Feathers danced and rippled in hypnotic patterns before being absorbed back into the creature's body or burnt to cinder. Eyes popped up from between fleshy folds, glaring in every direction, then closing again. Scaly yellow legs extruded and retracted, absorbed into the body when they snapped under its weight. Gaping maws and snapping beaks opened like wounds to belch fire in all directions and sealed themselves just as quickly. No part of the creature remained the same for long, it was as changing and mobile as the churning surface of a storm-wracked sea.
With a sharp prod from one of its goaders' greenstone spears, the horrible thing lurched forward into the mass of wights, its scorching breath clearing a path before it as flame issued in sporadic bursts from its sides. Those walkers not burned to cinder instead dissolved into streams of bubbles, gaily-colored butterflies, or puddles of ooze as the ever-changing creature's breath swept over them.
"What the flying fuck is that?!"
Sven heard Theon's anguished cry and placidly answered.
"That? Firewyrm."
Theon's goggle-eyed stare was the only reaction.
"Burn dead, change dead..."
The sorcerer shrugged.
"Important thing is, cold dead stay dead after."
Theon looked on, aghast, not knowing to stare at the monster or its handler. The wights which mindlessly approached the firewyrm were soon no more, and the sorcerer and his bodyguards started prodding the beast in the direction of the army's bulk. Theon, loath to stay away from the clearest threat to the advancing dead and the circle of light it created, followed them.
"Is- Is it going to turn on us?"
"Him? No, not if keep out of way. And knows me."
"It knows you?"
"Was man, once. Olav Bjarnsson. Blessed many time, gods give many gift. But Olav, never sharpest sword in trophy rack, not stay sane long. So, Raven give last gift, turn Olav to firewyrm. Better killer now than when man, yes?"
A single eye had formed at the rear of the creature, staring fixedly at the sorcerer, but was subsumed before Sven could poke it with his staff to keep it moving.
In the sky, the dragons continued to lay waste to the dead hordes, when a massive snowstorm erupted from behind the undead lines. As Jon and Danaerys struggled to stay atop their mounts, they did not see a single mounted White Walker break ranks and gallop towards the battle. The dragons were forced to the ground, the panicky infantry threatening to collapse around the imperturbable phalanxes of the Unsullied, others forming a hasty shieldwall around Wun Wun.
The Walker plowed through the melee, trampling living and dead alike, halting only when a voice cut over the din.
"Well it's about time, ice-for-brains! I tell you to bring your frostbitten arse over here so I can kick it, I expect you there on the same day, not in three months if the winds hold up and the weather's fair! Are you as slow to fight as you are on your horse? I've seen three-legged dogs with arthritis and gout move faster trough molasses!"
Without responding to the Wolf's taunts, the Walker merely pressed his horse onward, straight at the giant. The Wolf, rather than sidestepping, crouched behind his shield, digging the point into the ground. As the charging wight-horse slammed into the braced shield, the Wolf grit his fangs as he punched the horse, the impact jarring the Walker from his mount and sending the Wolf rolling to the ground.
The Wolf recovered faster than his foe and grabbed the Walker, batting aside its weapon with his shield. It screeched at him, but he merely punched it in the mouth, frost forming on the knuckles of his gauntlet, before forcing it face-down in the snow. He grabbed the two poles that were strapped to his back and laid one across the Walker's shoulders, punishing its continued struggling with another punch to the back of the head.
Having lashed both its arms and neck to the first pole with iron chains that glowed orange where they made contact with the Walker's skin and tying a cloth around its eyes and mouth, he set down the second pole along its back, tying its legs, knees and midsection securely together with another set of chains. The Walker struggled and thrashed, but it could not free itself.
The Wolf then set to work, lifting the crucified Walker and slotting the pole to his back like a banner. Sighing with satisfaction, he set his eyes skyward and turned his back to the battle, setting off towards the castle where a great conflagration had lit up the sky for an instant, the trench blazing into a raging inferno to keep the dead at bay.
What remained of the living hurried through the great gate, the Wolf among them, every man too busy with his own survival to pay attention to what he now carried on his back. Had the defenders not been busy readying themselves for the assault, they would have seen a single flickering light far in the distance as the firewyrm and its handlers continued to make their way through the army of the dead.
