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Year 300 AC
Castle Black, The Wall
The wind beyond the Wall grows colder each passing day, each gust carrying the scent of pine resin and something else—fear-sweat from the men trudging behind him. Ghost padded silently at his side, the direwolf's massive paws leaving prints that quickly filled with fresh snow. The gate loomed behind them now, its iron teeth raised like the maw of some ancient beast, and ahead stretched the haunted forest, dark and waiting.
"Why're we bein' led out here?" The whisper came from somewhere in the crowd, meant to be quiet but carrying in the brittle air. "Ain't no sense in it."
"Why not just hang 'em in the yard like proper?" Another voice, this one belonging to one of Stannis's men by the southern accent. "What's he playing at?"
Jon kept walking, his boots crunching through the crust of old snow. Let them wonder. Let them whisper. They'd understand soon enough.
"You reckon he'll change again? Turn into that... thing?" This from a Northern man, his voice caught between awe and terror.
"Why ain't we ridin' south?" A Baratheon man—one of the zealots by the sound of him. "Got Boltons to fight, don't we? What's the point of—"
The voices died as they crested a small rise. There, in a clearing just visible through the skeletal trees, stood a rough wooden platform. Seven men waited upon it, nooses already around their necks, their hands bound behind them. Edd had done his work well.
The smell hit Jon then—piss and shit and that particular stench of terror that no amount of cold could mask. Most of the condemned shook violently, whether from cold or fear he couldn't say. Probably both. Wick Whittlestick had tears frozen to his cheeks. Mallor Shade muttered prayers to gods who wouldn't listen. But Bowen Marsh stood still as stone, his pouchy face set in grim resignation.
Jon climbed the platform steps, each board groaning under his weight. Ghost remained below, red eyes fixed on the condemned men. The crowd pressed closer, a large semicircle of black cloaks and furs and southern steel. Free Folk, Night's Watch, Northmen and Baratheon men all mingled together, their differences momentarily forgotten in shared confusion.
He turned to face them, the wind whipping his cloak behind him. "You wonder why we're here." His voice carried across the clearing, steady and sure. "You wonder why these men heads aren't on a block in Castle Black. You wonder why we look north when our enemies wait south."
A few nods, more shuffling feet.
"Look around you." Jon gestured to the mixed crowd. "Free Folk stand beside sworn brothers. Northmen beside southrons. Queen's men beside those who bent no knee. Each group hating the others, fearing the others, plotting against the others." He paused, letting the words sink in. "Soon, you'll see how little any of that matters."
He turned to the condemned men. "You who broke your vows, who let fear and hatred guide your hands—have you any last words?"
Wick Whittlestick broke first, sobs wracking his thin frame. "Please, Lord Commander, I didn't mean—we thought you were—the things you did, letting them through, it weren't natural!"
"Abomination!" Mallor Shade spat, finding courage in his final moments. "You're no man, you're a monster! The Old Gods curse you, the New Gods curse—"
"Mercy!" Another man—Jon couldn't remember his name—fell to his knees as much as the noose allowed. "Please, I got family in Oldtown, I never wanted this, Bowen made us, he said—"
"Enough." Bowen Marsh's voice cut through the pleas like a blade. The Lord Steward looked directly at Jon, and in his eyes was neither fear nor hatred, only a terrible sadness. "We did what we thought was right. For the Watch." He closed his eyes. "Do what you must."
Jon drew Longclaw and the crowd tensed. Without another word, he sliced through the rope holding the platform's trap.
Seven bodies dropped. Seven necks snapped—or didn't, in two cases, leaving men kicking and choking as they strangled slowly. The crowd recoiled, some retching, some cheered. But Jon didn't move. He stood perfectly still, watching the bodies sway in the wind, counting heartbeats.
The whispers started again, nervous and confused. Why was he just standing there? Why didn't he cut down the bodies? What was—
Wick Whittlestick's corpse twitched.
A woman— Jeyne— screamed. Men scrambled backward, some falling in the snow. Jon remained motionless, watching as seven pairs of eyes snapped open, bright blue as winter stars. The corpses began to struggle against their bonds, jaws working soundlessly, still hanging from their nooses like grotesque puppets.
The Free Folk stood their ground—they'd seen this before. Edd and Grenn drew dragonglass weapons but didn't advance, trusting Jon's plan. But the others—the builders, the stewards, the Baratheon men, the northmen—they broke. Shouts of terror, prayers to every god, the sound of men pissing themselves in fear.
"LOOK AT THEM!" Jon's voice boomed across the clearing, enhanced by something that wasn't quite human. The crowd froze. "Look at what waits for us! Look at what comes in the night!"
He pointed at the writhing corpses, their blue eyes fixed on the living with naked hunger. "This is what I've been trying to tell you. This is why I let the Free Folk through. This is why nothing else matters—not your oaths, not your kings, not your fucking pride!"
