At sunset, Lord Commander Rodrik Umber stood just inside the northern mouth of the tunnel, beyond the last timber barricade and only a few strides behind the outer gate that opened onto no-man's-land.
The iron bars had been raised for the moment, leaving nothing between him and the open ground except the narrowing light.
Behind Rodrik, the tunnel ran south beneath the Wall toward Castle Black. Five hundred brothers waited throughout its length and within the chambers built around it, packed behind overturned wagons, sharpened stakes, stacked shields, and barrels of pitch. Archers crowded the murder holes above. Builders gripped axes and hammers beside rangers carrying swords. Every torch had been lit, yet few men spoke.
The only sounds came from leather creaking beneath nervous hands, horses shifting far behind the final barricades, and the distant screams drifting out of the Haunted Forest.
Rodrik rested both hands upon the pommel of his sword and watched the tree line.
The sun sank slowly behind the Wall, spreading a bruised red glow across the snow. From the darkness beneath the pines came the occasional snapping of wood, followed by a silence so complete that Rodrik could hear his own breathing inside his helm.
Minutes passed.
Nothing appeared.
A brother stationed beside the gate swallowed hard enough for Rodrik to hear it. "Perhaps it turned away again," the man murmured, his spear trembling faintly despite both hands wrapped around it. Hope made his voice sound younger than his face. "Perhaps the gods finally grew tired of watching us suffer."
Rodrik did not look at him.
"The gods have never shown much concern for our comfort," he said, keeping his eyes fixed upon the dying forest. "Hold your spear properly."
The brother adjusted his grip.
Another tree collapsed somewhere in the distance.
The sound rolled across no-man's-land like distant thunder, then faded beneath a wet tearing noise that Rodrik could not identify. The line of dead ground had already broken through the final trees. Black soil stretched outward from the forest in crooked veins, spreading beneath snow that softened, darkened, and vanished wherever the corruption touched it.
Then something moved between the trunks.
Rodrik's fingers tightened upon his sword.
At first, he saw only a pale shape passing through the dead trees. It vanished behind one trunk and appeared beside another, moving without the heavy caution of a man approaching a fortified gate.
The figure stopped at the edge of the forest.
Rodrik had spent more than twenty years beyond the Wall. He had faced giants, watched shadowcats tear armored men from horses, and once awakened beneath a mound of frozen corpses after wildlings overran his ranging party. He had believed he understood terror.
He had been wrong.
Jinx Stark stepped out of the Haunted Forest.
His fur cloak was gone. Whatever fine black clothing he had worn at the beginning of the expedition had been reduced to torn leather clinging to his body in ragged strips. One sleeve had disappeared entirely, leaving a pale arm exposed from shoulder to wrist, though so much blood covered him that little of his natural skin remained visible.
He looked as though he had climbed from the oldest and cruelest of the North's stories.
Blood had dried in layers across his face, neck, chest, and bare arms, some of it black with age while fresher streaks still gleamed beneath the sunset. It soaked his hair and pulled the long strands together around his shoulders. Bits of fur, leaves, and something Rodrik refused to identify had become tangled among them.
Dark Sister rested in Jinx's right hand.
The Valyrian steel blade was so thoroughly covered in blood that only narrow sections of dark, rippling metal remained visible near its edge. The point dragged lightly through the snow, leaving a thin red line behind him.
A severed arm hung from Jinx's mouth.
Black wool still covered part of it.
The hand at its end had stiffened into a claw, and the remains of a leather glove marked the dead man as a brother of the Night's Watch. Jinx held the limb between his teeth with the absent possessiveness of a wolf carrying meat away from a carcass.
A sound moved through the defenders behind Rodrik.
Not a cry. Not quite.
Five hundred men inhaled together.
Rodrik forced himself not to step backward.
His gaze travelled over Jinx again, searching through the horror for anything useful, anything that might resemble weakness rather than death wearing a beautiful face.
That was when he saw the wounds.
Jinx's torn leathers were covered in cuts, punctures, and scorched marks. Several arrow shafts had snapped off close to his body, leaving their heads buried beneath his flesh. A long slash crossed his ribs, while another opened the outside of his thigh. Blood continued seeping from the injuries, tracing fresh paths through the older stains.
He could be hurt.
The realization entered Rodrik's mind with desperate force.
Steel had reached him. Arrows had pierced him. Whatever impossible hunger had carried Jinx through the Haunted Forest had not made him untouchable.
Hope stirred within Rodrik's chest.
Small, unreasonable, and nearly useless.