As the gates shut fast, the dead stopped moving. The Night King's forces, needing no food, no rest or heat, had settled down to starve out the defenders.
Next to the godswood, Bran shut his eyes, his mind warging into the ravens of Winterfell. On his stolen dragon, the Night King started. The dead started moving again, pouring across the burning trench, in such numbers that they eventually extinguished a portion of it.
The dead hurled themselves against the walls, scrabbling were they could find purchase, or allowing themselves to be used as a ladder by the following waves. Even as the dragon brothers reunited in the sky, ripping and clawing at each other, the wights had reached the top of the wall, pushed back with desperate energy by the defenders.
The great gate of Winterfell trembled under the mighty blows of a one-eyed undead giant, splintering at last to allow the horde of cadavers and half-fleshed skeletons to pour in.
The six Crow Brothers, the Wolf's proclaimed elite, were waiting for them. Winterfell pikemen, blazing torches affixed to their weapons, waited behind them looking queasy, whether from fear of the enemy or being too close to the malodorous warriors. Wun Wun stood further still behind, one arm dangling limply, the other holding a length of timber three men would have struggled to lift.
Each Crow Brother was horrifically fat, some almost spherical, with bulging eyes and swollen limbs, covered in bone-white scars that stood out against their pale and greenish skin. Every warrior bore their warband's totem animal somewhere on his gross and bloated body. The largest and fattest, who wielded a rusty scythe and had a dead crow nailed to his head, belched loudly and started walking unhurriedly towards the invaders, each ponderous step sending ripples through the folds of his double chest and triple chin. He and his brothers marched three abreast, plugging the porticullis as efficiently as a cork in a bottle.
The wights advanced, wielding the weapons they had carried in life or balling their withered hands into fists. They were nearly on the Crow Brothers when the toadlike warrior in the middle grinned and swung his scythe, cutting through three wights at a stroke. The weapons of rusted steel did not disrupt the magic keeping them moving, but they were swung with such force as to smash the dead to more manageable chunks.
A risen wildling brought its axe into the bare chest of a Crow Brother. The obese warrior issued a wheezing chuckle. It was not blood that spilled out of the gash but a stream of centipedes that poured forth over the wound and onto the wight, biting and gnawing at what flesh was left on it.
Another Crow Brother covered in pustules guffawed as half a dozen of the dead cut into his flesh, every slash causing a flood of fat to bubble up and close the wound. He farted and smashed his filth-encrusted mace into the wight before him.
As the impetus of the first wave was checked, the wights behind running into those in front, the Winterfell pikemen at the rear lowered their burning spears, the fire spreading swiftly among the desiccated corpses. They could tell the bloated warriors before them were bellowing encouragement at each other, but could not understand their language, only hearing the repeated word "nargl".
But for all their toughness, the Crow Brothers could not stem the tide forever. Two of them fell to the dead, the contents of their putrid guts forming a corrosive puddle that dissolved the feet of the following attackers.
With a roar, the wight-giant smashed through the dead crowding the passage, the force of its charge punting all six Crow Brothers outside. As it straightened up, it grabbed one of the warriors in its grasp, but could not lift it, and so began squeezing, ignoring the other three levering their polarms into its body or Wun Wun's weapon splintering against its skull.
Its victim showed no trace of fear, only laughing as the wight-giant's grip tightened around him, ribs snapping and fat bulging up and overflowing around the closed fist until he finally exploded, his guts spraying over the courtyard and spattering over the pikemen. More than one fell to his knees and vomited, the unbearable smell now overpowering.
The wight-giant continued its rampage, grabbing another of the Crow Brothers and repeating the trick. But its victim was even more resilient than the last, giving the warband time to ram their weapons into the wight-giant's hip, probing and thrusting until they managed to pop a leg out of its joint. Wun Wun moved in, bracing himself with a foot and pulling on the corpse's leg, dried sinews and muscles snapping. The wight-giant collapsed to the ground, but a final squeeze of its hands burst the captive like an overripe pimple, showering pus and bile over the courtyard.
