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POV: Arthur Snow
Location: Stony Shore
Dagmer Black-Tide bled from the mouth as the snow swallowed him.
His ribs were broken—crushed inward by Garron's hammer. Arthur knelt beside him, Reaper still unsheathed.
The old Ironborn's one eye fluttered open. Not with fear. Not with shame.
With fury.
"They left me," he rasped. "Hrok. The dogs. Said the south would open... if I stayed behind."
Arthur's brows furrowed. "Why Winterfell?"
Dagmer coughed blood and foam, laughed in bitter gurgles.
"Not my war anymore. Not theirs, either. This... this came in dreams. From the deep. The Drowned God said the wolf castle would fall in ice and screams."
Arthur's knuckles whitened.
"When?"
"Now."
Dagmer grinned, teeth red and broken.
"You think this was about the coast? The salt was just the start." His eyes rolled back. "You'll drown in the storm you tried to stop."
Arthur stood. "You're finished."
Dagmer's head lolled back, but his voice remained sharp:
"The Drowned God will drown you, demon!"
He died cursing—and laughing.
Arthur didn't wait.
He vanished.
Reaper sheathed. Cloak drawn.
Arthur focused.
He exhaled once—long and slow. His foot shifted. His qi surged.
Not outward—but inward. Controlled. Harnessed. His body aligned with breath and pressure points.
Qi Step.
One blink—and he was gone.
The path blurred behind him as he sprinted across the frozen plains. Snow cracked and reformed under each stride. Trees blurred past. The very wind parted around him like he was born of it.
To any watching—he didn't run.
He glided.
POV: Benjen Stark – Hours Earlier
Location: Winterfell
Benjen jolted upright in bed.
Sweat soaked his nightshirt, and his mouth tasted like ash.
He had dreamed of a crow—but it wasn't a bird.
It wore a man's face.
And it watched him.
The weirwood outside his window twisted in the wind, branches like hands scratching at the stone.
He stumbled to the basin, splashed water on his face—and saw his reflection blink back a moment too late.
POV: No One. The Forest Speaks in Silence.
Location: Wolfsgrasp Wood, Half a League from Winterfell
They thought they moved unseen.
One hundred wildlings—no longer the ragged clans of the frostfangs, but something harder, angrier. War-touched. Some bore shields looted from drowned men, others had dragonglass tucked into belt loops like ritual knives. Their leader wore a wolf's skull over his face and spoke of fire beneath the ice.
Their goal was simple: breach Winterfell's eastern rise under cover of night. Burn the ravens. Slaughter quietly. Let the rest come later.
They didn't know Arthur stood in their path.
He stepped from the trees without sound.
A single man.
Black cloak. Sword sheathed.
Barehanded.
The first wildling laughed. "Is he lost?"
The second raised a spear.
The third never saw death coming.
Arthur's palm struck the nearest man's chest. The impact echoed like a war drum. The body crumpled inward, spine shattered.
The second attacker raised a blade. Arthur twisted beneath the swing, swept his leg low, and broke the man's neck with a single heel-drop.
He moved like ice breaking beneath a river—fluid, unstoppable.
Five came at once.
Reaper was drawn.
One swing.
Five fell—limbs limp, blood barely catching up to the motion.
They tried to surround him. Arrows were loosed.
Arthur exhaled.
His qi expanded outward like a storm's breath, distorting air and thought. The arrows bent mid-flight—missed him entirely.
He moved.
Not fast. Not frantic.
Precise.
Every cut was a lesson. Every strike, final.
One wildling charged with a flaming axe. Arthur caught it with two fingers, redirected the force into a spin, and shattered the man's jaw with the blunt end.
Another screamed something in the old tongue.
Arthur said nothing. He had no sermon. Just motion.
Qi gathered in his center. He stepped, vanished—reappeared behind ten wildlings.
They fell in unison.
Blood pooled. Mist rose.
Some ran.
Arthur let them.
Then changed his mind.
He touched his fingers to the ground.
A ripple of qi swept through the forest floor like thunder crawling beneath soil. Trees groaned. The fleeing wildlings seized—muscles locking mid-sprint—and collapsed. Not dead. But finished.
The last one stood with two swords, screaming defiance, blood and spit on his lips.
Arthur sheathed Reaper.
Then he walked.
The wildling screamed and swung with both blades.
Neither touched him.
Arthur flowed around the strikes, ducked the final thrust, and struck once.
The man didn't fall—he simply stopped being.
POV: Northern Scout - Tolen of Flint
Tolen had been sent ahead with two others. They were to sweep the Wolfsgrasp trails, looking for signs of raiders.
What they found… was a graveyard of warriors.
Bodies—over a hundred—lay still beneath the trees. No fire had been lit. No crows dared land.
Some had no visible wounds. Others were cleaved in two. All were dead.
No wolves touched them. No scavengers dared.
At the center, a single black imprint in the frost—the place where someone had stood.
One scout whispered, "What did this?"
Another muttered, "Not a what."
Tolen stepped forward slowly, eyes fixed on the epicenter. Then fell to one knee.
"Arthur was here."
Behind him, the youngest guard in the party—a boy of sixteen—stared wide-eyed at the stillness.
Then he turned aside and threw up into the snow.
No one mocked him.
Location: Winterfell – Lord Rickard Stark's Solar
Arthur stood before Lord Rickard, snow still melting on his shoulders.
He did not kneel.
He placed a blood-marked scrap of wildling cloth on the table.
"They're dealt with," he said simply.
Rickard looked at the cloth. Then at Arthur.
"And the cost?"
"None for us."
Rickard nodded slowly, but behind his eyes, something else stirred.
Respect. And fear.
Maester Walys – Entry from the Winterfell Ledger
Year: 281 AC, Third Moon of the Wolf's Turn
"Arthur Snow arrived before even the raven reached Winterfell.
He fought like wind made flesh. The courtyard cracked beneath his steps.
The others followed—but he stood alone first.
They call him the Pale Reaper. The Demon of the North.
I watched men speak less in his presence—not out of awe...
...but out of knowing.
This was a different kind of man."