But alive.
Then he noticed what Jinx carried against him.
Something large had been bound to the boy's left side with torn strips of black cloth. At first Rodrik mistook it for a stone wrapped for transport, but the final light of sunset touched the object and revealed overlapping scales beneath layers of moss, river mud, and pale fungus.
An egg.
Not the smooth shell of any bird Rodrik knew, but a great scaled oval nearly as broad as Jinx's chest. Fungus clustered between its ridges, and dark green growth hung from one side like rotting hair.
Rodrik stared.
Old tales returned unbidden—stories of fire made flesh, of Valyria, of the Targaryens and the beasts that had once turned battlefields into ash.
A dragon egg.
The letter had mentioned the possibility, yet parchment had not prepared him for seeing one carried out of the Haunted Forest by a blood-soaked prince with a human arm between his teeth.
Jinx advanced.
Every step killed the ground beneath him.
Snow melted several feet around his boots without steaming. What remained beneath it did not become mud. The earth turned black and dry, grass collapsing into dust while threads of dim magenta light rose from roots and moss before disappearing into Jinx's body.
The dead path followed him into no-man's-land.
Rodrik felt the men behind him shifting.
"Hold," he ordered, though his voice came out quieter than intended. He cleared his throat and forced iron into it. "No one looses an arrow until I give the command."
"My lord," one of the archers called from above, fear cracking through his attempt at discipline, "he is carrying one of ours."
"I can see that."
"Is he—"
"I can see it."
The archer fell silent.
Jinx continued across the open ground.
Three-quarters of a mile.
Then half.
He moved slowly at first, his posture slumped beneath exhaustion and the weight of the egg. Dark Sister's point continued tracing behind him, occasionally catching against frozen earth before sliding free.
No wildling army followed.
No wolves circled at his side.
He came alone.
At half a mile, Jinx lifted his head.
His gaze found Rodrik.
The distance should have made it impossible for either of them to see the other clearly, yet Rodrik felt the moment those eyes settled upon him. The air seemed to thin inside the tunnel. His chest tightened, and every instinct earned through decades of battle told him that death had noticed him personally.
Jinx's eyes burned poisonous yellow, each iris surrounded by a narrow ring of red light. They shone beneath blood-matted hair with a brightness that belonged in neither man nor beast.
Rodrik had expected madness.
What he saw was hunger vast enough to make madness seem almost human.
He also saw something else.
Streaks of pale silver-blond ran through Jinx's black hair. They were scattered unevenly across his head, some no more than a few strands, others wide enough to catch the fading light. Rodrik could not tell whether the change came from blood, frost, sorcery, or some hidden inheritance forcing itself to the surface.
He had no time to consider it.
Jinx stopped walking.
The severed arm hung between his teeth as his head tilted slightly to one side. The unnatural eyes remained fixed upon Rodrik, studying the broad northern man standing behind the gate.
For one heartbeat, neither moved.
Rodrik wondered whether any part of the prince recognized him from the river expedition. Perhaps Jinx remembered the name Umber. Perhaps he understood that the man before him commanded the brothers who had been sent into the forest.
Then Jinx opened his jaws.
The arm dropped into the snow.
He spat a chunk of flesh after it.
A growl began low in his chest, so deep that the iron gate vibrated faintly between its hinges. Jinx's shoulders rose. His back bent. Dark Sister lifted from the ground as his fingers clenched around the bloody hilt.
Rodrik drew his sword.
Steel rang behind him as five hundred brothers followed.
Jinx howled.
The sound struck the northern gate like a physical blow. Men recoiled from the bars. Frost cracked along the tunnel walls, and several torches guttered at once. The howl rose higher, carrying fury, hunger, and a pain so raw that Rodrik almost heard the teenage boy trapped somewhere beneath it.
Then Jinx ran.
He did not charge like a knight or sprint like a ranger.
He moved like an animal released from a cage.
His body pitched forward, one hand striking the ground before he launched himself across the snow. Dark Sister remained in his right hand, the blade held low beside him while the egg stayed lashed against his ribs. His feet tore blackened earth from beneath him with every stride.
Rodrik had never seen a man move so quickly.
The distance vanished.
Half a mile became a quarter before the archers above could properly track him. Jinx crossed the open ground as little more than a black and crimson shape, hair streaming behind him while the corruption spread outward from his path.
Rodrik raised one arm.
"Wait!"
Bowstrings groaned above him.
Men behind the barricades began shouting prayers and final words to one another, their fear rising as Jinx came closer.