The crippled wight-giant swept around to catch another Crow Brother, none of which could move fast enough to evade its grasp. As it used both hands to pull the warrior's head off its body, Lyanna Mormont strode up, jumping over the outstretched arms. Before the wight-giant could react or even bring her into focus, she had plunged the dragonglass dagger into its remaining eye.
The wight-giant fell instantly, but now the dead could enter the courtyard unopposed, swarming over the defenders and the Crow Brothers. Wun Wun's improvised club swept the ranks of the dead as did the polearms of the Wolf's warriors, until the giant grabbed the corpse and shoved it into the porticullis.
In the deserted halls of Winterfell, Beric Dondarrion and Sandor Clegane progressed slowly, Beric's flaming sword held in front of him like a great torch. A clattering in the distance startled both men, and they approached the door with some trepidation. The door suddenly crashed to the ground to reveal a screaming Arya pinned by a wight.
Almost by reflex, Beric hurled his burning sword at the wight, pushing it away from her. He grabbed Arya, but before he could recover the sword, more wights flooded into the room, one stabbing Beric in the ankle. He hobbled out of the room as best he could, joining Sandor as he smashed his axe into a crowd of wights.
As the trio fled, more wights poured in from all sides, snarling and stabbing. Beric was struck again, and another, louder yell was heard. At an intersection, Beric was blindsided by a wight, and nearly fell as it stabbed at him.
The yell was heard again, this time from much closer. Covered in wounds and rolling mad eyes, one of the Wolf's marauders burst through the other door, holding the remains of a shield and a short-handled hammer so battered it seemed to have been used to cut down trees.
With a frenzied scream, the madman hurled himself at the mass of wights, bulling into one before it could stab Beric in the gut, and smashing in the head of another. Arya pulled Beric after her, Sandor following shortly. She wasted no time talking to the berserker, he was entirely beyond reason or rescue now.
As Arya stumbled through the corridors, half-dragging the wheezing Beric behind her, she tried hard to concentrate. Her hearing had clearly been affected by the fall, she was certain she heard the lunatic bellowing something about corn.
Soon the outlander's roars of rage had stopped, but by then they had reached the great hall, where Beric collapsed as soon as the door was shut. Sandor wasted no time in piling up benches against the door to strengthen the barricade against the dead. Arya tried to look over Beric's wounds, but snapped around on feeling another presence.
Melisandre spared the gasping Beric a glance.
"The Lord of Light brought him back for a purpose. He has another part yet to play."
Sandor looked at both with some confusion, but remained silent. Melisandre now had eyes only for Arya.
"I know you."
"And I know you."
Arya stood up. Sandor watched them both, not understanding their conversation, something about shutting eyes. But as the wights started beating at the door and Arya turned to leave, Melisandre grabbed her by the shouder.
"The man you saw earlier. He is here for the skull of the Night King. He must not take it. Do you understand me?"
Arya looked puzzled, but nodded.
"What you say to the god of death goes for his gods as well."
Arya ran out. The wights' efforts against the door were increasing. Sandor hefted his axe, then dragged the weakly protesting Beric out of his his way, leaving him propped up against the wall. Melisandre crouched next to him and whispered in his ear as Sandor took up his post at the door.
Theon felt his arm weakening, his shoulders and drawing hand screaming in pain. Even with the firewyrm herded into the thickest concentrations of wights, there still seemed to be as many of them standing as at the start of the battle. He was down to his last dragonglass arrowhead, and hesitated to use it on the dead or save it to prevent the sorcerer's betrayal as he'd been warned. He cast a look at the walls now far behind and swarming with corpses, only to see Sven looking intently at him.
In one hand Sven held a tiny glowing green vial which he crushed, letting the liquid within flow into his palm and down his wrist. A sharp, unknown smell assaulted Theon's nostrils. Bringing his arm to his lips, the sorcerer greedily licked up the green ooze... and his eyes suddenly burned with the same multicolored flames as those produced by the firewyrm.
Theon watched in amazement, his bowstring slack. Then Sven pointed at him with a rod of shining metal, speaking in an unknown tongue. Sudden spasms gripped the Ironborn, and he doubled over coughing, trying to raise his bow and avenge himself of the sorcerer's treachery. But even as he fell over, he felt as though he were flying.
