The Icefyre Conquest-26

“Bran is too young for this,” Catelyn muttered as she watched her husband lace his boots swiftly, sliding the heavy cloak in her hands up his arms and shoulders once he stood up. Smoothing out the creases and straightening the wrinkles in the garment, she closed her eyes and leaned against him, sighing heavily as she felt the familiar warmth of sixteen years seep into her, “He is barely ten years of age, and you want him to witness an execution. Wait until he is twelve namedays old, please?”

“Bran is no older than I was when I first watched men get executed,” Ned…no, the Lord of the North replied as he turned around, looking down at her with steely grey eyes, that showed nothing but firmness in his decision as he continued, “You are his mother, and I understand your trepidation and sentiments to shelter him from bloodshed and death, but Winter is coming…and Bran must grow stronger before the storm reaches us…We shall be back as soon as possible. Take care of Winterfell until then…and keep the children away from the royal guests.”

“Sansa wanted to take a walk with the Prince this evening, in the Gardens,” she hedged carefully, her eyes falling down to the strings that tied the front of the cloak as she began to close it. It was no secret to anyone that she wished for a royal match between her children and those of the Crown. It was also no secret that Robert Baratheon too wished for the same, with the king having openly proposed the idea of Sansa marrying his son, the crown Prince Joffrey Baratheon to her husband a couple of times over the weeks, “the Royal Septa shall be with them, along with Septa Mordane and a Kin-”

“No.”

Her hands upon the laces of his cloak stilled at the order that left Ned’s lips, and Catelyn slowly looked up, finding no hesitation or change in her husband’s expression as he took a step back and turned around, picking up Ice from where it laid against the table. “I have not yet agreed to a match between them, and thus, Sansa is not to be left alone with that boy. Consider this an order from the Lord of Winterfell instead of your husband, and tell Sansa that under no conditions will I brook a disagreement on this. I understand your desires of seeing her marry the Prince and be the Queen, but no such step will be taken, or even be decided upon until the Ironborn have been dealt with.”

“Do you oppose the idea of Sansa being the Queen so much?!” She asked, confusion and bewilderment in her voice. “Do you not want our daughter to be married to someone like the Crown Prince, do you not want to make her dream of becoming a princess and a Queen come true? Lord Tyrell is already weaseling his daughter’s name into the way by constantly talking to the Lord Hand, and you o-”

“I don’t care if Margaery Tyrell gets married to Joffrey Baratheon!” Ned silenced her with a soft whisper, his eyes flicking to the door of their room before he looked back at her, his face settling in a grim expression. “When I took the mantle of the head of the family after the deaths of my father and brother, I swore that no other Stark shall be tied to that accursed chair in any way or form, at least not while I am alive to do anything about it. And that is without thinking of what King's Landing is like, and that the court is now almost filled with Lannisters. Leave the South to the Southerners, Catelyn, they have given us naught but scorn and agony at every possible turn.”

“And what about our daugh-”

Catelyn stopped the words bubbling inside her as she whirled around, the knocking on the door coming once again as Ned stepped around her silently. She watched him open the door partially, and her already ruined mood soured even further as she saw the boy standing there, those immaculate Northern features and that noble face staring at her for a moment before he looked towards Ned. “The horses are ready, father, and I took a small bow and quiver for Bran…I think it would be good for him.”

“Very well,”  he nodded, stepping out of the room quietly, one hand grabbing the handle as he looked back at her. “I will be back a little after the dark has set in, don’t wait up on dinner for me…and prevent any distractions for Robb and Alys…let them enjoy their peace while they have it.”

“Yes…Milord.”

“Where are we going, father?”

“To a holdfast in the north,” his father replied, nodding at the soldiers as they rode through the encamped army, his eyes flicking over at the banners and tents that had been pitched outside Winterfell. “The patrol caught a deserter of the Night’s Watch nearby, and they sent a raven to Winterfell after that. The deserter demanded an audience with me before his execution, and he was very adamant about it.”

“It has been a while since any desertion took place,” Jon spoke from their left, chomping down on an apple between his words as he stared straight ahead, turning towards Bran to give him a questioning look. “What do you remember from your lessons with Maester Luwin?”