Two hundred paces.
One hundred.
The yellow eyes never left Rodrik.
"Gate!" Rodrik roared, slashing his raised hand downward. "Close the gate!"
The mechanism released.
Chains thundered through the tunnel as the outer portcullis began dropping. Iron bars descended from above, slow at first beneath their immense weight before gathering speed.
Jinx did not slow.
Fifty paces.
The ground shook beneath his approach.
Thirty.
Rodrik stepped backward as the gate fell between them, the lower points racing toward the channels cut into the stone.
Twenty paces.
"Faster!" someone screamed, though nothing could make gravity pull harder.
Jinx lowered his shoulder.
Ten paces.
The portcullis slammed into place.
A heartbeat later, Jinx struck it.
The impact was deafening.
Iron shrieked against stone. The entire gate bowed inward, and a shock travelled through the tunnel hard enough to throw dust and fragments of ice from the ceiling. Several defenders stumbled. One torch tore free from its bracket and struck the ground, scattering embers across the frozen floor.
Rodrik staggered back two steps but remained upright.
On the other side of the gate, Jinx had been thrown into the snow.
For a moment, the only sound was the groaning of tortured iron.
Then Dark Sister's blood-covered point rose into view between the bars.
Jinx dragged himself upright.
Slowly.
The collision had torn fresh wounds across his face and shoulder, but he appeared not to notice them. Blood ran from his nose and mouth as he approached the gate again, placing one pale hand against a bar that had bent beneath the impact.
His burning eyes found Rodrik through the iron.
The Lord Commander tightened his grip upon his sword.
Jinx pressed his blood-covered face between the bars as far as they allowed, teeth bared while a low growl filled the tunnel.
Behind Rodrik, five hundred brothers waited.
Before him stood the thing that had devoured every man sent into its path.
And between them was a gate that had already bent once.
"Drop the inner gate!" Rodrik roared, the words tearing out of him as Jinx's blood-covered face pressed between the bent bars of the portcullis.
The brothers nearest the mechanism did not hesitate.
Two men brought their axes down upon the restraining rope while another ripped the locking pin free. The great gate suspended farther inside the tunnel released with a deep metallic groan, its chains racing through iron wheels as the solid slab descended between Rodrik and the outer portcullis.
Jinx's burning eyes remained fixed upon him until the final moment.
Yellow surrounded by red.
Blood dripping from his mouth.
Then the inner gate crashed into the stone floor.
The impact shook the tunnel from wall to wall. Dust spilled from the ceiling, torches leapt inside their brackets, and the last sight of Jinx vanished behind several inches of dark iron.
Silence followed.
Not true silence. Five hundred men still breathed behind Rodrik, mail shifted beneath cloaks, and the newly dropped gate creaked as its immense weight settled into the channels cut along the tunnel walls.
Yet compared to the howl and the force of Jinx striking the portcullis, the sudden absence of him felt unnatural.
Rodrik stood several paces from the gate with his sword still raised. His eyes moved over its solid surface, searching for any seam, opening, or weakness that had escaped the builders' inspection.
The gate had been constructed to stop giants.
Unlike the outer portcullis, it gave no view of the land beyond it. Iron plates covered a thick inner frame of ancient oak, each one riveted into place and reinforced with horizontal bars broad enough that three men were needed to lift them. There were no openings large enough for a blade or hand to pass through. Once lowered, it transformed the tunnel into a sealed chamber of metal, ice, and stone.
A brother behind Rodrik released a trembling breath.
"He cannot get through that," the man whispered, clutching his spear against his chest rather than pointing it forward. He stared at the gate as though speaking the thought aloud might make it true. "Not alone."
Rodrik did not answer.
A single dull impact struck the other side.
THUD.
The gate shivered.
Men throughout the tunnel flinched together. Several archers above lifted their bows despite having nothing to aim at, while the builders nearest the winch looked upward to make certain the chains remained secured.
Another impact came.
THUD.
This one carried more weight.
The iron plates vibrated, and a low groan travelled through the oak buried beneath them.
Rodrik's gaze narrowed.
"What is he doing?" someone asked from deeper inside the tunnel.
The answer came before anyone could offer one.
THUD.
A shallow dent appeared in the center of the gate.
No larger than a clenched fist at first, it pushed inward between two rivets, leaving the metal bowed where it had been perfectly flat moments earlier.
Every man close enough to see it went still.
The brother who had declared the gate unbreakable slowly lowered his spear.