A thousand voices sang wondrous things in his ears, and he saw a vision of himself standing at the prow of the Silence, leading a fleet so numerous as to hide the ocean, taller, stronger, and radiating confidence, and he felt more alive than ever before.
The vision changed, and now he saw himself seated upon the Iron Throne itself, dressed in richer clothing than he had ever owned. He was surrounded by adoring courtiers and devoted Ironborn, Danaerys and Sansa at his left hand, Robb Stark and Yara at his right, and before them the cringing and broken forms of Euron Greyjoy, Cersei Lannister and Ramsay Snow begging for his mercy and screaming their repentance for their actions against him. Behind them stood Ned Stark and Balon Greyjoy, endlessly repeating how proud they were of him, the finest of the Greyjoys and a Stark in all but name, the greatest king Westeros had ever known, and the son they had always wanted him to be. He was the king no subject would overthrow, the general whose orders were never disobeyed, the captain whose soldiers followed out of admiration, the brother no man would abandon, the husband no wife would betray.
He turned his head and the vision changed again, now seeing a kraken and a wolf in a thrashing sea, dragging down a struggling lion and a stag. The wolf leaped onto the kraken's body and it became a single creature, fur sprouting over its body, its tentacles arranging themselves into an eight-pointed star.
He could see it now in its marvelous simplicity. He would be the one to conquer the Seven Kingdoms and sit upon the Throne where all others had failed. Already he felt an urge in his mind to mark himself as the ruler history demanded, by wading through lakes of blood such as even the Targaryens had never seen. All would bend the knee to him, and his leadership would bring about a golden age.
Then the vision faded, and Theon stood up in the snows of Winterfell.
But he felt a new man entirely, free of fear and fatigue, as if the essence of the magnificent hero he had seen had remained within him, showing him a possible future that could yet be his, if only he had the will to see it carried out. He felt that his limbs were of greater length and breadth, his mind sharper, he could tell he was taller. His trousers felt strangely tight, and to his mounting shock he realized he was whole again. His vision seemed impaired, until he realized his head was covered in a helmet just as his limbs and torso were covered by metal armor. His newfound strength found no difficulty in moving the extra weight. A circular shield with a snarling face lay at his feet, and he dropped his bow to pick it up.
He looked to Sven, who smirked and pointed at the teeming hordes of the dead. Where moments before he had regarded them with dread, now he saw only opportunity. Each wight he felled would be another stepping stone to the destiny he had been promised.
He stepped forward with confidence, picking up a dead warrior's dragonglass blade, and cleaved a reanimated Wildling's skull in two, impaling another before it had had time to swing its weapon at him, rejoicing in his newfound strength. A wight still bearing the arms of Winterfell stabbed a spear at him, which he sidestepped with contemptuous ease before pushing the walking corpse straight into the firewyrm's path, where it became a small pink flower. In him his emotions were all turned towards his new goal, rage and lust and hope and love combined to make him feel invincible.
He had been called to glory, and would not be found wanting.
Jon fell heavily to the ground. They had done it, the Night King had been knocked off his dragon and made vulnerable, but at great cost. As he ran across the battlefield back to the castle, he saw a lone figure walking nonchalantly towards the vast breach in the walls, a sword pointing at an angle from the scabbard on its back. The Night King had no guards around him. Jon ran faster, this could be the only chance.
Even as the Night King paused and held his arms out horizontally, even as the dead opened blue eyes and stood up, Jon ran faster, but he still was not fast enough. The Night King only gave him a contemptuous glance before turning back to the castle and the godswood where Bran was waiting, one archer short thanks to the Wolf's meddling.
As if to remind Jon of this failure, the next wight to rise was one of the Wolf's warriors, a tall and burly man with more tattoos than exposed skin. By the number of fresh scars, his life had not been sold cheaply, but all that meant was the Night King had even bigger corpses at his disposal. Without a moment's hesitation, Jon thrust his sword through the outlander wight. Nothing would keep him from his duty to his people and his family.
In the crypts of Winterfell, the womenfolk, children, wounded and other courtiers deemed too important to risk on the walls huddled together, shuddering in fear as the reports of the battle above filtered through to them. The high-pitched crying of a small child instantly shushed by its mother sometimes rose above the weeping.
