The Others—creatures that had existed only in songs and legends—now stood before them, horrifyingly real.
Alliser's throat tightened, his shock and terror so great he forgot to breathe. Jon and Ygritte's legs trembled uncontrollably, neither able to move an inch.
"Run, Jon! Run! Don't look back!"
Ser Alliser Thorne finally broke free of his fear. Realizing the mortal danger they faced, he bellowed with all his strength.
His eyes burned with the resolve of a man who had accepted death. Frostbitten, calloused hands clenched tightly around the sword hilt until his knuckles turned white.
The once-cruel instructor of Castle Black, the exiled loyalist of House Targaryen—this same man who had tormented Jon for years—now stood ready to die for him, for the son of Rhaegar Targaryen.
He shoved Jon and Ygritte toward the deeper woods, then took a step forward, planting himself firmly between them and the deadly slope.
Jon's heart hammered violently in his frozen chest, as if it might burst.
He stared at Alliser's broad back, tears spilling uncontrollably down his cheeks, freezing instantly into thin, glistening streaks.
"Ser, no! I can't leave you!"
He shouted, reaching for his sword, ready to fight beside him.
"Fool!"
Alliser roared without looking back. "Fourteen years ago, when Robert's hammer crushed Prince Rhaegar's chest, I should have died then! Not lived like a rat, cowering in the Wall's shadow!"
He turned slightly, eyes blazing with a fire Jon had never seen before—so fierce it seemed to melt the snow around him.
"Jon, you are the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms! I must fight for you. It is my honor—my redemption! Run! Survive! Live on with your wolf, live on with the blood of the Targaryens!"
The Other moved.
It neither ran nor leapt. The snow beneath its feet bore no trace of its passing.
In its hand was a slender sword of ice, glowing faintly with flowing blue light. The blade angled downward, its tip trailing across the snow, leaving behind a breath of chilling frost.
Death approached, and Alliser's last hesitation vanished.
He turned sharply toward Jon. "Go! Don't let my blood be spilled in vain! Be a man—be like your father!"
His roar echoed through the lifeless forest.
Jon's tears blurred his vision. He saw the determination in Alliser's eyes, heard the cry to live on.
His father, Rhaegar—the man who had existed only in songs and Alliser's scattered words—seemed, for a fleeting moment, to merge with the figure standing before him.
Live on.
For your father's bloodline.
For the chance Alliser was buying with his life.
"Go!" Jon growled, roughly wiping the frozen tears from his face. He seized Ygritte's arm—paralyzed by the Other's aura—and dragged her with all his strength into the shadowed forest.
"Ghost! Follow!"
He shouted.
The massive direwolf let out a deep, threatening growl. Ghost's amber eyes cast one last look at the small, resolute figure standing below the slope, then he turned without hesitation. Like a streak of white lightning, he bounded after Jon and Ygritte, crashing through the icicle-laden branches and vanishing into the darkness.
Ser Alliser Thorne drew a deep breath of the freezing air, forcing himself to tear his gaze away from Jon's retreating form. He fixed his eyes instead on the slowly advancing, blue-glowing figure.
Fear still clung to him—but stronger than fear was a fierce, liberating resolve.
For Prince Rhaegar.
For the young prince.
He gripped the sword hilt with both hands and took up a perfect fighting stance.
The Other stopped ten paces away.
Its eyes—cold, blue, and bright as stars—seemed to study the frail human before it, with a gaze of distant, unfeeling superiority.
It made no sound, yet Alliser felt as if he could hear the shriek of ice groaning and shattering under unbearable pressure.
It moved.
The pale blue figure vanished without warning.
Alliser's eyes constricted sharply, his pupils reflecting only a flickering blue afterimage.
Too fast. Faster than anything he had ever faced in a lifetime of combat.
A faint tearing sound—like cloth being ripped.
Then came the brittle crack of ice breaking.
Pain. A blinding, bone-deep agony shot through him from beneath his left shoulder.
Alliser hadn't even seen the strike. He only felt an irresistible force pierce through his chainmail and flesh.
He looked down, horrified. The slender ice-crystal blade, glowing with an eerie blue light, had run clean through his upper left arm. Blood spurted from the wound before freezing mid-air, and a biting cold surged inward, freezing the nerves and muscles of his arm in an instant. The limb went rigid and lifeless, as if it no longer belonged to him.
