THE CORPORAL

Mud and tree smells blowing in her face from a southerly wind, Lian watched the water of the White Knife glide under the nose of the barge, smoothly and without disturbing the whole craft for the first time since leaving Long Lake. Behind to the north was a few dozen more barges, each loaded with horses, unicorns and warriors.

Obtaining the craft and their crews had been surprisingly easy. All it had taken was one look at Jon Stark, his ever growing direwolf and the Free Folk force at his back for seneschal at 'Lakehold' to agree. A portion of the gold and silver in the Lieutenant's possession greased the palms of the bargemen to make things easier. Their usual cargo was lumber, wool or furs, not mortal enemies, but the money shut them right up. The hardest part of it all had been getting the crawler onto the largest barge.

But it had been worth it. The whole convoy of barges moved down the river effortlessly, carrying the whole force as they shot the rapids, passed by ox trails and villages on the river banks. Before sunset every day, the barges would land and camp would be set.

Every place the river had banks that could land a barge also had a village. None of them were welcoming places. Even if you couldn't have smelled the fear on the air, the locals armed themselves and locked up their houses tighter than a tick's ass. Strict

As the river journey continued, Lian was just glad it only cost gold and silver. They had saved the equivalent of three quarters of the horse food and crawler fuel to drive and ride from the top of Long Lake to Winterfell. The horses, unicorns… even Ghost had been so tired by the time they reached the docks, they had got onto the barges without any trouble and just laid down. Even with rest days, the speed of the march had gotten into their bones.

Without any driving to do, or anything else except stand watch when it was her turn, Lian had taken to trying to read the books they had taken from Castle Black.

It doesn't make any sense, she told herself, If we can speak every language in this world, why can't we read their texts? The thought of being trapped on another world without access to the knowledge needed to survive it drove her on. She had no doubt vital intelligence was lurking in every one of the tomes, and that nobles would look down on her for not being able to read them.

Her plan had been to read books with illustrations. The idea was to mimic how young kids learn to read at first. The big book on the noble houses of Westeros was perfect for the job, with each of the noble families having their own logo both drawn and described in it. But no matter how much Lian examined them, the words refused to untangle. The mess of lines and curves just looked like the gothic script with alien letters.

The only word she learned was 'house', but she wasn't even sure that was the same word as in English or if it meant specifically a noble dynasty.

"What book is that?" said a voice from behind.

Lian turned around, and found a white-furred, red-eyed demon approaching closely. Ghost's snout quickly poked her here and there, nose sniffling as she was inspected closely. Every hair on her body stood on end.

Ghost was already larger than any dog or wolf Lian had ever seen. She hadn't believed the Lieutenant or Sayer when they had described the beast after encountering it. She had seen the direwolf eat its hunted prey by the roadside. His teeth could easily tear her apart. Her hand dropped the book to the deck and reached for the carbine at her back, failing to find it the first time.

"Back Ghost!" called Jon Stark, his black cloak billowing in the southerly wind, "Back!"

The direwolf turned and stared at his master pointing away, whuffed silently to himself and padded off towards the stern of the barge again. Lian watched it closely, ignoring Stark. Ghost went to O'Neill of all people, who smiled widely and scratched it behind the ears. The Sergeant definitely had big dogs as a child.

"Sorry about that, my lady," Jon said, stepping into her vision.

My lady? Lian's mind asked in confusion, before it clicked, Ah, my fake title. It is a bit more frivilous than Elector.

Jon continued. "Ghost has been looking to do that since you let us through at Castle Black again. Something about your smell…" The boy's eyes widened, realising what he was saying could be miscontrued. "I mean, only that you are strange and interesting to him."

Yay, more people treating me like a zoo exhibit or an exotic stripper. Lian regarded the kid with cool eyes. "Interesting to lots of others too, it seems."

Jon looked away quickly, finding something less suspicious to look in the book at her feet. "My apologies my lady, as I was saying… what book is that?"

Lian frowned, bent over and picked up the thing off the deck again. How best to handle this… Bluff with enough truth to make it believable, I suppose. "You tell me. Our translation magic can't seem to understand your writing. Which makes no sense. I've been trying to solve that." She offered the book to him, and he took it.

"When Women Ruled: Ladies of the Aftermath," Jon read aloud from the cover, "Not sure I know this one, my Lady."