“Night’s Watch was formed when the Wall was created by Bran the Builder, our ancestor, and the Children of the Forest,” he began to recite the words Maester Luwin had hammered into each of the Stark’s heads, the Wall being amongst the first lessons on the world outside of Winterfell. “It was a force created to protect the Realm of Men from the White Walkers, and their undead soldiers. However, it's much smaller now, and the Night’s Watch is manning only six of their keeps now. Usually, bastards, knights, and men of various ages go to the Wall to find glory and serve the Kingdom.”

“It is a glorious pur-”

“It is a shithole, nothing but full of criminals, murderers, thieves and honorless curr,” Jon snorted, and Bran felt their father still behind him as his brother turned to give some sort of look to their father. “I won’t disagree that it is an honorable calling for those who desire it, but those are few and far between in the cesspool of backstabbing and scum that the Night’s Watch has become. If Bran is old enough to see an execution, he is old enough to hear the reality about what a glorified penal colony the Watch has become, and how the Crown has let it fall.”

“Wait, is that why the cells are emptied whenever the Night’s Watch men come over?” He gasped, feeling the dots connect in his mind as he turned his neck around and looked up at his father. “Is that why that Yorin was laughing with you about no thiefs here?”

“Thieves,” Father corrected him softly, patting his head softly and smiling down at him before he sighed. “I thought I had heard something by the window…just how many times have you listened in on my conversations, Bran the Climber? As for the answer, yes, Yoren was talking about that thing.”

“So why do you tell us that it is a good thing?” He asked, looking around to look at his older brother,” and how do you know the truth?!”

“It's because I am older than you,” Jon rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue at him. Sticking his own back out and squinting his eyes shut, Bran shouted as the horse suddenly bucked wildly. Grabbing onto the saddle hurriedly, he looked around, only to hear his brother and father begin to laugh loudly. Once again ruffling his already ruined hair, his Father laid a hand on his shoulder and chuckled again.

“Is this how Bran the Knight shall ride a horse into battle?” Jon japed from the side, chucking the half-eaten apple at his head, and Bran shrieked with laughter and his father began to tickle him at the same time. Barely ducking his head in time to avoid the fruit, Bran felt tears come to his eyes as his father continued his assault on his ribs, while Jon continued to laugh and taunt him from the side. And as he almost fell off the saddle, Bran swore, shrieking and trembling, that one day he was going to make his father and brother both cry the same way he was crying right now.

“Been ‘awhile since I’ve seen ya Snow,” one of the men stationed outside the Holdfast called out as I tied our Horses to the branches above. I raised my eyes up to his slowly, finding a deathly pale, brown-eyed man looking down at me with cheerful eyes. “So, how have you and the Little Lord been all these years? Last I saw ya, Little Lord and ya had been fighting with sticks and were barely up to me waist!”

“How did you catch the man?” I asked in turn, dusting my hands as I stood up, turning around to look at the deserter the patrol had caught, the man being dragged out from the holdfast by a couple of men. With mud on his face and tears in his clothes, his condition didn’t look all that pleasant, and even from this far, I could see the way his eyes were moving around continuously, searching for something or someone as he kept on mumbling quietly. He was all skin and bones, the tatters of clothes hanging on by literal threads, and his eyes seemed to have sunk inside his head with how gaunt it had become. Humming a little as I looked at the boils and ulcers on his bare feet, I continued, “It has been a while since a deserter has managed to come so far down from the Wall.”

“Dunno what the Umbers an’ Bolton was doin,” he shook his head, picking on his ear as he leaned against the stone pillar, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “Maybe this arse traveled south behin’ the army?”

“We will know soon enough,” my uncle’s voice came over from behind us, and the man immediately straightened up as his Lord walked into view, Bran walking in quietly behind him. Seeing his downcast expression and the way he was hugging his arms tightly while looking at the ground, I sighed softly. While I knew that it was necessary, and high time that Bran saw death right in front of his face, a part of me couldn’t help but sympathize with him. Laying a hand upon his shoulder to stop him, I raised an eyebrow at him as he looked up at me, but before Bran could say anything, the prisoner was pushed to his knees before my uncle.