Rodrik stared at the dent, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes had shown him. Jinx had no hammer. No ram. No giant stood beside him swinging a club against the iron.
The boy was striking it with his body.
Or his bare hands.
THUD.
The first dent deepened.
A second appeared several feet to its left.
The noise rolled through the tunnel with enough force to press against men's chests. It did not sound like steel against steel. There was no sharp ring of Dark Sister striking iron, only the brutal, heavy report of flesh and bone slamming into the gate with strength flesh and bone should never possess.
"Back from it," Rodrik ordered.
The nearest brothers hesitated.
"Move!" he shouted, turning and driving one man backward with his shoulder. "Everyone behind the first barricade. Archers to the murder holes. Builders, watch the braces and call out if anything shifts."
Men scrambled away from the gate.
The tunnel became a confusion of black cloaks, raised shields, and boots slipping across frozen stone. Rodrik retreated with them but kept his body facing north, refusing to turn his back upon the thick metal slab.
Another strike landed.
THUD.
A third dent pushed inward.
This one was broader than the others, centered at the height of a man's chest. Rivets jumped inside their holes. One tore loose and shot through the tunnel, spinning past Rodrik's shoulder before striking the wall hard enough to throw sparks.
The men nearest it recoiled.
"He is breaking the bloody iron," a builder gasped, staring at the empty rivet hole. His beard trembled around his open mouth. "That gate has held against mammoths."
"Then pray mammoths taught it something useful," Rodrik growled, though his own blood had gone cold.
The builders reached the first set of support braces and began reinforcing them. Heavy timbers were dragged into angled positions against the gate, their lower ends wedged into prepared grooves in the floor. Chains were wrapped around iron hooks and tightened until the links groaned.
They worked quickly.
Jinx worked faster.
THUD.
One of the angled timbers jumped.
A crack split down its side.
Men shouted and threw themselves against it, forcing the support back into position while another brother hurried forward with a replacement beam.
THUD.
The center of the gate bowed inward another inch.
Rodrik could see the shape of the impacts now. Two higher dents where fists might have struck. A broad depression lower down where a shoulder or foot had slammed into it. Each strike came from a slightly different place, as though the creature outside was moving across the gate, testing every section for weakness.
Then the pounding stopped.
The sudden quiet was worse than the noise.
Rodrik lifted one fist, ordering silence without turning around.
The defenders froze behind the first barricade.
No one spoke.
No weapons moved.
Even the builders stopped tightening chains and stared toward the gate.
For several heartbeats, nothing came from the other side.
Then there was a scrape.
Slow.
Metal dragged across metal from the top of the gate toward the bottom, producing a shriek that made several men grit their teeth. Dark Sister's edge carved against the iron plate in one unhurried line.
Jinx was no longer striking blindly.
He was searching.
The scrape ended near the floor.
A low growl came through the gate.
It should have been muffled by the iron, oak, and distance, yet every man heard it clearly. The sound vibrated through the metal and travelled along the tunnel walls, deep enough that the flame of the nearest torch trembled.
Rodrik tightened his grip around his sword.
A heavier blow landed.
BOOM.
The entire gate bent inward.
Every support timber groaned at once. One snapped cleanly, its upper half whipping backward and striking a builder across the chest. The man flew into the barricade and collapsed among stacked shields, his breath leaving him in a broken grunt.
The men around him rushed to drag him clear.
"Replace that brace!" Rodrik ordered as he stepped forward to help lift the fallen timber. "Use two this time. Wedge them against the side channels, not the center."
A builder seized one end beside him. "My lord, if he keeps striking the same place—"
"I can see what happens if he keeps striking it."
Another impact cut off the man's reply.
BOOM.
The gate lurched inward far enough that frozen dust burst from its lower channels. A line appeared along one of the oak supports behind the iron, thin at first before lengthening with a series of dry cracks.
Rodrik's men stared.
The line became a split.
From the other side came a furious, animal howl.
The sound poured through the damaged structure with far greater clarity than before. Some men shrank behind their shields. Others shouted back, not because they believed Jinx would understand them but because answering fear with noise was the only thing keeping their knees from folding.
Rodrik planted his sword point against the stone and looked over the defenders.
"Oil on the first section," he ordered, breathing hard as the tunnel shook again. "Not the whole floor. I want a line directly behind the gate. Archers hold fire until it breaches. Spears take the front of the barricade. No man approaches alone if it opens."
Barrels were rolled forward.
