The next arrow was loosened and flew straight for me, and even without Dracula's combat instinct to puppet me, it was not a challenge. The arrow sailed through the sky in slow motion till I tilted my head to the side, and all of a sudden, it felt like time resumed, as the arrow whiffed past me and into the darkness of the cave.
I let out a sigh of exasperation as I saw Coldhands begin to notch another arrow. Before he pulled, I felt obliged to speak once more. "This is your last chance, Bloodraven. I do not seek violence, but I find myself remarkably capable of it when pushed." I turned back to the cave, where only the slit green and red cat eyes of the child of the forest, whom I assumed to be Leaf, stared back at me. "Do not push me."
And for a moment, there was stillness. The crows grew silent, even the wolves that had been howling quieted, as they slowed, circling us. Isaac and his night creature stood back to back, unworried as they both looked at their wide array of opponents with the confidence that came from fighting true monsters.
I was almost convinced I had managed to diffuse the situation, at least until my pointed elflike ears twitched at the low sound of chittering. A flash, a reflection of what little sunlight managed to pass the cloud cover, before disappearing, and whatever stillness I had bought with my desire for peace disappeared like smoke on the wind.
There was a huff, as the hoof of the great beast Coldhands rode began to trot forward behind me. The cloven hoof finding traction in the snow-covered ground and gaining speed. The ruffle of fur cloak against chainmail. The clinking of plate as it was jostled by the force of movement. The siren call of a blade leaving its scabbard as the beast bore down on me. I let out a final sigh before I spun.
That same moment, Coldhands unsheathed his blade and swung the blade in one smooth movement, a blow that aimed to take my head off at the shoulders. Instead, the blade got tangled in my black cloak, as i flung it in his path, the material surprisingly resistant to tears. Then, with his sight blocked and blade tangled, I simply stretched out a hand and clotheslined him.
I could feel as steel plate met my forearm and bent around it, before the force of the collision sent him flying back, his beast free to continue trudging off, till it ran back into the forest. Instead of bothering with my already defeated foe on the ground, I turned my head to observe Isaac and his night creature in action.
Already, the ground was littered with blood, and none of it from the dark-skinned Forgemaster. He ducked under the lunge of a giant wolf, then lashed upward with his knife. His blow was precise as the beast flew over him; he carved into its jugular. The moment it landed, it fell on its face, life already slipping from its amber eyes alongside the blood that stained the snow.
Above in the skies, bodies of crows dropped every other second, Isaac's owl-like night creature making short work of the more mundane birds. Its inhumanly sharp talons ripped them apart as it let out a shriek to the sky. I would've spent the next seconds watching the harmonious dance between Forgemaster and night creature against their enemies. One on the ground, the other in the sky, and still they fought with harmonious synchronicity. It was a beautiful thing to watch.
Which was why when I heard the sound of feet crushing snow, the ruffling of movement in the air, I spun at once with a the bare beginning of a frown on my face as Coldhands found his feet once more, then without care for the damage he had already suffered, he lunged forward, blade first with an accurate blow aimed toward my heart. My right hand lashed out in a blur of motion, and I caught the slow-moving blade with my thumb and my middle finger, my nails digging into the blade enough to maintain a tight grip.
Coldhands tried to jerk back, making an attempt to rip the blade out of my grip, but the attempt was futile. Instead of bothering with the pawn, I looked at the blade with curiosity. It was finely crafted, far too short considering Dracula's dimensions, but on an average human shy of six feet, like Coldhands, it was a perfectly crafted bastard sword. A beautiful, slim blade, with a crossguard that flared out to either side like dragon wings. And a rounded pommel with a bump in the middle to better rattle when hit, but the one feature that made the blade immediately recognizable was the distinctive ripple patterns on the blade.
The last time I had seen this sword, Daemon Targaryen was posing magnificently after relieving the Sea Smoke brother of his head, from the upper jaws up, while the other had defamed Rhaenyra's children.
"He can keep his tongue," Daemon had said with his usual self-assured smirk, even as the Kingsguard unsheathed their swords for the sin of bearing naked steel in the presence of the king. Daemon had looked at them all with a calculating glint in his eyes, like he was wondering just how long it would take him to kill the four men.
"Dark Sister," I breathed out in awe at the sight of the sword, and once more, Coldhands froze in response, no doubt he was just as surprised. But I cared little for his reaction; instead, I had my complete focus on the slim blade in my hands, as somewhere in the deepest parts of my mind, I began to fanboy over the blade in my hands. A reaction that didn't match the stoicism I held myself with outwardly.
Nevertheless, despite my distraction, I was still intimately aware of just about everything in range of my senses, so when Coldhands flicked a throwing knife at me with his free hand, I tilted my head to the side, then tugged on the blade, pulling Coldhands closer, which allowed me to bury my fist into his chest.
The already dented steel plate immediately buckled under the pressure of the blow as the relentless man was sent flying back, blade forgotten in my hand. I shifted my grip, uncaring of my foe, and focused my attention as I held the blade by the hilt like it should be held, while using the chance to peek at my fingers and nails that had gripped the blade. There was a vague hint of pain alongside a slightly red patch on my thumb. Whatever magic the sword possessed had hurt somewhat. An actual magic sword.
Some part of me scoffed at my interest in the blade. The blade was a mere toy, a shadow in the face of a giant like Crissaegrim. I blinked at the thought that had slipped in. Thoughts of the name Crissaegrim brought to mind a long, thin blade Dracula had used in his younger years, before it was passed on to his son. Alucard's blade, I realized with surprise.