“There’s comin’,” the man rasped out, eyes wandering skittishly in the distance, as if they were searching for some threat unseen as a block was pushed under his head by the soldiers beside him, a bucket was kicked into place the next moment. “I knew you’d come.”

“Who is coming?” He asked in turn, unsheathing Ice and handing the sheath to Bran as he brought it down tip first on the ground, staring down quietly at the deserter, who had started shaking. “So be it. Any last words?.”

“They’re comin’,” the man croaked, voice dull and hoarse. He looked back at Uncle Ned, and his whole demeanor changed as he appeared to age a decade, “The cold shadows are comin’” he suddenly shouted, lunging forwards over the block, only for the soldiers to boot him in his sides. But the pain didn’t even seem to hit the hysterical man as he looked at us with wild, bloodshot eyes, almost salivating like a mad dog as he shuddered and tried to struggle forwards yet, “Blades of ice, eyes of frost, I can still feel the cold,” he started shivering uncontrollably. “They got, they got Will and Royce!”

One of the men holding him by his neck pushed his face into the soil, stopping his insane babbles and the erratic twitching for the moment, and yet the man continued to struggle and shiver against the hold upon him. “He is mad,” Uncle Ned muttered quietly as he raised hsi sword, and the man stilled below us as Ice was raised into the air without a sound, “Get the bucket, I don’t want it to be more messy than it has to be.”

“Yo-You don’t believe him?” Bran asked in a timid voice as he shifted closer to me, and I laid a hand upon his shoulder as he looked up at his father, “...if th-the White Walkers ar-”

“He saw something beyond the Wall, of that I am certain,” came the answer as Uncle Ned shook his head, “Something which twisted his mind. But the Others are just a fable, and this man most probably ate something that made him hallucinate all that. The punishment for desertion is beheading, and thus, I, Eddard Stark, Warden of the North sentence you to death in the name of Robert Baratheon First of his name, King of the Sev-”

“Burn my body!” Gared shouted, raising his head just enough for his voice to reach us, and the sheer horror and desperation in his voice was enough to send shivers down my spine, as his already torn voice cracked even further, “I don’t wanna raise up! Burn it a-”

Ice descended swiftly, and Gared’s voice stopped as his head fell to the earth with naught but a spurt of blood from his neck decorating the sparse snow below. Bran jumped next to me and I clamped my fingers on his mouth before he could gasp, or worse, scream at the sudden beheading. Taking a step back as Gared’s decapitated head rolled towards me, I pulled Bran backward and looked towards my Uncle…who was staring down at the wide-eyed, frenzied expression on the dead man’s face with silence, his eyes stony and unflinching.

Oh right, my Grandfather and Uncle died by burning too, didn’t they?

“Burn his body,” he commanded after a moment of silence, raising his hand out towards Bran quietly, “And send a raven to the Lord Commander of Night’s Watch to tell him of the capture and execution of a deserter. Untie the horses, Jon, we are leaving.”

“Yes Father,” I nodded slowly, and he looked at me for a moment before he strode inside the holdfast, sheathing the bloodied greatsword and placing it by his horse on the way. “Come on Bran,” I said softly, looking down at my brother as I turned him around, kneeling to look him in the eyes, “Want to help me with the horses?”

“Sure,” he nodded slowly, before he looked back at Gared’s headless body and shuddered, “Father was angry.”

“He was,” I agreed, leading him towards the stables, idly wondering just why the hell had I tied the horses when they were to be untied not even moments later. Running a hand over the neck of my mare, I sighed and closed my eyes, “It has been a trying month for him, and I probably didn’t help matters today while we were sparring.”

“Do you think he saw the Others?” he asked again as I began to untie my mare, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bran do the same to the other one. Looking at me from beyond the post, he looked in the direction of the Wall, “Old Nan always says that the Wall was not built for Wildlings…but Mother says they are just stories told to frighten children, and I should not put much…thought into it.”