He jumped down from the platform, landing harder than any normal man should. "You think the Boltons matter? You think who sits the Iron Throne matters? You think your petty hatreds and old grievances matter?" He gestured at the wights. "Tell that to them! Tell that to the army of the dead that marches on the Wall! Tell that to the Others who command them!"
The silence stretched, broken only by the creaking of rope and the soft moans of the wights.
The crowd's fear hung thick as smoke in the air, mixing with the acrid stench of terror-sweat and the underlying rot from the wights. He could taste their panic on his tongue—metallic, sharp.
He stepped forward, boots crunching on frost-brittle grass. Several men stumbled back, but Jon barely noticed. The memory consumed him—ice crystals forming in his lungs, the weight of destiny crushing down like an avalanche.
"I faced the Others at Hardhome. Not the stories your wet nurses told. Not legends. Beings of ice and malice, with armor that caught moonlight like frozen tears." His hand moved unconsciously to Longclaw's pommel. "They watched as I cut through their servants. Watched and waited."
A builder near the front—gap-toothed, trembling—opened his mouth as if to speak. Jon's gaze pinned him silent.
"Then the sky itself turned against us." The words scraped raw from his throat. "An ice dragon, vast as a mountain, descended from clouds. Its wings—" He paused, seeing it again, feeling the terrible cold that preceded its arrival. "Its wings were winter given form. When it breathed..."
Ghost pressed against his leg, a warm anchor in the tide of memory. Jon's fingers found the direwolf's fur, grounding himself.
"When it breathed, the very air became death. Trees shattered like glass. The ground split. And the cold—" He shook his head. "The cold was alive, seeking every gap, every weakness. It wanted in. It wanted to make us like them."
The wights behind him moaned, as if in agreement. Someone in the crowd whimpered.
He turned then, letting them see his eyes—no longer quite human, holding depths that hadn't been there before. "But it lost." He flexed his hand, remembering the sensation. "They can be destroyed!"
He gestured at the wights. "I brought you here to show you what waits. But know this—they're nothing. Foot soldiers. The real enemy commands storms and rides the wind. The real enemy has slept for eight thousand years and wakes hungry."
"The Great War is here." Jon's voice dropped to barely above a whisper, but everyone heard it. "Not coming. Here. Now. And there are only two sides—the living and the dead. Us," he pointed at the crowd, "and them." He pointed at the wights.
An old Free Folk warrior was the first to speak. "What must we do?"
Jon almost smiled. Trust the Free Folk to move straight to practical matters. "We unite the North. Every house, every holdfast, every fighting man and woman. Then we unite the South. We show them what we've shown you." He looked back at the wights, still struggling against their bonds. "We show them proof."
"And then?" This from one of Wylis Manderly's men.
"Then we fight. All of us. Together. Or we die. All of us. Forever."
The crowd stirred, fear giving way to something else—purpose, perhaps. Or at least the beginning of understanding.
"Two days," Jon announced. "In two days, we march south. Not to conquer. Not for vengeance. But to unite the living against the dead. Prepare yourselves. Tell everyone what you've seen here. Make them believe."
He turned and began walking back toward the gate, Ghost falling into step beside him. Behind him, the crowd remained, transfixed by the swaying corpses with their burning blue eyes. Let them watch. Let them understand. Let the truth sink into their bones.
As he passed through the gate back into Castle Black, Jon heard the voices start again. But they were different now—urgent, purposeful, planning. No more whispers about why they'd gone beyond the Wall. They knew now. They'd seen.
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The White Knife, The North
The morning mist clung to the White Knife like a shroud, perfect cover for what was coming. Larence Snow pressed his belly against the frozen earth, tasting dirt and old snow as he watched the Bolton and Dustin column trudge along the riverbank below. Forty men, maybe fifty, their breath steaming in the cold air, completely unaware of the Hornwood men hidden in the trees above them.
Fools, Larence thought, though his heart hammered against his ribs. Walking the river road like they own it.
Old Harwin, a grizzled veteran—crawled up beside him. "Ready, m'lord?" The title still felt wrong on Larence's shoulders, heavy as mail he'd never trained to wear.
"I'm no lord," Larence muttered, but his eyes never left the Boltons. Their captain rode at the front, pink cloak marking him as one of Ramsay's favorites. The sight of that flayed man sigil made bile rise in his throat.
"You are to us." Harwin spat into the snow. "Signal?"
Larence raised his hand, waiting. The Boltons and Dustins were almost in position now, right where the river bent and the ice grew thin. Where his men had spent all night weakening it further with picks and salt.
The captain's horse stepped onto the ice.
Larence's hand dropped.
