Sasuke let the last wildling fall to the ground, his neck twisted at an impossible angle. Silence filled the clearing. Only the sounds of the wind and the nervous sniffling of the children remained.
He sighed as he looked at them, most of them shaking in fear on the ground. This was the part he dredged more than any fight. Naruto would know exactly what to say to get them in a better mood. He'd probably make some stupid joke at his own expense and that would somehow get the children to love him.
Could he perhaps do the same?
He nodded to himself. Everything Naruto could do, Sasuke could do better. That was a certainty he carried throughout his life ever since he met the blond idiot in the Academy. Surely, he could handle a few brats better than him.
"Are you a brother of the Night's Watch?" the girl with the bloody nose asked.
Sasuke frowned. Tork's memories provided some context for him to know what that meant. An ancient order of men dressed in black that patrolled an impossibly tall wall of ice that separated the lands beyond that wall from the southern kingdoms.
Suffice to say that the wildling he got the knowledge from was not a fan of this Night's Watch. Everyone of the free folk hated the crows, as they were called here, with a passion that would put the rivalry between the Leaf and the Stone village to shame.
"No," he replied. He thought for a moment on what to say, something that could come straight out of Naruto's mouth and break the ice. An obvious idea came to mind.
Forcing a smile onto his face, he struck a confident pose and gave them a thumbs up. "I'm the village idiot who's gonna be the Hokage, believe it!"
His voice came out gruff and low instead of excitable like he wanted, and the girl's mouth gaped open. The strange smile he had forced onto his face faded as he realized what he'd said.
He wanted to slap himself. That's not what Naruto actually said most of the time, just what Sasuke thought he heard given how stupid it was. He let out a sigh. Screw it. If there's one thing Naruto was better than him, it was being a lovable idiot.
He couldn't compete in that arena, nor did he want to. Five seconds of trying to portray a smiley, cheerful Naruto had been more tiring than fighting Madara and Kaguya combined.
What was it that Nara guy used to say?
Troublesome. Yes, too troublesome.
xxx
Dacey POV
She watched stupefied as the man's face morphed back into a blank mask. Somehow, that was more comforting than whatever kind of expression he had tried to put on. That had been the strangest, most strained smile she had ever seen.
"What's a Ho-ka-ge?" the boy next to her asked. The other children seemed curious as well. They were looking at the stranger like he was an actor in a mummer's play.
The man let out a sigh and relaxed from the weird pose he had been holding. "Forget it," he murmured. "Can you all walk?"
The kids nodded, and Dacey nodded with them. Her nose was throbbing and her toe fingers felt stiff and cold, but she could walk. She was a Mormont of Bear Island. Cold was just a fact of life for her.
"Thank you," Tilda said, slowly getting up from the ground. She was holding on tightly to the man's cloak, her eyes looking at him the way Dacey had seen some of the maids looking at the guards. "Thank you for saving us, m'lord, truly."
"Hn," the man said, barely looking at the young woman.
"There's one more," Dacey spoke up. The man turned to her, black eyes sharp and intense. She swallowed, but managed to point behind her toward the forest. "He was leading them. He's got bones tied to his chest and calls himself Lant. He went that way with his dogs to scout ahead."
The man turned the way she pointed. His eyes seemed to fix on a point in the distance for several seconds, then he shrugged. "Doesn't matter," he said, his voice louder than before. "If he comes, he'll die like them."
Dacey nodded. Somehow, she didn't doubt that at all. Despite the pain radiating from her face, she pushed herself to her feet and readied herself to keep going.
Without waiting for them, the men turned and started to walk south, only stopping to grab the strange knife he'd first thrown at Karl from the ground.
The kids clambered up to their feet and started shuffling after him, and Dacey quickly followed after, her excitement growing. She had so many questions to ask him!
xxx
The man who called himself Lord of Bones watched from a distance as the strange man left with the stolen kids from Bear Island.
Despite the seeping cold that set his teeth chattering, a bead of sweat rolled down from the back of his neck all the way to his lower back. The man had looked at him. Somehow, through hundreds of yards and countless trees, the man had stared straight at him.
Lant, for that was his real name despite what he would like to be called, hadn't seen the fighting go down. By the time he was on his way back and close enough to see anything, Skair was already kneeling on the ground begging for his life.
He spat on the snow. Skair had been a good follower, but his soul was that of a flea's, weak and craven. He was still a good fighter, as was Mara and Daker with his bow. How had that man killed all of them so quickly?
Some kind of southron knight, perhaps. Or maybe there had been archers hidden in the trees that Lant hadn't seen.
He nodded to himself. Yes, that made sense. And the man was definitely a kneeler, he knew that for sure. The dead bodies of his raiding band were left behind in the clearing for the animals to pick through. He hadn't looted anything from the bodies, nor had he burned them before leaving.
Irritation flared in his chest. The man would pay for that. Had to pay for that. Giving the girl and the children to the clan chief would allow Lant to leave and form his own clan with Ygon's blessing.
Then, only then, the free folk would rightfully know him as the Lord of Bones.
Sensing his anger, his dogs let out a low whine from where they sat beside him. He wasn't a filthy warg, but a man's connection to his animals went beyond the sorcery of the skinchangers.
He shushed them, bending down to pet one of them in the head. Then he seized the animal by the scruff of the neck and pushed him down into the snow. The dog growled, a pitiful thing, and Lant growled back until the dog relented.
After a few seconds of that, he let the dog go and started petting it again. He felt better already.
A twisted grin pulled at his lips. Didn't matter if the man was a kneeler or not. He needed only to tell Ygon Oldfather that Lant's band had been set upon by the Night's Watch, and the clan chief would be more than glad to mount a hunting party.
The Lord of Bones would have his revenge.
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