Only one stood fearless among them, indifferent to the despair around him. The Crow Brother dispatched by the Wolf slouched by a tomb, more interested in the squeaking of a rat he alternately petted and squeezed in his wart-covered hand. He was given a wide berth by the others, both because of the smell he exuded even in the subterranean chill and the way flames burned blue when near him.
From within one tomb, something scraped against the stone wall, then a withered hand punched through. The corpse pulled itself out, then another, then a dozen more.
Screams and wailing echoed in the crypt. Several of the less-wounded looked for anything that might serve as a weapon, while others looked for an escape or pulled back further behind the tombs.
Then there was a heavy sigh, as a man might expel when confronted with an uninteresting but necessary duty. The Crow Brother put his rat back in a pouch of moldy leather, then picked up his rust-eaten halberd. He walked with thudding steps towards the dead, the weapon dragging behind him in a shower of sparks.
As the first wight stood up, the Crow Brother's weapon swung upwards and over his head, crashing down on the wight's skull, shattering it. The headless corpse continued forward, but the warrior's bulk made him unstoppable even at slow speeds and it simply bounced off his prominent gut, the impact forcing a loud burp from his mouth.
Though the wights piled up around him, the Crow Brother showed no emotion save boredom, and as those buried with their weapons struck at him, seemed to feel no pain either. Pulling his halberd from the chest of a long-dead Stark, he backed himself against a wall and tirelessly swung his weapon again and again, smashing the dead into still-moving but more manageable pieces.
Behind a tomb, Sansa and Tyrion pulled out their dragonglass daggers and exchanged a long, meaningful look. They said no words, but came to a silent agreement. Tyrion crawled on hands and knees around the tomb, suppressing a gasp when he saw the Crow Brother beset by a half-circle of wights but still resisting despite more than a dozen horrific wounds, his own intestines dangling to the floor through a gap in his stomach. What manner of monsters did the Wolf have access to?
Standing up, Tyrion dashed to the first group of women and children he saw, motioning them to flee the other way. He hesitated for a moment, then ran up to the battle and jammed his dagger into the top half of a bisected wight, ending its attempts to stab the Crow Brother's ankles. Sansa had followed him, backstabbing a wight who had jammed a spear into the warrior's exposed guts.
But the respite was all too brief, and though Tyrion and Sansa did what they could dispatch the severed limbs and torsos around the Crow Brother, they too fell back. Sansa gave the inhuman warrior a last glance, but he did not seem aware of their departure, his rat squeaking shrilly as it perched on his bald skull.
In the godswood, Bran sat waiting, staring at nothing. His wheeled chair was out in the open, with no effort made to hide it or to allow it to be hauled to safety. He heard a roar from far off, muffled by distance, and with the crack of falling masonry, the sound was suddenly louder, accompanied as it was by panicked yelling. The Ironborn left to guard him had run to the source of the noise, eager to do their duty.
Yet their screams too faded away. Soon enough, only footsteps were heard crunching in the snow. A line of blue appeared in the mist, resolving itself into a succession of icy points. The White Walkers approached until they were just visible in the mist, and stopped.
A lone figure approached the godswood. Neither it nor Bran made a sound, and the young Stark turned his head to look up into the face of the enemy of all men.
The Night King said nothing, his face immobile, his eyes fixed on Bran. Their stares seemed to last an eternity. Finally his hand moved upwards.
"Well, well. Most wives are content with giving their husbands a single pair of horns, yours must take lovers the way an oven takes loaves, and with the same frequency!"
The Night King's expression of frozen contempt did not change, but its gaze did shift from Bran to the Wolf, who strolled out from behind the godswood as casually as if he were discussing the weather. He was a picture of barbaric splendor, the chained skulls clinking noisily against each other and his armor, his left side covered by an immense metal shield engraved with runes, his steel-shod boots crunching in the snow. On the pole strapped to his back, the crucified Walker was struggling to free itself, cloth still wrapped around its eyes and mouth.
"Then again, I can understand her. She must desperately be searching for a cock that's stiff for reasons unrelated to the cold."
The Night King's eyelid twitched, while the Wolf's mocking tone echoed around the courtyard. The Walkers behind the Night King were immobile, staring as one at the Wolf circled around, gesturing at the Walker strapped to his back.