"I do. Your friend Tarly recommended it when I asked for something about how women are treated here," Lian replied, "He gave me this and one about morals of the Andals. Six Pointed Star?"

"The Seven-Pointed Star," Jon corrected her, holding up the book, "It is like Sam to know what books to give you… You say you can't read it?"

"No."

"Do you even know the sounds of the letters?"

"No…" Lian paused for a moment, having a good idea. If we can't do it the easy way, we'll do it the hard way. "I don't suppose you'd write out your alphabet for me?" She rummaged in a pocket to produce a small notebook and a ballpoint pen, before offering them to the kid.

Jon looked at the items like they were bugs or something. "Alphabet?"

Rolling her eyes, Lian stepped up beside, and wrote out the English-Latin alphabet, showing both how to use the pen and what she wanted of him. "Every letter in our language, it's called an alphabet. Can you write out the letters of your Common Tongue while telling me the sounds of each?"

Jon had no objection, and took the pen, stopping only for a second to admire how easy it was to write with.

Lian was surprised at the result. The Common alphabet had a few more letters than the English one, but the extra ones replaced English combinations like 'th' and 'ch'. There was a letter at the end which meant 'and' for some reason. Easy compared to Guoyu.

They had no easy song to learn the thing, so Lian spent a good fifteen minutes going over it a few times to get it all in her head. She had a knack for languages, being bilingual since she was a toddler. It wasn't long before she was concocting a means of remembering it; the whole string had a sort of rhythm to it that was probably why they didn't have the song.

"Does that help?" Jon asked after her seventh successful repetition.

"Probably not," Lian admitted, "But thanks anyway."

"Happy to be of assistance," Jon said with a small smile, "I hope you'll be to agree with my brother, Lady Zheng. He's a good man. A better man than me, in some ways. You'll see that and deal fairly with him."

He's a boy like you if the Lord Commander is right, Lian thought, plastering a smile on her face, over her worries about feudal lords fucking everything up. "I'll keep that in mind."

With that, Jon bowed his head as a goodbye and left, moving towards his wolf which by then was thoroughly spoiled by O'Neill. Lian watched him go, thinking it was going to be a pity when she had to shoot up his family home. With a sigh, she returned her attention to the book.

Lian eyes felt blurry as they fell on the cover title. She blinked and rubbed them with the back of her hand. The blur resolved itself, and she looked again. She almost dropped the book, catching herself quickly. "When Women Ruled: Ladies of the Aftermath." The title now appeared to be English, though it was a bit like reading in the dark. It was difficult and hurt her eyeballs somehow. But the difficulty didn't matter. She felt victorious at last, lifting her hands into the air.

"Lian, you're a fucking sorceress!"

The population of the riverport, Oxbow, was nowhere to be seen. The landing areas, piers, thatched wooden houses and warehouses were as quiet as crypts. Carefully empty, Lian knew.

There wasn't a single oceangoing ship in sight either, despite this being the place where goods from the north were transferred to real ships or bigger barges. According to Jon Stark, it was unusual for the place to be without at least one ship present. The people weren't present either. Is a port town still a port town if there are no ships and no people?

Every soul had fled into the twin keeps guarding the settlement, wedding cake looking things made of grey stone. One of the mini-castles stood on the banks of the river south of the town, guarding the route up from the ocean. The other sat on top of a hill inland to the northwest, where roads and trails twisted through the country. Neither really existed to block a 'wildling' force coming down the river from Long Lake.

Lian's previous good mood had soured. She didn't view the lack of resistance as a good omen, because there was no sign of the element of surprise being on her side of the equation. No doubt the ravens or owls or whatever had flown from Lakehold days before, and this was a reaction to the news. If the locals were hiding, then the lords in Winterfell knew the Free Folk were coming from the south-east now.

At least they can't ambush us on the forest road, she thought to herself, looking out over the land.

Open fields stretched for as far as the eye could see, with deep furrows everywhere. There weren't many fences or walls or hedges to separate them out. The land seemed chequered with two types of crops and fields left idle for shaggy big-horned cattle, of which there were a lot. Here and there, like studs nailed onto the land afterwards to keep everything down, there were woods.

Nothing at all like beyond the Wall, or the Gift, or even the Umberlands.