His sword nearly slipped from his grasp.
"Ah—!"
A hoarse scream tore from his throat as his body convulsed violently from pain and cold. But he bit down hard, forcing the cry back.
He couldn't show weakness. He couldn't fall.
Every second he stood was another second for Jon to live.
That desperate resolve ignited a final surge of strength within him.
Using the momentum of the blow that had pierced him, Alliser slammed his right foot against a jagged boulder coated in ice. His body shot backward like a released spring, throwing him several paces away before he crashed into the snow, sending a spray of white powder flying.
The wound on his arm no longer bled—only the numbing, searing cold remained. His left arm hung useless and dead at his side.
Relying on his right arm alone, he forced himself up into a half-kneel. His right hand still clutched the longsword tightly, its tip trembling but aimed at the advancing Other.
The creature halted. It did not immediately strike, merely stood there, watching Alliser's ragged, struggling figure. The thin ice blade in its hand dripped with frozen blood, gleaming with a strange, sinister light beneath the pale sky.
Alliser gasped for breath, forcing his thoughts to steady as he scanned his surroundings.
Snowdrifts. Rocks. Twisted dead trees.
He had to use everything.
The Other moved again.
As it stepped within five paces, the ice-crystal blade lifted once more, ready to fall.
Alliser moved.
He didn't meet the strike. Instead, he rolled hard to the right, his target not the creature—but a massive sentinel tree nearby, bent under the weight of the snow, its gnarled branches heavy and low.
With the last of his strength, Alliser swung his sword with his remaining hand—not at the Other, but at the thick, frost-eaten root that held the tree's weight.
Crack.
The overburdened root snapped clean.
Deprived of its support, the leaning sentinel tree groaned deeply, and the mountain of snow on its crown collapsed in a thunderous cascade.
At the same moment, the entire trunk came crashing down with a roar like thunder, straight toward the spot where the Other and Alliser stood.
As the blade severed the root, Alliser threw himself backward with every ounce of his remaining strength, curling behind a jagged black basalt rock.
BOOM—!
Snow cascaded like a waterfall, burying the slope in seconds. The ground shook with the deafening impact of the falling tree. Broken branches and shards of ice flew through the air like deadly arrows.
Did it work?
Alliser's heart pounded wildly. He raised his head from behind the rock, staring at the white ruin of snow and shattered wood.
But hope died as quickly as it came.
Through the swirling snow and glittering frost, a pale blue figure slowly emerged, untouched.
The Other had moved in the instant before the tree fell.
The last light in Ser Alliser Thorne's heart went out.
All his struggle, his defiance—it was nothing before such power.
He let out a dry, broken laugh, mustering the strength to raise his sword with one hand, holding it level across his chest.
Not to block. He knew he couldn't.
Only to die standing.
The Other moved again.
This time, it didn't use that blinding speed.
It walked forward slowly, step by step, across the frozen snow—like a spirit gliding through a silent graveyard.
Alliser tightened his grip on the sword hilt, lifted his head, and forced a crooked smile through the frost and blood on his face. With the last breath in his body, he shouted at that glacial, inhuman visage:
"For the Targaryens! For the true dragon!"
The Other paused for a fleeting instant, then its crystalline blade swept down in a diagonal arc.
Alliser's pupils widened.
He tried to raise his sword, but the blue light was too fast—beyond even the speed of thought.
A sudden lightness filled his right arm. Then came the cold impact at his neck.
No pain.
His final vision was of a spinning sky, snow-covered branches twisting above him, and a headless body—still clutching its sword—falling backward into the snow.
That was… his body.
Thud.
The Other glanced coldly at the head that rolled across the snow and the body that had once been Ser Alliser Thorne.
Then it lifted its gaze. Two blue lights, like frozen stars, pierced through the drifting snow and dead branches, fixing on the direction where Jon and Ygritte had fled.
It took a step forward and disappeared into the darkness of the forest, leaving behind only a frozen corpse half-buried in the snow.
...
If you'd like to support my work and unlock advanced chapters, you can follow me on P@treon.
[Upto 50 chapters ahead for now]
[email protected]/BlurryDream