Qhorin didn't flinch at the command. The man looked up at me without blinking, though I caught the subtle tightening of his jaw, the faint twitch of his sword hand as he caught better sigh of me, my mount and the giant spider Isaac had dragged along, before he forced it still. A ranger trained to handle free folks, now standing in the shadow of multiple things that didn't fit his worldview. His voice, when it came, was rough.
"My name is Qhorin. Qhorin Halfhand, as I'm more commonly known."
There was a sharp hiss from the girl. Crow, she spat. But it lacked the bite I expected. She didn't look half as angry at their presence as she should have, and that told me something. If Qhorin was truly one of the few Rangers known for fairness or restraint, then to the Free Folk, he might not be as hated as the rest of the Watch. Oh, there'd still be plenty who'd spit at the very sight of the black cloak on his back, but the common clansfolk… they were pragmatic. Hate didn't override sense.
Qhorin ignored the insult, his focus unwavering as he continued. "A great ranging has been called."
This time, he did glance at the wildlings nearby, a frown tugging at his weathered features. But he smoothed it out just as quickly and went on.
"Over the past few months, multiple Rangers have gone missing. No blood. No signs of struggle. Not even their corpses left behind for us to bury. That includes our former First Ranger, Benjen Stark."
He dropped the name like a blade to the floor. The wildlings stirred at Stark, a name that meant something different to each of them: blood, burning villages, the howl of northern wolves. But me? I looked down at the man with all the expression of a statue. The pale-skinned embodiment of indifference.
Once more, his mask of calm cracked just slightly at the sheer lack of reaction. I raised a well-manicured brow to hurry him along. He caught the signal.
Qhorin cleared his throat and continued. "Of course, that alone wasn't enough to call a Great Ranging. There's more. Strange happenings in the far North. Too many to ignore."
He was about to elaborate, but the girl cut in, fire flashing in her eyes.
"Strange? Stranger than your kneelers riding through our lands and raping any free folk woman pretty enough to catch your eye?"
"Silence," Isaac interrupted, his voice flat as iron. He raised a hand, the other curled behind his back. His cold, empty eyes locked onto Ygritte's, and the sight of them, those glass-smooth, unblinking orbs, froze even the firebrand girl for a beat.
"Master Dracula will hear you when he is ready. Do not waste his valuable time."
"Peace, Ygritte. Peace," Hector added, his voice calm, steadying the girl. I watched all this with only mild curiosity.
Ygritte? I stared at her with renewed interest and all of a sudden, I could see It. She was not an exact replica of the Ygritte from the show, but there were enough Similarities. I switched tracks from Jon snow's future lover? back to the topic at hand.
Of course, I wasn't oblivious to the happenings in the North. I hadn't experienced them firsthand, true, but I remembered. Remembered how it was often implied, if not outright stated, what the Watch got up to during their so-called rangings.
Ranging. A strange word. It sounded noble. Purposeful. But in truth, it was little more than polite invasion.
"As I understand it," I began, my gaze on Qhorin, "your order protects the South from the Free Folk. Correct?"
He barely had time to nod before I continued, letting my voice carry.
"So what right do you claim to range past the lands you hold, into these lands?"
It was an honest question, but with the weight of Dracula's tone behind it, it struck harder than I intended, harsher, colder, edged with something imperious.
Qhorin stuttered for a moment, his eyes locked on mine, on the red gleam that had unsettled kings and monsters alike. The Rangers behind him tensed, hands brushing blades, but Qhorin was quick to speak before they could do anything foolish.
"It relates to the second reason we're here," he said, hurried now. "Ranging is… simply how we track Free Folk movements. To make sure they're not a threat to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms."
"So," I said, "you pen them in and treat them like cattle. Cull the herd whenever one grows too bold. Yet you take offense when they try to do the same."
The words weren't cruel. I was curious, genuinely. Part of me the part that was Dracula could understand it. It was a common strategy used by vampires. Control and superiority.
The rest of me? I found it stupid.
But such was the way of Westeros. Hypocrisy dressed as duty. A worldview where men believed themselves superior simply because they were born outside the pen. Like goats sneering at caged sheep, forgetting they were all livestock just the same.
Prey for the Others.
And prey for… me.
The thought came unbidden, and I noticed it then, the staccato beat of their hearts, the flush of blood beneath their skin, the scent of living iron surging through their veins. It called to me. Tempted me.