The barges landed on the soft, brown sand where they must have done a thousand times before. The craft carrying Lian and the crawler was first onto solid ground, leaving no real time for the others to enjoy her discovery of how to use their translation magic to read the Common tongue.

The crawler came off the barge more easily than it had climbed onto it, even with the fuel trailer. She drove around town with O'Neill on top with the machinegun, to make sure there wasn't an ambush. She saw a few stubborn people locked up tight in their homes, but no threat.

Meanwhile, the LT dealt with the bargemen. By the time Lian returned, they were shouting at Duquesne as the mounts began to be disembarked. The men suddenly reduced their ire with indecent speed on the approach of the vehicle, narrowed eyes and frowns on all of their faces.

That's right, assholes, Lian smirked to herself as she dismounted, ET is Canadian, and prefers you to be polite. The bargemen didn't like not being able to get back to Long Lake as soon as possible. The ox drivers and their animals that usually pulled the barges upriver again were nowhere to be seen. The complainers soon dispersed, allowing the Sergeant and her access to their superior officer.

"Place is a ghost town, mostly," O'Neill reported, "Reckon we can use the warehouses for the night, sir. It'll be the devil's own work keeping the boys and girls from stealing from the houses though."

Lian snorted. The way O'Neill said 'devil' was barely recognisable.

The man glared at her briefly, misunderstanding her intent. "Volunteering for the job, corporal?"

Lian shook her head. "Not a chance. Only way to stop those crimes would be to shoot them." She glanced over her shoulder. "Besides, if there's anything worth taking in those houses, someone around here didn't do their fucking job before we showed up."

The LT's lips pursed as he thought about that, his eyes scanning the town. "Seems that way. Let our friends poke around if they want. I still want a watch though, Zheng. I don't want anyone shot over stealing, but if they start burning or raping…"

"Then I'll teach them to smoke through new holes in their foreheads, sir."

It was O'Neill's turn to snort. "Oh aren't you full of it today? And in a better mood now that you figured this magic shit out."

Lian lifted her carbine and balanced the butt on her hip. "Figured this magic shit out again, Sergeant. I'm two for two on language sorcery."

O'Neill rolled his eyes and shook his head. "And what'll your next trick be?" He looked to the LT for some response. The man was still thinking, and didn't say anything for a few moments.

"Sergeant, talk to Ygritte, Ryk and Marcach please," Duquesne commanded, "Make sure they're aware of the rules. And another two for them; no taking crap we don't need, and no going anywhere here alone. Got it?"

"Have it by the short and curlies, sir," O'Neill replied, snapping off a salute. He turned and strode straight towards Marcach, who was helping to coax his own unicorn off a barge nearby with a large carrot.

Sarge is in a good mood too, Lian thought, Why does that make me nervous? She stared off at the town, looking for anything she missed before that might be wrong.

"What's wrong, Zheng?" the LT asked, "You sorta just stopped dead there."

Lian exhaled through her teeth, not happy he had noticed. But he had asked the question, so she would have to answer. "Nothing is wrong, so everything is wrong. I keep waiting for the sky to fall on our heads."

"We're making progress," Duquesne sighed, "Sayer's barge idea was great. You're not the only one pulling rabbits out of hats."

Frustration burning her throat, Lian let her carbine hang off its straps again and put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, but progress towards what, sir? A theme park where all our dreams come true, everything is explained and we get to go home? I'll believe it when I see it."

The LT's eyes looked around, checking if anyone else was around. Once they had confirmed there was not, they aimed towards her like a tank's turret. "This isn't the first time you've said something like that. If you keep it up, it's going to affect morale and belief in the mission at critical moments. I'm sure the Sergeant has already spoken to you about this."

O'Neill had, but Lian couldn't shake the feeling.

The dread of being left in this damned world was like stigmata. A place on the brink of zombie apocalypse, where she was nothing but a womb or a convenient hole to screw, lorded over by barely literate tyrants… It ebbed and flowed, sometimes with events and sometimes at random, along with the memories of everyone she had to kill so far… especially those with glowing blue eyes she had to put down twice in one night.

"The Sergeant has talked to me, sir."

The LT nodded to himself. "Here's what's going to happen. You and I are going to have this out, where no one can hear us. Then it stops, Corporal."

Lian opened her mouth to speak, but Duquesne continued.

