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The ride back to Castle Black felt heavier. The wind cut just as sharply. The snow lay just as thick across the frozen ground. But now Jon carried division with him. Half would bend the knee. Half would attack.
When the Wall came into view, its immense face of ice glinting pale beneath a gray sky, the men on the battlements watched anxiously. Horns sounded once for friendly return. Jon rode through the tunnel beneath the Wall and into the yard where the Night's Watch and northern soldiers had gathered in uneasy expectation.
Alliser Thorne stood waiting. The Greatjon loomed beside him, massive arms folded across his chest. "Well?" the Greatjon demanded before Jon had even dismounted.
Jon swung down from his horse. "They are divided."
A ripple of tension moved through the assembled men. "How many?" Thorne asked sharply.
"Half will come through peacefully. Tormund, the Thenns, several valley clans."
"And the rest?"
"Harma Dogshead. The Weeper. Rattleshirt. Several hard tribes."
The Greatjon spat into the snow. "So it's war then."
"Yes."
Thorne's jaw tightened. "When?"
"They are many days away," Jon replied. "So in a month or two." The yard fell silent.
Inside the Lord Commander's tower, the mood was colder still. Thorne stood at the table, hands braced on the maps. "You see?" he said to the gathered officers. "Your gamble has already failed."
"No," Jon said evenly. "Half chose life."
"Half chose war."
Jon did not argue that. The Greatjon grunted. "We'll hold," he said. "If they come."
"Yes," Jon agreed quietly. "We will."
But he did not linger on it. Instead, he looked toward the north on the map. "This is not the war that matters." Thorne's eyes narrowed. Jon reached into a satchel and placed the shriveled black hand onto the table. It lay still. For now.
"A hand will not convince the South," Jon said. "Nor the Reach. Nor Dorne. Nor the Vale."
"They are not our concern," Thorne snapped.
"They will be when the dead come knocking on the wall and no one comes to our aid," Jon replied.
The Greatjon looked at him. "What is your plan boy."
Jon straightened. "I am leaving."
Silence struck hard. Thorne stared at him. "You abandon your post?"
"I do not hold a post here," Jon said calmly. "I came to aid you. I have done so."
"You leave on the eve of battle?" Thorne demanded.
"I leave you the five thousand northmen I came with," Jon countered. "You and the Greatjon can manage a defensive line."
The Greatjon's jaw shifted. "And where in seven hells are you riding?"
Jon's voice dropped lower. "To bring back proof."
Thorne's expression darkened. "You chase shadows."
"No," Jon said. "I chase what hunts us all."
He looked at both men. "If the Seven Kingdoms are to unite, they must see the dead and know that all the legends and tales told about long ago is true."
Even the Greatjon shifted at that. "You cannot be serious."
"I am. If I am right," Jon finished, "this Wall means nothing without the realm behind it."
He looked to Thorne. "Hold the Wall. Let those who bend the knee pass peacefully. Kill those who attack. Burn their bodies."
Thorne's face remained carved from stone. "And if you do not return?"
Jon did not answer immediately. "Then I am one of them and you should burn my body."
That night, preparations were made. Jon gathered the right men he would need for this job. And then in a couple days at dawn, Jon rode north again.
With him rode one hundred northmen volunteers and twenty seasoned rangers of the Night's Watch. And beside him was Howland Reed with his crannogmen. Only thirty of them rode with them as he left the rest to guard the wall.
They could have rode out with hundreds if not thousands of men but the key to going out beyond the wall was trying to make yourself be as some as possible so something terrible did not notice you.
The crannog lord had said little since their meeting with Mance. Now, as they left the shadow of the Wall, he rode closer. "You chase something ancient," Howland said quietly.
"Yes."
"You believe you will find it?"
"I believe it will find us."
Howland's mouth twitched faintly. "That is more likely."
The land beyond the Wall grew harsher with every mile. Frozen rivers. Jagged hills. Forests skeletal with winter. The further north they rode, the quieter the world became. No birds. No animal tracks. Only wind.
They passed abandoned wildling villages with empty huts, cold fire pits, tools left behind as if dropped mid-task. "They fled quickly," one ranger murmured.
"Yes," Jon replied. Because something followed.
The nights grew colder. Unnaturally so. Even seasoned northmen began to whisper. Fires burned low and gave little comfort. The flames hissed and guttered as if reluctant to live. Frost crept across shields laid too near the ground. Twice men woke to find a thin sheen of rime coating their beards and lashes though they had slept beside coals.
During one of those nights, Howland Reed approached Jon's small fire without a sound. The crannog lord seemed part of the dark itself; short, slight, wrapped in mottled greens and browns that swallowed light. His eyes, however, were sharp. "I have found something," Howland said quietly.