“What do I think?” I raised an eyebrow, and Bran nodded as he turned back towards me. However, even though his eyes were in my direction, I knew he was still looking back at the moment when the deserter died. Standing up as I untangled the rope and tied it to the saddle instead, I thought about Bran’s question. The Wall had always roused curiosity in my mind whenever I had thought of it, but mostly it had been because of the wildlings behind it, and the thought of the fighting force they could form under the right circumstances. However, I had never given the White Walkers or the tales of their cold, undead army any thought, “I think that if the White Walkers were real, we would all be long dead by now, considering the stories are more than eight thousand years old. Now, what do you say about some sword training tonight? After everyone has gone to sleep?”

“Sure,” he nodded, a hesitant smile coming over his face, before he once again turned back towards the spot where the soldiers were dragging away Gared’s body, a trail of blood left behind by the stump of his neck. His head was being carried by one of them, and even from this far away, I could see the way a drop of crimson fell to the ground.

Maybe Bran could use a treacle tart too while I was at it.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wait!” Ned’s eyes snapped towards Jon as he raised a hand, and he pulled on the reigns of his stallion as they came to a halt. Patting his horse, he helped Bran down the beast, before jumping off himself and walking towards his son, “What is the matter Jo-By the Gods!”

His eyes widened and Ned did not even hear Bran gasp as he saw the sight before him. Just beyond the bend in the road that a thicket of trees had hidden, lied a dead wolf…except, what had caused him to pause wasn’t the blood or the antler sticking out of its neck…it was the sheer size of the animal. “A direwolf,” Jon muttered quietly, and Ned nodded wordlessly as they all stepped forwards slowly. Looking at the greyish-brown coat of the dead creature, he kneeled by it and looked at the empty eyes staring out at the ground.

“One has not been seen South of the Wall in centuries,” he murmured, staring at the antler lodged in its throat, the snow and ground around the beast soaked with its blood. Looking at the slightly open maw, Ned shuddered and looked Northwards, “A Stag killed it…but she bit him too, there is blood on her maw.”

“I think it's there,” Bran pointed to their left, and Ned looked at the trees there, before his eyes alighted on the blood splattered on the ground and the bushes, silhouetted antlers barely visible in the shrubs beyond. He focused back on Bran as his son kneeled, leaning closer to the wolf with wonder and sorrow on his face, “It's so big…how could a deer kill it father? Its mouth is big enough to swallow me whole!”

“A wolf doesn’t open its mouth that wide Bran,” Jon shook his head as he stood up, ruffling his brother’s hair as he let out a chuckle, “At most, she would have been able to gobble up your head only! But the winter is going to be bad if the animals are starting to come this south of the Wal-Wait, did you hear that?!”

“What?” Ned asked, standing up and unsheathing Ice from its sheath just a bit, holding Bran close to himself with the other hand as he looked around himself. While bandits and outlaws were scarce in the North due to the rough life of surviving in the wild and how much the population and settlements were spread across from each other, he had learned that life had a way of surprising you the most when you least expected it, and not in a good way either.

“I heard it here,” came the muttered answer as Jon took his longsword in hand, moving towards the trees on their right. Pushing Bran behind him, Ned too took a step forwards, unsheathing ice fully and bringing it to bear. Stepping off the path slowly, he watched Jon part the leaves before him as he stepped into the woods, and a part of him wanted to cuff the boy on his ears right then and there—clearly the boy had no concept of subtlety if this was how he stepped into potential bandit camps.

“Wher-FUCK,” Jon’s surprised shout came from the shadows, and the sounds of a body falling to the ground came just a moment later. Alarmed, Ned rushed forward, jumping over the bushes with his greatsword ready to cut a man in twain…only for the sight before him to stop him cold. Jon on the ground, with a growling on his chest…but as if mocking his thoughts from earlier…this one was the size of his forearm, growling with all the might of a cat at his son’s snow-covered face. Barely keeping Ice from slipping from his hands, Ned looked at the roots of the tree behind Jon, from where the sounds of yipping and low growling began to come, and as the first set of the small snouts and tiny forelimbs came into view, his eyes bugged out a little as he looked at the scene before him.

The she-wolf had given birth to Direwolves.