"We'll chat. I'll take your objections under advisement. For real, not just to say that I have heard you. Then you'll shut up until the point you get to say I told you so. If that ever arrives, I'll admit all fault. Understood?"

Grimacing, Lian nonetheless nodded her head. There was no arguing with officers when they got insistent, even when they were being stupid. And although this was the first time she had seen Duquesne get serious in this way. Is he cracking at last?

"Yes, sir."

"Follow me then. I want a look at that inland fort." The LT began walking through the town, shouting to Sayer to sit up on the crawler while he was away.

Lian followed, not even able to look at his back. This is going to be unpleasant. She quickly fell into her duties, gripping her carbine to cover every nook and cranny she could as they moved. All the better to distract herself for a few minutes, letting the business of keeping safe calm her down.

They made it out of the warehouse area, passing by an empty corral that smelled even worse than the unicorns did, through a clutch of houses, and onto a cart path. The keep came back into view. Guards and townspeople, judging by their clothes, were gawking down from the crenellations with interest, at all three levels of the wedding cake shape.

Curious and looking for any way to delay the coming conversation, Lian raised her carbine and looked through the scope. Not many of the gawkers had weapons, and most of those were crossbows, not something that could strike at range. Though if they decided to sally out, it might be a problem.

Lian sucked in a breath. "We might want to stop here, sir. There's a lot of them, not sure we want to get too close in case they get the idea to rush us."

Duquesne snorted. "I'd almost like to see them try. But no, they're not up there just because they're afraid of us. They're up there because Winterfell told them to be. If they wanted to do us harm, they would've defended the riverbank, put stakes in the river to hole the barges. That kind of thing."

Lian scowled, not sure that was a good theory. Duquesne laughed. "They're not going to overhear us, if that's what you're worried about."

"It wasn't, sir."

"Good."

Lian didn't know where to begin, and didn't look at the Lieutenant. He didn't look at her, leaning against a fence post. They just both stared up at the keep, as the people in it stared down at them. After a while, it began to get awkward. But Lian preferred awkward to the conversation to come.

The LT didn't. "Well, you're the one with the grievance, Corporal," Duquesne said out of nowhere, "Speak your mind. That's an order."

Lian bit her bottom lip. What do I say? She decided to keep it simple.

"We're never getting home, sir."

Duquesne clicked his tongue. "And you're not shy about that opinion… but that is all it is, an opinion."

"Then here's a fact: Our coming here was a freak accident, sir."

"It's also proof there's magic or science that can move people and things between worlds. Odds are that if it can happen by accident, it can happen deliberately."

Lian rubbed her face, feeling like her jaw would lock shut with frustration. The man is as stubborn as a mule.

"Odds are that there is nobody left that knows how to make it happen deliberately. I've talked to people. No one has seen these Children of the Forest for fifty or sixty years north of the Wall, and it wasn't like they were walking around doing meet and greets then. And Jon isn't sure anyone has seen them in the south for centuries!"

The LT briefly turned away and raised his rifle, to look at the keep through his scope. Whatever he thought he saw wasn't there, and he returned his attention to Lian. "And yet every single person we talk to agrees that the one place magic might still be around is the Isle of Faces. An island few people come back from. Not to mention the books we've been shown by Mance and Tarly."

"Just because they write myth or ancient history in a book, that doesn't mean we'll find what they describe when we get there, sir."

"Doesn't mean we'll find nothing either."

Jaw opening and closing wordlessly, Lian turned her head and then her body away from the LT, pacing away from him and then back, trying to avoid saying something she would regret. She couldn't do it.

"How the fuck are you this naive!" she exploded, "Your level of self-deception is off the charts! I understand why O'Neill and Sayer believe it's worth our time. The Sarge has kids, Sayer thinks he'd be okay staying here, but you? You should know better! You should be trying to protect us from this piece of shit world, not pretending we can leave it! Why on Earth are you dragging us across this continent chasing a fantasy?!"

Not finished, Lian had to pause and force air back into her lungs. She almost choked when she saw the look the Lieutenant was giving her in return. His eyes were soft, no anger in them. Pity, she realised, He pities me. Her own anger began to rise again.

"Feel any better to have it out?" he asked, before she could formulate a rebuke.

"No!" Lian said, "I'll feel better when I understand what the hell you're thinking."