Jon rose at once. "Tracks?"
"Yes." Howland led him to the tracks he found, brushed snow aside carefully, revealing print beneath the crusted surface. Meera and Jojen.
"You're certain?"
"I know my children's step," he said simply.
There was no boast in it. Only fact. Jon's jaw tightened. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew where the two crannogmen went. He hadn't seen the three-eyed raven get up to anything and it made him wonder if it lost interest in getting a new body since its current one was ancient.
The only other answer it could be was that it already had found one and lead them unaware to its den. "If you follow them alone—"
"I will not be alone," Howland said softly. Behind him, his thirty crannogmen rose almost as one. Silent. Ready.
Jon hesitated only a moment longer. He knew even with all of them it would not be enough to take on the Raven. Still the man was set on his path because who could after all stop a father from going after his children.
"You know what we seek," Jon said. "If you find it—"
"I will send word," Howland replied.
"If you find the Others—"
"I will avoid them."
Jon almost smiled at that. "Do not be a hero," Jon said.
Howland's expression shifted faintly, something knowing there. "I have never desired to be one."
A brief silence passed between them. There were things unspoken. Truths held in shadow. With a small nod he was gone. No dramatic farewell. No lingering glance.
The crannogmen melted into the trees, following the faint prints with uncanny precision. Within moments, they had vanished entirely.
The forest swallowed them. Jon stood staring into the dark long after they disappeared. He had a job to do.
…
The land changed slowly at first. The trees thinned. The ground rose into broken ridges of stone and wind-carved ice. Snow lay in drifts that swallowed boots to the knee. The sky remained a flat sheet of pale gray, neither day nor night in truth.
The land grew stranger with each passing day. The trees thinned until they stood like black ribs jutting from the snow. The sky flattened into a pale, endless sheet. Sound carried oddly sometimes too far, sometimes not at all.
Then they found something very strange. A line of corpses arranged in a spiral. Wildlings. Animals. Even a mammoth calf. All frozen in grotesque poses, limbs twisted into unnatural symmetry. The spiral's center was empty. "What in the seven hells…" muttered a northman.
In unison, every head turned toward him. Their eyes were blue.
"Loose!" he shouted. Arrows thudded into flesh. The corpses did not fall. They charged.
The line barely formed in time. Steel met bone. Fire licked at dead flesh. Men shouted and cursed as the first wave crashed against them.
Jon carved through the nearest wight. "Burn them!" he roared. Torches were thrust forward. Flames took hold. The dead screamed as fire consumed them.
But more rose from beneath the snow. They had been buried. Waiting. The field became chaos. Northmen fought shoulder to shoulder. Rangers shouted orders. Steel rang in frantic rhythm.
Then the temperature dropped. Violently. Breath crystallized in lungs. Flames guttered. And from the far end of the field…They came. The Others. Tall. Slender. Armored in rippling ice that caught what little light remained. Their eyes burned like frozen stars.
They advanced with measured calm. The wights parted before them, some even bowing to them as if knowing these were their masters.
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One of the Others raised a blade translucent as glacier ice. A ranger loosed an arrow. It shattered against the creature's chest.
Another man charged with fire. The Other moved faster than sight. Its blade flicked once. The ranger froze mid-stride. Then exploded into shards. Panic rippled. "Hold!" Jon shouted. But the line faltered.
All he could do was swear under his breath. He remembered in his first life one he fought these things and he had Longclaw…This life well he just had a regular blade.
The Others did not seem to care what he told his men as they stepped towards them. One's blade passed through shield and steel alike.
Men died not bleeding but freezing. Jon saw Dywen fall, frost blooming across his beard. A stark man screamed as icy fingers dragged him down. Jon charged sword meeting ice. The impact rang like struck crystal as cracks ran along his sword.
The Other's eyes fixed on him. Curious. It struck. Jon parried. Cold surged through his arms. Another strike. Another. The creature moved with impossible grace.
Around them, the battle collapsed. Men were dying too fast. The dead pressed from every side.
Jon slipped in frozen blood. The Other lunged. Its blade sliced through his glove and across his palm. Pain flared white hot in his mind. Blood spilled across the steel.
For a heartbeat nothing changed. Then…Fire. Not ordinary flame. Golden. Blinding. It roared to life along the sword which was cracked and nearly broken as if awakened. Heat exploded outward.
The Other recoiled sharply. Jon stared only an instant before instinct drove him forward. He swung. The flaming blade cut through the Other's weapon like brittle glass. The creature shrieked, a sound like cracking mountains.
Jon drove the burning steel into its chest. Light erupted. The Other shattered into a storm of ice fragments that dissolved into steam before touching the ground. A shockwave rippled outward. The nearest wights collapsed instantly.