"I hope you don't mind that I invited one of your little catamites? I had thought to practice on him, but then I thought I wouldn't want to make the fight even easier for myself. The master promises to be as disappointing as the servants."
The Wolf stopped moving, but continued speaking in the silence.
"So I hear your kind cannot be harmed by mundane iron, and your blades don't even need to be sharp to shatter whatever they strike."
"The arms and armor of a coward, in fact, who so fears pain that he breaks his enemies' weapons before they can hurt him."
Slapping the swordbelt at his waist, the Wolf went on.
"Now, arsemouth, I have here a sword forged by the bull-worshiping midgets of the Black Fortress, infused with warpstone, inlaid with spells of ruin, and a daemon very unwillingly bound within. Cost me a full season's plunder in both thralls and gold. Shall we see if it can pierce that leathery hide of yours? It will do the world a service in any case, it can't be good for young men's confidence to see you and be reminded their balls will someday look like your face!"
Still saying nothing, the Night King pulled a hand up over its shoulder to draw its blade of ice. Grinning, the Wolf pulled out his sword. Another scream filled the air, shaking the very branches of the godswood, and the flickering flames cast strange shadows and lights over the giant's face. The Wolf seemed to be waiting for a reply, but faced with the Night King's silence he simply shrugged and went on.
"Nothing? I'd threaten to cut out your tongue, but I can see you are so slow of wit that it would be useless to do so. Assuming, of course, that you even had a tongue to remove, and that it didn't snap off inside one of your slave's arseholes not long before your cock suffered the same fate."
The two inhuman monsters stared at each other. The Wolf's gaze flickered to Bran for a second.
"Get the cripple out of the way, will you, cold-blood? I can tell you're already not much of a fighter, but maybe you can be trusted to deal with a boy who barely looks old enough to shave, two limbs short and without even a weapon."
The Night King struck without warning, a lunge that carried him away from Bran's chair, sword swinging down. But the Wolf was expecting the blow, and the Night King's sword struck the unholy blade in a clash of ice on fire.
"Missed! Don't tell me you can't see in the dark? Too ugly to rule by day, too blind to fight at night, your story truly is a tragedy like no other!"
The Wolf's shield swung up, the serrated edge knocking against the Night King's horned skull. But the Night King turned his head and pushed away, the Wolf following with a thrust that clipped one of its head spikes. It fell to the snowy ground, steaming.
"One down, two dozen to go! Hold still, you bald bastard of a hedgepig and a yhetee, I'd like for this little trimming session to be over before spring!"
With another thrust, the Wolf's sword nearly struck the Night King in the shoulder, but it turned out of the way. The Night King grabbed the ardent blade in one hand, the flames greedily surrounding it, but the frozen skin remained unblistered and uncharred. The burning sword howled in frustration as the Night King raised his own blade and smashed it into the Wolf's shield. But the shield held fast. Instead of shattering, the shifting metal of the rune-carved shield seemed to drink the magic of the icy sword.
The Wolf's eyes went to the Night King's hand before locking gazes with his foe.
"Any other tricks you'd like to get out of the way? Now fight like you mean it, I've seen sons slap their mothers with more ferocity!"
"Unless you'd rather have it said that the Night King is a little bitch who pisses his breeches at the idea of fighting?"
Pulling back, the Night King aimed a slash at the Wolf's unarmored head, but he parried it with his own blade before he rammed his shield into his foe's side, driving him back towards the godswood.
The Night King stepped back, but the Wolf lashed out, an upwards stroke that slashed the Night King from chin to cheek with a triumphant shout. But the blue-white flesh did not char around the wound, and the Wolf snarled bitterly as he saw his boast of warpfire surpassing dragon's breath had been proven false.
Again and again he struck but none of his ox-killing blows could cleave through the Night King's limbs, again and again the Night King thrust and slashed but his sword was ever met by the Wolf's shield. The Walker strapped to the Wolf's back groaned and shook in impotent fury, but could not aid its master.