The LT nodded. "I'm sorry, Corporal. I knew you were worried about our situation, but I would've done this sooner if I knew you were having this bad a time."

"Fuck you, sir. You should have thought about it. You and the others'll be okay, you've all got cocks between your legs to impress other cock-owners. Ever since I got here, I've been ogled like some piece of exotic meat to screw. And from what Stark, Tarly and other Crows told me, the southern nobles are going to be worse. At least the Free Folk respect a woman with a weapon, if she can use it and pays attention."

The LT glanced away, at least appearing ashamed. Good, you should be ashamed. "Yeah, that's probably not going to get better. Our cover story for you is good, but it won't save you from judgment. Just from being used as a bargaining chip."

"So you understand why you're pissing me off, sir?" Lian continued, "We should be figuring out how to survive in this place, our way, not screwing around with the locals to get right into the middle of a warzone when we are gambling on the result."

"I wish we could."

Lian froze. "What?"

Duquesne stood up straight and sighed. "I wish we could just dismiss the possibility of getting home. It would make things more simple, even if it would break O'Neill and as much as I want to get home for personal reasons. But we don't have the luxury."

The man was insane. "Of course we have that luxury, it's our only option."

"Everything points to magic being somewhere, Corporal."

"So what?"

"So, I have no intention of becoming another campfire tale. There have been stories like that for thousands of years. Lost Roman legions, ghost ships… Hell, even in our own lifetimes, there has been strange shit. That Japanese destroyer that went missing in the Pacific, or the Chinook that just plain disappeared out of the air over Syria. I'm taking any chance at getting back, because we have a duty."

Lian sighed. Here comes the officer-grade guilt trip. "What duty?"

"We're standing on another world, Corporal. And there are human beings here. Do you have any idea what the consequences of that are? For science, politics, religion? Not to mention the existence of magical creatures bent on killing everyone. Our duty is to carry that news back home. Reality isn't what anyone back home thought it was."

"That's what you're risking our lives for, sir, without any idea if it'll pay off? The big picture? Fuck that noise."

"I'm a big picture kind of guy, and being an officer is a big picture kinda job."

"Excuse me if that isn't comforting."

"You joined the Army, Corporal. Your job, our job is to serve the bigger picture. You know what's going on at home, it isn't like we are in the safest occupation there ever was."

Hanging her head, Lian was sure she couldn't counter that. She knew what she had signed up for when she had joined the military. Not just that she might die, but that she might be captured and abused. All of a sudden, the possibilities of the new world did not seem so different to the old one, just… more likely. She was still armed and deadly. That left just one thing.

"What if you're wrong?" she asked, "What if I'm right, there is no magic door home. Do you even have a plan?"

The LT scratched his chin. "Yeah. A skeleton of one or two, at least. Your discovery today made them a little more solid, by the way."

"What are they?"

A grimace. "Not ideas I want the Sergeant to hear until it's necessary."

Lian made a noise from her throat, raised of its own volition. "What makes you think I'd tell the Sergeant?"

A laugh burst from Duquesne's lips, and he tilted his head. The question in all of it was loud and clear. 'Really?' The LT was new to the platoon. O'Neill and she were not. Yeah, okay, I'd tell the Sergeant.

Lian glared back. "Then you must have truly stupid plans."

Duquesne smirked. "I would think so too, but there are precedents."

"What precedents?"

"Nice try, Corporal."

Lian grit her teeth. Clearly she wasn't getting an answer today. But somehow, she felt a little better. Now she knew that Duquesne had at least thought about what happened if the big dream turned out to be a nightmare.

"We done, sir?"

"Just one more thing," Duquesne said, "I apologise, for not having this conversation sooner."

Lian waved that off, however much she appreciated it. "Don't apologise, be better… Sir."

The LT grunted something, glancing up at the keep and the audience before stepping away again. "Let's get out of here. I held up my end of the bargain. You hold up yours. We get to Winterfell, then the Isle, then home. Or make a home if we can't."

Bargain? You mean orders, Lian thought, as she followed him back towards the river. "Yes, sir, I'll shut up about not getting home. You'll stop being an ass. It's balanced, at least."

The LT didn't miss a step about her snarking.

He's not going to stop being an ass at all, Lian thought with a frown, His plans better be good. Make a home fucking how?