Men stared in stunned silence. "Gods…" someone whispered. But the battle was not done. Three more Others stood beyond the field. Watching. And the dead still outnumbered the living ten to one.
Jon's sword still burned. His palm throbbed where blood fed flame. He turned toward the next pale figure. It advanced. Their blades met in a scream of ice and fire. This one was faster. Stronger. It pressed him hard.
Each clash sent sparks and frost spiraling. Jon felt strength draining with every exchange. Behind him, men fell one by one. He heard screams cut short. He did not look back. The Other struck low. Jon twisted, slashing upward. The flaming edge carved through its arm.
The limb shattered. Jon followed with a downward blow. The creature burst apart in another violent explosion. The fire along the sword dimmed slightly. Two more Others remained. But his men—
He risked a glance. The field was littered with bodies. Northmen. Rangers. Some rising again. Only a handful still stood. Other frozen where they stood and shattered into pieces because of the howling wind.
Jon stood alone amid a sea of corpses. The Others watched him. They did not attack at once. They studied him. Measured him. Then one gestured subtly. The dead began to rise again. Even those newly slain. Even the men who had died moments ago. Jon felt despair slam into him like a wall.
The Other one stepped forward. Jon raised his blade. The flame flickered weakly now. The creature lunged. Their blades met again. The force drove Jon to his knees. Ice crept along his armor. Up his arms. Numbing.
The Other pressed. Jon's grip faltered. With a desperate surge he wrenched his injured palm across the blade again. Fresh blood smeared steel. The fire reignited, brighter than before. With a roar he surged upward and cleaved through the creature's torso. It shattered in a burst of blinding light.
Only one Other remained. It did not advance. It watched. Then slowly it turned away and walked off. The wights followed. Not attacking. Not pursuing him. Simply withdrawing. Leaving him alive.
Jon stood shaking in the aftermath. Snow fell gently over the dead. Over his fallen men. One hundred northmen. Twenty rangers. Gone. Risen. Taken into the enemy's ranks. He was alone.
-
He stumbled northward for hours and days, half-mad with grief and cold. He did not know why he moved deeper instead of heading back south, to the wall. His mission was a failure. He could not bring a wight back alone.
The land grew stranger the farther he went. The familiar wilderness beyond the Wall of pine forests, broken hills, frozen rivers slowly gave way to something older. The trees thinned until they stood like blackened ribs thrusting from the snow. Then even they vanished. The world became a wasteland of pale stone and ice, shaped not by wind or water but by something deliberate.
He did not know what animated him, perhaps he wanted to see. To understand.
Snow drifted sideways in thin veils across the broken hills. The wind had died to a low, endless moan, like something breathing beneath the earth. Jon's boots were stiff with ice. His sword, no longer burning hung heavy at his side. His palm throbbed where blood had awakened fire.
He began to see shapes in the distance. At first he mistook them for mountains. But mountains did not rise in perfect spires. Mountains did not glimmer with inner light. He could only stare in awe as he stared at the architecture so far up north, which was well beyond the levels that human could craft.
It rose from the ice like a frozen cathedral thrust upward by a giant's hand. Its towers spiraled in impossible curves, tapering into needle-thin points that pierced the low gray sky. The structure was not carved stone, it was ice, but not like any ice Jon had seen. It was clear as crystal in some places, smoky and opaque in others, streaked with veins of pale blue light that pulsed faintly like a heartbeat.
The walls also rippled as if they were the water on a lake surface. The angles were very strange; surfaces folded into themselves, arching and twisting in geometries that hurt the eye to follow. Stairways climbed without visible support. Windows opened into faceted shapes that refracted the dim daylight into fractured rainbows across the snow.
The palace dwarfed anything built by men. Winterfell could have fit inside with plenty of space left. Jon stood frozen, breath misting in the air. This was not a fortress. It was a statement. A declaration of dominion.
There was no way someone would just make this and leave it abandoned…or maybe it wasn't and the occupants had just left. That thought sent a shiver down his spine. Who could live here in this otherworldly palace?
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As he crept forward up North, he saw that the ice beneath his boots had changed. It was smoother here, polished as though by countless feet. Shapes were etched into its surface with patterns of spirals and branching lines that resembled frost spreading across glass. They pulsed faintly when he stepped near them.
The wilderness grew increasingly alien. Forests of ice replaced trees with translucent trunks branching into fractal canopies that chimed softly when wind passed through them. The rivers he saw did not flow with water but with slush that glowed faintly from within. Shapes drifted beneath their surfaces, too large and too deliberate to be fish. Once, something struck from below, cracking the frozen crust mere yards from him. A vast pale eye stared up before vanishing into the depths.