The first arrows whistled from the trees—not a volley, just careful shots. The captain tumbled from his saddle, shaft sprouting from his eye. His lieutenant took one in the throat. The third caught a sergeant in the armpit, punching through mail.
"Now!" Larence roared, and thirty Hornwood men burst from the treeline, sliding down the slope on their arses and shields, howling like wolves. No neat charge, no battle lines—just controlled chaos.
The Boltons scrambled for formation, but the ice beneath them groaned. Cracks spider-webbed outward from where horses stamped and men clustered together. Larence hit the first man shield-first, driving him backward onto the weakened ice. It gave way with a sound like breaking bones.
The man's scream cut off as black water swallowed him. His mail dragged him down before he could even thrash.
"The ice! The ice!" someone shrieked, but panic had already taken hold. Bolton men scattered, some rushing for solid ground, others trying to form up on the cracking surface. More arrows found gaps in armor—his hidden archers picking targets with patient precision.
Larence danced along the edge where ice met shore, herding Boltons back onto the killing ground. His sword—castle-forged steel, a gift from Lord Glover—opened a man's throat in a spray of hot red. The blood steamed in the morning air.
A Bolton soldier, scarred and desperate, charged him with an axe. Larence caught it on his shield, felt the impact rattle his teeth, then rammed his pommel into the man's nose. Cartilage crunched. As the soldier staggered back, the ice beneath him split with a rifle-crack. He windmilled his arms, eyes wide with terror, before plunging through.
"Push them back! Keep them on the ice!" Harwin's voice boomed over the clash of steel. The old bastard fought like a man half his age, his mace crushing a Bolton helm with wet efficiency.
The battle—if it could be called that—lasted less than ten minutes. When the last Bolton tried to surrender, young Willem Snow put an arrow through his eye. The boy had lost his mother to Ramsay's hounds.
Larence stood panting, steam rising from his blood-slick blade. The White Knife had claimed near twenty men, their bodies already swept downstream beneath the ice. Another dozen lay crumpled on the shore. His own losses: two men wounded, none dead.
"Strip the bodies," he ordered, voice steadier than his hands. "Take anything useful. Leave the rest for the crows."
Harwin limped over, favoring his left leg. "Clean work, m'lord. Lord Hornwood would've been proud."
"Would he?" Larence wiped his blade on a dead man's cloak. The pink fabric came away red. "Proud I'm playing at lord while using his name?"
"Proud you're fighting for the North." Harwin's scarred face split in a grin. "Besides, you think he'd want that a Bolton holding Hornwood? You're one of us, bastard or not."
The men were already at work, efficient as vultures picking a carcass. They'd learned to be quick these past weeks, hitting Bolton patrols and supply trains, melting back into the forests before reprisal could come. Each victory was small, but they added up. Death by a thousand cuts.
"M'lord!" Young Willem jogged over, clutching a leather satchel. "Found this on the captain."
Larence broke the seal, scanning the parchment within. His blood chilled colder than the river. "Fuck."
"What is it?"
"Orders from the Dreadfort. They're pulling men back from the countryside, concentrating forces." He looked up at Harwin. "Something's changed."
"The Manderlys?"
"Must be." Larence folded the letter, tucking it away. "If White Harbor's truly declared against the Boltons..."
"Then we're not alone anymore." Harwin's grin widened. "About bloody time."
Larence turned to address his men. They'd stopped looting to listen, these thirty wolves who'd chosen to follow a fourteen-year-old bastard. Hornwood men, hedge knights, even a few smallfolk who'd taken up arms. His men now.
"We ride for White Harbor!" His voice carried across the bloodied shore. "Lord Manderly's declared for the Starks. The North remembers, lads!"
The cheer that went up sent crows exploding from the trees. As his men scrambled to prepare, Larence allowed himself a moment to look north, toward the Dreadfort. Toward Winterfell beyond.
We're coming, he thought. The North remembers, and winter is coming for House Bolton.
But first, White Harbor.
He mounted his horse—taken from a Bolton patrol last week—and led his wolves away from the killing ground. Behind them, the White Knife flowed on, carrying Bolton blood to the sea. The mist was lifting now, revealing a pale sun that promised nothing but cold.
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Winterfell, The North
The courtyard of the Dreadfort reeked of wet dog and old blood. Ramsay's boots squelched through half-frozen mud as he strode toward the kennels, his breath misting in the morning air. Five hundred men waited with horses saddled, their faces carefully blank—they'd learned what happened to those who showed fear or eagerness too openly.
"Ready the hounds," Ramsay commanded, his voice carrying that particular softness that made men's bowels loosen. "We ride for the Wall within the hour. My sweet wife awaits."
The kennel master scrambled to obey, but before the first cage could be opened, a voice cut through the courtyard like a blade through fat.
"You will do no such thing."