For a moment, my eyes lingered too long on the curve of a throat, the pulse just beneath it.
But with willpower that belonged more to Dracula than it did me, I tore my gaze away and returned it to Qhorin just in time to catch him measuring every word like a man walking a tight rope.
"I cannot say the way we do things is right or perfect," Qhorin admitted, his voice steady but low. "However, it's the only means available to us. And it's because of those rangings that we've become aware of a greater threat."
I said nothing.
Seeing no rebuke, he pressed on, a little more confident now. "Villages have been disappearing. Whole settlements of Free Folk, wiped out overnight, nothing left but empty homes and half-burned hearths. No bodies and no tracks."
Still, I gave him nothing, though I watched his eyes.
"There have been rumors. Rumors of the dead coming to life and attacking the living, as well as more troubling rumors about a so called king beyond the wall with grand plans to attack the wall, and fell it for good."
If I'd been a lesser being, I might've laughed. If Dracula were inclined to such petty noise, perhaps a dry chuckle would've escaped me. But I remained silent.
That they found Mance Rayder more troubling than the prospect of the dead rising from their graves was… amusing. Typical. And yet I did not blame them.
A king beyond the Wall was a known variable, tangible, human, capable of being killed by blade or arrow. A threat they could understand. An enemy they'd fought before.
But the Others? To them, the Others would always be folk tales. Stories used to scare their children in the darkness of the night, then dismissed come morning.
It was Ygritte who spoke next, her voice sharp with disdain.
"Aye, tales." She stepped forward, her eyes flicking from Qhorin to the Rangers, then back to me. Her raised voice mellowed only the slightest bit. "Dead men walking, kings beyond the Wall. It's all just excuses. You people've been killing and hunting us down long before the dead ever stirred."
Her tone was angry and bitter, and I had a feeling most of that was not towards the free folk alone, as I registered the last part of her sentence.
"You come here in your black cloaks and call it duty. But to us, it's murder and rape and burning homes and villages."
Now that was a surprise. I was aware that the rangers did so on some level, but not to the level that she claimed, however the silence spoke to the truth louder than anything else. The Rangers behind Qhorin shifted uncomfortably, but yet none of them spoke.
Ygritte's gaze shifted back to me. "You want to know why a lot of the free folks are slowly following Mance? Why they listen when he says run, or fight, or pull the whole bloody Wall down? It's because they're tired of hiding. Tired of watching their kin disappear in the night, whether it's to the crows or something worse doing it."
There was silence.
Then she added, almost reluctantly, "And maybe... maybe some of us have seen things. Things no living man should walk away from. But even that doesn't change the truth. South of the Wall, we're just beasts to be hunted to you kneelers."
I studied her. For a girl raised north of the wall, she carried the fire of a visionary. Her words had the shape of truth, raw and unpolished, but truth nonetheless. What would she have been if she had been born south of the wall… Most likely a poor smallfolk farmer girl, whose father would be getting ready to give her away for cattle or a sheep. Which in all honesty was barely a step up in truth.
"Are you one of them then, one of Mance's followers?" Qhorin inquired, eyes narrowed.
"Not yet." The red-haired boy finally spoke up as he took a step forward while nudging Ygritte behind him. At first glance, I could already tell. The boy was main protagonist-esque. Calm and measured, strong and tall. It made me wonder where he was in the original timeline. Then I remembered what I saved them from.
"We are not here to debate with the Night's Watch. We did not come here knowing they would be here. We came here seeking your advice, Lord Dracula."
At the boy's words, the rangers of the Night's Watch fidgeted even more. Their glances going from the boy to me and back to the boy. Even Qhorin was not an exception. I shot Hector a look that could've peeled paint off a wall. This is your mess. The man had the decency to squirm.
"You saved my sister and I over a year ago, and since then we have tried to return the favour, both by consolidating the villages around, and making sure that they do not have reason to disturb your rest as master Hector and Master Isaac... suggested"
I glanced back at Isaac, and he simply whispered. "It was an idle comment master Dracula, a passing remark. I had no expectation that he would implement it simply based off that." Of course my Forgemasters could even weaponize small talk in a bid to keep the humans from disturbing me. I was only surprised they didn't claim ownership of the idea earlier. I bit back a sigh at my overly hypercompetent minions.
The young man went on. "However, things have changed. We've been hearing rumors, strange attacks that've caused entire clans to disappear overnight. Bigger clans have started burning firewood all through the night, just to keep whatever's out there at bay. At first, the rumors were far off. They never really mattered to us here, in the heart of the Frostfangs."