Taking a step back, the Night King thrust out before the Wolf could recover from a mighty blow, smashing a skull into smithereens. The Wolf growled and leaped forward, but again the Night King turned to the side, the Wolf's momentum carrying him past his foe, and only by stumbling into a roll did he prevent the Night King's sword from separating his head from his shoulders. The blade of ice cleaved through metal and necrotic flesh, the Walker letting out a muffled howl as its leg was cut off mid-thigh. As the Wolf stood back up, his face and beard spattered with snow from the fall, his boot stamped down on the severed leg with a loud crack.
"I don't know what the Father of Plagues will want with you. A scarecrow for his fields maybe? You do have the required skills: moving slower than a half-dead snail and being ugly enough to spoil milk by looking at it!"
Again their swords clashed. The two fighters strained at each other in another fruitless push under the godswood, the Wolf bellowing insults that the Night King did not or could not answer, and it was at that moment that Arya dropped from the godswood's branches with a piercing scream.
The Night King suddenly pivoted, causing the Wolf to stumble past him with an oath, and grabbed the would-be assassin by the arm and throat in midair, just before she could stab him with a dragonglass dagger. She let go of the weapon, and before the Night King could react, had snapped it up in her other hand, and would have thrust it into the Night King's chest if the Wolf had not bulled into the Night King from behind, dropping Arya to the ground.
"What's the matter, you creaking old mummy, forgot what you were doing?! Was losing your strength in your dotage not enough, has what's left of your mind deserted you as well!?"
The Night King stumbled two steps from the unexpected attack and turned again to keep the Wolf in his sight. Arya rolled on the ground between the fighters' feet, sitting up just as the Night King's sword slashed downwards and missed her by a hairsbreadth. And then she saw it, thrust into the Wolf's belt amid all the swords he carried: the hilt of the Valyrian steel dagger she'd given him to execute Littlefinger.
As the Wolf and the Night King lunged for each other, Arya sprang up. In a single movement, she rolled up, one hand catching on the Wolf's swordbelt and swinging her to the side, the other hand grasping the handle of her dagger and sliding it out of its sheath. She released the belt, momentum sending her rolling, but she turned the roll into a crouch, creeping closer to the fighters, who had bounced off each other again.
The Wolf stood tall, inhaling deeply as he held his sword aloft, his eyes fixed on the Night King.
"FOR CHAAAAOOOOOOSSSSSSS!"
As the Wolf jumped forward again, sword held high, Arya broke into a run. She leaped and rammed the Valyrian blade into the Night King's chest, just as the Wolf's sword came crashing down on the horned head.
In the blink of an eye, the Night King disintegrated. Fragments of ice rained to the ground, and nothing was left of the monster who had filled the nightmares of the Northeners. Arya gaped in silence, the Wolf swearing as the shattering Walker above him showered him in ice shards.
"Nurgle's fistules, what the hell was that?!"
The Wolf's head snapped left and right, as if the Night King had played some trick on him. The ground ahead was covered as after a hailstorm as the White Walkers exploded before their eyes. A roar from the courtyard snapped him out of his state, and he rushed off after the sound.
Arya watched him go. He did not seem to have noticed her presence. As she went to her brother still staring into nothingness, she grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, but a thought occurred to her.
"Bran?"
"Did you know that would happen?"
Bran turned his head towards her, but did not answer.
Jon ducked as Viserion bellowed in fury. He scrambled back behind a stone wall. Though there was nothing he could do, though it was folly to do anything but run away, he was all that stood against this twisted beast and his foster siblings. His Stark blood did not lie. He stood up, sword drawn and yelled defiance at the undead monster. Viserion lunged forward, maw gaping-
-and fell.
Jon stared in utter shock as the dragon simply collapsed as if struck by an invisible hammer the size of a building.
"What in the six hells of Slaanesh is THIS?! Where's the dragon!?"
Jon turned around. The Wolf headed for Jon as soon as he saw him, grabbing him by the back of his cloak and lifting him to his eye level.
"You! What happened? Where's the dragon!?"
"Where's the dragon!?"
Before Jon could even answer, the Wolf started shaking him as a lion would worry at a deer's throat, punctuating each jerk of his arm with a roar of fury. The giant's rage-congestioned face would have terrified lesser men far more than Viserion's, his teeth just as sharp and his breath even worse.
"WHERE-"
"IS-"
"-THE-"
"-SPAWN-"
"-SUCKING-"
"DRAG-oh."