Ramsay's jaw clenched. He turned slowly, a smile spreading across his face that never touched his eyes. His lord father stood in the doorway, pale as always, those colorless eyes regarding him with the warmth of a winter pond.
"Father." The word tasted like ash. "I was merely—"
"You were merely about to waste men and resources chasing ghosts." Roose Bolton descended the steps with measured precision. "The girl is gone. Reek is gone. And you will ride to Hornwood, not the Wall."
Heat bloomed in Ramsay's chest, spreading like infection. His fingers twitched toward his flaying knife. "Hornwood? While my bride—"
"Is no longer your concern." Roose's whisper carried further than any shout. "The Manderlys have shown their hand. White Harbor must be dealt with before this rot spreads. You will gather our forces at Hornwood and prepare to march."
"Let someone else play general." Ramsay's voice cracked like a whip. "I have quarry to hunt."
"You have orders to follow." Those dead eyes never blinked. "Or have you forgotten that I am still Lord of the Dreadfort?"
The courtyard had gone tomb-quiet. Even the hounds ceased their whimpering. Ramsay felt the weight of hundreds of pairs of eyes, watching to see if the mad dog would finally bite the hand that held his leash.
His smile widened. "Of course not, Father. How foolish of me."
Roose studied him for a long moment, then turned and glided back inside. The door closed with finality.
Ramsay stood perfectly still, his hands trembling—not with fear, never fear, but with the effort of not drawing steel and painting the courtyard red. The men shifted nervously, unsure whether to mount up or flee.
"Dismissed," he said softly. Too softly. "All of you. Now."
They scattered like roaches before flame. All save one.
"Beggin' your pardon, m'lord." Abel the singer stepped from behind a wagon, his weathered face creased in what might have been sympathy. "Couldn't help but overhear."
Ramsay's hand found his knife. "Could you not? How unfortunate for you."
"Might be I could help." Abel spread his hands, showing no weapon. "Music soothes the savage breast, they say. Might calm your nerves some."
"My nerves?" Ramsay laughed, high and sharp. "Do I seem nervous to you, singer?"
"You seem like a man who's tired of taking orders." Abel's eyes glinted with something that wasn't quite fear. "But what do I know? I'm just a singer."
The knife whispered from its sheath. Ramsay crossed the distance in three quick strides, pressing the blade to Abel's throat. "Sing then. Entertain me. Make it good, or I'll see how musical your screams can be."
Abel didn't flinch. His voice, when it came, was rough as tree bark but oddly melodious:
"The son must wait while father rules,
Must bite his tongue and play the fool,
But fathers age and fathers fall,
And sons inherit after all..."
Ramsay's grip tightened. "Careful, singer."
"The pup waits beside the fire,
His belly full of dark desire,
But while the old dog holds the den,
The young pup hunts for scraps again..."
"Enough." The blade drew a thin line of blood. "You dare—"
"Just a song, m'lord." Abel's voice stayed steady despite the steel at his throat. "Though it makes a man think, don't it? All that strength, all that cunning, wasted on fetching and carrying like a kennel boy. When you could be giving the orders instead of taking them."
Ramsay's eyes narrowed. "You're suggesting I kill my lord father?"
"Me?" Abel's weathered face creased in mock innocence. "I'm suggesting nothing. Just observing that nature has its ways. Old dogs die. Young pups rise. Circle of life and all that."
"And if the old dog were to die... unnaturally?"
"Well now, that would be kinslaying, wouldn't it?" Abel's eyes glinted. "Terrible thing, kinslaying. Unless, of course, it looked natural. Heart gives out. Bad meat. Hunting accident. The North's a dangerous place."
Ramsay held the blade steady for a long moment, watching the blood trickle down Abel's neck. Then he laughed—a genuine sound of delight that was somehow worse than his rage.
"You know what, singer?" He lowered the knife, stepping back. "That's a wonderful idea."
Abel rubbed his throat, smearing the blood. "Glad to be of service, m'lord."
"Oh, you'll be of service all right." Ramsay's smile was all teeth. "You'll help me with this... hunting accident. And when I'm Lord of the Dreadfort, truly lord, you'll have a place of honor. Would you like that?"
"I live to serve, m'lord."
"Good." Ramsay turned toward the keep, his mind already racing with possibilities. Poison was too subtle for his tastes, but there were other ways. So many delicious ways. "Come. We have preparations to make. And Abel?"
"M'lord?"
"If you betray me, I'll make you sing a very different tune. One note at a time. Understood?"
"Clear as snow, m'lord."
Ramsay's laughter echoed off the courtyard walls as he strode inside. Let his father send him to Hornwood. Let him play the obedient son a little longer.
Soon enough, there would be a new Lord Bolton. And then... then he would hunt his bride to the ends of the earth if need be.
The game was just beginning.