Qhorin blinked, in surprise fast enough that I was certain I was the only one to catch the gesture. If he was surprised, then he hadn't known how wight free the Frostfangs were.
That realization brought my thoughts to a slow, deliberate crawl.
Had the Frostfangs been untouched by the Others in canon? I didn't think so. Which meant their sudden decision to steer clear of this region wasn't a coincidence.
It stemmed from a singular reason.
Me.
My presence had become an anomaly. Something they still didn't understand. Something they actively avoided.
It made the probing attack from earlier make even more sense. The Others had begun to stretch their reach, their influence creeping across the North... but they had deliberately avoided us. For now. How long was that going to last, considering they were slowly trying to get a measure of me?
"We have news from our father, Tormund's Giantsbane," the boy said next, pulling my thoughts back to the present. His voice was quiet but clear, practiced in speaking around a fire on cold nights. "He has summoned us to join him alongside Mance Rayder."
There was no reaction from me, though the two names hung in the air for a beat. Especially among the rangers. They stared at the red-haired boy with renewed interest. Unlike them I knew the truth. Tormund must've had dozens of children already. That he called for them must simply be owing to the fact that they'd made something for themselves. What was more curious was that Tormund had offloaded his red-haired children on a clan so close to me.
"However, we remain undecided," he went on. "Ygritte has taken care of us, even though we share no true blood. She holds the title of chief. So we're left with two choices: return to our father's side with the whole clan and join Mance Rayder…"
He hesitated then.
"…Or stay here."
Ygritte stepped forward before the silence could stretch too long. There was no hesitation in her stride, but the fire that had blazed in her earlier outburst now burned lower, more tempered. She glanced at the boy, then at the girl behind him, and when she spoke, her voice carried weight. This was not the simple girl she had been in canon, I was rapidly coming to realize. Responsibility had forced her to grow faster.
"I remain," she said simply. "Not for the King beyond the walls. Not for the crows," she nodded sharply at Qhorin. "But for them. Garvin and Yarla. I raised them, fed them, fought for them, and they've chosen to stay here, under your gaze, despite your strangeness, and weird magics."
Her gaze flicked to me, then to the castle, before returning to me. Lingering for a breath too long on my eyes.
"They believe in you," she added, quieter now. "In what you are. I don't know what that is, but I doubt you're one of the others despite your strangeness. And that… that's all that matters."
I raised a regal brow. There it was. Loyalty just not to titles, like the southerners and not to blood, but to bonds forged through shared nights and long winters. It was a different kind of strength. It spoke to me in the way it reminded me of Dracula's relationship with Hector and Isaac. Judging from the far off look in Hector's eyes, I was not the only one that felt it.
I said nothing for a long moment, just watched her. Watched the way her jaw tightened, the faint tremor in her fingers betraying nerves she refused to admit. I had no interest in the politics or schemes of the free folk. Yet, with them camped directly on my doorstep, I found it difficult to ignore, much to my annoyance. Further proof, no doubt, of Dracula's influence.
Still the idea of turning aside and letting the Night's Watch or the Others do as they pleased so close to my gates sat poorly with me. The trick now was to frame my reasoning in a way that would not make Isaac's brow rise.
I finally spoke, summoning my best impression of Dracula's voice, poised, imperious, and absolute.
"You may stay. You may go. It is of no consequence to me."
That made Qhorin blink again, but it was Ygritte and the children who straightened.
This time I turned to the ranger and his flock. "Your First Ranger is dead. Forget him. I know nothing of this so called King Beyond the Wall, nor do I care." I began to walk forward, leaving Isaac and Hector to stable the Nightmares. "The Others are awake. They stir in the dark and marshal their dead. Even now their ranks swell. They are no idle wraiths from the superstitions of old women."
I gave a faint, almost dismissive wave as the black-and-gold doors of Castlevania opened to my presence. The sight drew gasps from them, more for the glimpse of the red-and-gold grandeur within than for my words. I paused at the threshold and spoke again, letting my voice roll out low and smooth, steeped in the weight of an older age.
"I hope I do not see you again at my doors at the front of an army Qhorin Halfhand. I dislike your order on principle for you overreach, however I am not blind to the necessity of your presence. Do not make me deem you more of a problem than the Others. You would not survive it."
With that closing statement, I took the last step into the castle and heard it shut behind me.