I turned as Coldhands began to find his feet once more, unrelenting in his desire not to stay down, but it was more than that. I could tell in the way breath did not leave his lungs, in the way blood did not pump through his body, in the way his heart was as still and cold as a stone, yet he struggled to his feet regardless of the broken ribs that were a result of my blow caving in his metal breastplate.
I blurred forward, more instinct than anything, and I came to a stop with my feet pressing down on his chest and pushing him back to the ground. Coldhands did not even let out a grunt of pain or displeasure as I put the full weight behind my frame on him and leaned down to place the sword point of Dark Sister directly in front of his face and inches before his eyes.
A howl was let loose from the side, one of the wolves escaping Isaac's sight long enough to make an attempt to pounce toward me. An uncaring backhanded slap with my empty left hand snapped its neck and sent it flying back, its body slamming into a tree with such force that its spine snapped and it curled around the aged wood.
Coldhands looked back at me, black eyes empty and devoid of anything. Not pain, not sorrow, not even fear. He was more of an undead than I was, I was slowly coming to realize. Which made me curious about the Children of the Forest. The Children of the Forest were figures steeped in paradoxes. They hated the Others in the books, yet they made the White Walkers in the movies.
Coldhands was a wight, an undead filled with the power of the Others, yet he was not a puppet of the Others. Instead, he was a puppet of Bloodraven and the Children, which begged the question. "Were you created by the Others, or by the Children?" I questioned smoothly with pure curiosity lacing my tone.
I was not expecting an answer, but the animal-like screech from Leaf from her place at the mouth of the cave told me all I needed to know about what she thought of that idea, of the Children creating a wight, which brought up the odds that I was in the bookverse. Yet per GRRM's own words, Benjen was not Coldhands, yet the figure before me, undead features aside, was the Benjen Stark from the show, which meant that odds were whatever verse I found myself in was some convoluted mixture of the books and show, which while interesting in some ways, was still... annoying in others.
I blinked bored red eyes as I realized I had gotten lost in my own thoughts again, but from the moment I killed the direwolf that had tried to sneak up on me, the fight had simmered down. Isaac had killed three of the beasts already, leaving the last two to prowl around him, the biggest one bearing a cut across its muzzle. The owl night creature had not been as restrained, and whatever crows remained had decided to give it space as it hovered dominantly in the sky.
I turned my attention back to Coldhands, and in that space of a heartbeat, I lunged forward blade first. For the first time, I saw something in the eyes, a split second before the Valyrian steel blade pierced the bulbous black organ. Fear, worry, sadness. Then it was gone as I shifted my angle at the last second and buried the blade into the ground, just beside his head.
For the first time, Coldhands blinked his eyes, eyelids closing over black orbs for a second, as I took a step back, allowing the black cloak wrapped around my form to cover me once more, leaving me standing menacingly above the downed man. For a split second, I contemplated stretching out a hand to help him up, but whatever was left of Dracula ruthlessly crushed that thought, and I didn't bother to fight it. Instead, I took another step back and watched Coldhands as he cautiously stood up before freeing his sword from the snow I had buried it in, and holding it cautiously at me. Fortunately for him, this time it wasn't raised; instead, the tip of the sword was pointed to the ground.
I turned, my ears twitching as I picked up that annoying sound again. A chittering, snap of mandibles kissing each other, of thin hairs ruffling in the wind, of pike-like limbs climbing atop snow with monstrous dexterity. I tilted my head in curiosity at the flash of reflected light once more hidden in the forest; it was almost like sunlight reflecting on a sniper's scope.
"Isaac," I called out, and the dark-skinned Forgemaster answered immediately.
"Master Dracula, what do you need of me?"
"We have a pest in the forest. Send your night creature after it," I answered, voice smooth as I began to turn my attention, reorienting towards the mouth of the cave and the Child of the Forest standing there and staring at us.
"At once, Master Dracula," Isaac said, and immediately after, the owl-like night creature let out a shriek of joy and challenge at the new hunt as it immediately sent itself blasting in the direction I had indicated.
"Despite the all too human desire to attack and kill what you do not understand, I still remain cordial. I would ask once more for an audience, Bryden Rivers." I called him out by his true name now. "I could walk through your paltry wards and crush them by virtue of my presence; however, despite your insolence, I have not. I could crush your puppet like an insect beneath my heel, yet I have proved lenient. Twice have I shown you grace. You would get none from me again, so I ask once more, I seek an audience. What say you?"
I was greeted with silence. looked at Leaf and noticed that, unlike before, she had her hands full now, with a round object covered with runes that lit up to my senses, and she was not alone. Alongside her, but deeper in the cave, were three other figures with the same objects in hand. Whatever the objects were, they were filled with magic, potent magic that spoke of fire and ash. If what I interpreted with my senses was correct, which I was nearly certain it was. I was getting better at this magic thing already.
A split second later, I felt it before I saw it: a red comet trailing across the sky, leaving a red streak behind it as once again, the world was changed on a fundamental level, as all of a sudden there was a metaphysical flux in the fabric of the world as it seemed like the whole world just took a fresh new breath. The beginning of a new dawn, and its harbinger, the comet.
"It seems your presence does not completely disrupt the song," a voice spoke from behind me, sounding hoarse and dry from disuse. Coldhands, but somehow as I turned to face him, I could tell that it was only the body; whatever remained of Benjen Stark was absent, and in its place was something older.
"Bloodraven?" I guessed. Skinwalking, most likely, which made sense. If a barely trained Bran could slip into the skin of Hodor, an alive if intellectually slow giant of a man, then Bryden, an older and more experienced warg, should be able to warg into a wight with bare remnants of self present without any issue.
The figure before me gave a nod in agreement.
"You wanted to talk, stranger. Now we talk."