The Wolf let go of Jon, having finally noticed Viserion's corpse. He looked at it for some time, before suddenly striding over to it and punching it in the eye. But there was no response. The Night King's foul magics had died along with the caster.
The Wolf turned back to Jon, who was still struggling to catch his breath, jerking his head at the corpse.
"You kill it?"
It was some time before the half-strangled Jon could answer.
"N-no. He was about to eat me, then he just- collapsed. I don't know what-"
"Gods in the Warp, what do you know?"
The Wolf looked around the battlefield in the rising dawn. Everywhere dazed soldiers were picking themselves up, surrounded by the crushed debris of what had once been an unstoppable army, not knowing what to do or where to go. Only the two surviving Crow Brothers at the main gate seemed unfazed, Wun Wun grabbing the wight-giant's skull as if to identify it.
Taking a deep breath, the Wolf took a stone from the low wall that had been Jon's refuge. Then, slowly and methodically, he squeezed it between the palms of his gauntleted hands until the stone shattered, not stopping until powder and gravel rained down. He expelled a great, controlled sigh.
"Two seasons' worth of plunder for the men, one for the sword, seven hundred and seventy-seven corpses to hire seven Crow Brothers, all for less than a sea-chest's fill of gold and trinkets, and not even a skull to show for it."
"A fine waste of time this night was. I'll feed that bastard Sven his own spleen before he whimpers his excuses at me."
Turning on his heel, the Wolf stormed off to the gate, bellowing at his men in his native tongue. Jon watched him go, casting a nervous look at the broken stone. The Night King was dead, that much was obvious, but what had happened to make the Wolf so infuriated at his victory?
He was still standing there when Arya came from the godswood, pushing Bran's chair. She still didn't understand why Melisandre had impressed on her how important it was that the Wolf not be able to claim the Night King's skull, but the Red Woman's warning had certainly been heeded.
In the crypts, Tyrion and Sansa looked in amazement as the wights collapsed and stayed unmoving, the blue glow in their eyes faded. Scarcely daring to believe their eyes, they wandered cautiously through the crypts, but everywhere they looked they saw corpses remain in their natural state.
A squeaking caught their attention. The Crow Brother's corpse, missing an arm, his stomach split from groin to chest, his jaw dangling from one side, was sitting against the wall of the crypt, surrounded by a thick carpet of wights and severed limbs in various stages of decay. His pet rat was nibbling on an exposed muscle near his ruined shoulder, looking up at Sansa and Tyrion before returning to its grisly meal.
Without the slightest hesitation, moving as of one mind, Tyrion grabbed the rat, allowing Sansa to stab it. They returned to the surface in silence.
From a small door leading to the great hall, Sandor emerged, holding up Beric with one arm over his shoulder. Melisandre followed without a word.
"Just- need to get patched up. Rest. I'll live."
Sandor looked doubtful, but he hauled Beric in the direction of the castle's infirmary.
"Wait..."
Melisandre moved around to pair to look Beric in the eye.
"You'll remember?"
"I will."
Nodding once, the Red Woman turned to head outside the castle. Davos Seaworth followed her, dagger in hand.
Some minutes later, he came back, his dagger clean, his face drawn.
In the aftermath of the battle, one man was not found among the dead. Sansa clutched a small emblem of the Stark direwolf in her hand.
If Theon was neither among the living or the dead, and she knew he would not have run from this battle, then he could only be among the risen dead, turned into a foul puppet by the White Walkers' sorcery and then set ablaze while crossing the trench or by a defender's torch.
She looked at the emblem in her hand. She would have liked to lay it on his body, to assure his spirit that she had forgiven him and that he was a Stark in mind if not by blood. She cursed the Wolf for having reassigned him to an anonymous death on the frontlines, rather than a redeeming sacrifice in defense of Bran.
The Wolf and what was left of his crew had left without warning, to no one's grief. In the queen's private council, even Jon and Arya's accounts of what had happened combined with what insight the Lannisters could give of his motives could make little sense of his actions, and Arya was deservedly toasted as the hero who had saved Westeros.
With the threat to all life gone, Danaerys and what remained of her court could now finally focus on her true goal: the Iron Throne.