Brothers hammered their lids loose and poured black pitch into a shallow channel running across the tunnel. The thick liquid spread slowly beneath the gate, its sharp smell mixing with sweat, smoke, and fear.
Another dent appeared.
Then another.
Jinx's blows were no longer spaced apart.
THUD.
THUD.
BOOM.
The rhythm grew savage.
Iron folded inward beneath every impact. Rivets snapped from the plates. The oak hidden behind them began cracking loudly enough to be heard throughout the tunnel. Each strike seemed stronger than the last, as though Jinx's frustration fed the same hunger that had carried him through the forest.
Rodrik saw fresh blood begin seeping beneath the gate.
At first, it was only a thin red line.
Then droplets followed, striking the stone on their side.
Jinx was hurting himself.
The knowledge gave Rodrik another flicker of hope, though he hated how desperately he seized it. Bone could break. Flesh could tear. The boy had wounds already, and every strike against the gate opened more.
Yet the pounding never slowed.
Blood continued running beneath the iron while the dents grew deeper.
"He is going to kill himself trying to enter," one of the younger brothers whispered.
Rodrik looked at the dark red liquid crawling toward his boots.
"No," he said as another impact shook the tunnel. "He is going to enter."
The men nearest him heard.
Fear moved through them, but no one abandoned the barricade.
The speech in the yard had not made them fearless. Rodrik had never expected it to. It had merely given them something stronger than fear to hold while waiting.
Another blow struck the center of the gate.
The metal tore.
It began as a narrow crack between two plates, no wider than a dagger's edge. Pale sunset shone through it from no-man's-land, crossed immediately by shadow.
Then a blood-covered finger pushed through.
Men shouted and raised their weapons.
The finger hooked around the torn metal. Another followed, pale beneath blackened blood, its nails split and flesh peeled open from repeated impacts.
Jinx growled on the other side.
His hand tightened.
The iron screamed as the crack widened.
Rodrik raised his sword and stepped onto the first barricade, every man around him watching the bloody fingers bend thick metal apart.
"Stand ready!" he roared, his voice nearly swallowed by the grinding gate. "Whatever comes through that opening, make it pay for the privilege!"
Five hundred brothers lowered their spears.
Beyond the gate, Jinx howled and pulled.
The gate did not fail all at once.
It screamed first.
The iron plates bowed inward beneath Jinx's fingers while the oak frame hidden behind them cracked in a dozen places at once. Rivets tore loose and skipped across the frozen floor, forcing the brothers nearest the barricade to duck behind their shields. Blood ran from Jinx's ruined hands through the widening split, dripping steadily into the pitch-filled channel at the defenders' feet.
Rodrik Umber watched the gap grow wider with each pull.
He could hear Jinx breathing on the other side.
Not the broken gasps of an exhausted boy. Each breath dragged wetly through his throat, deep and impatient, followed by a growl whenever the warped metal resisted him. His nails had torn away. Portions of skin remained caught against the jagged iron, yet pain seemed to matter only because it slowed him.
"Torches ready," Rodrik ordered as he stepped down from the barricade, his sword held low beside his leg. He looked toward the builders bracing the rear line, then toward the archers waiting in the murder holes above. "When the gate opens, burn the floor. Do not loose into the backs of our own men, and for the love of every god still listening, do not crowd him."
The metal shrieked again.
Jinx tore one side of the gate inward.
A narrow opening appeared, barely broad enough for a man's shoulder, and the last red light of sunset spilled through it. For a moment, the brothers saw only blackened ground and the blood-smeared fingers curled around the torn plate.
Then a burning yellow eye appeared within the gap.
The younger men recoiled.
Jinx pressed his face toward the opening, blood running from the bridge of his nose and dripping from his lips. His teeth remained bared, but the mindless battering had stopped. Those unnatural eyes moved across the defenders, counting them, passing from spear to shield to bow before settling upon Rodrik.
Recognition seemed to sharpen something behind the hunger.
Rodrik lifted his sword.
"Come on, then," he said, his weathered face tightening as he planted his boots upon the stone. "You have crossed half the dead world to reach me. Do not become shy now."
Jinx's lips pulled farther from his teeth.
Dark Sister stabbed through the opening.
The blade entered low, then swept upward in a single savage arc. Valyrian steel passed through the inner braces, iron plating, and the remaining bars of the outer portcullis with little more resistance than wet cloth. Severed pieces crashed across the tunnel, one length of iron striking a brother's shield hard enough to break his arm beneath it.
Jinx dragged the sword free.
He seized the torn gate with his left hand, placed one bare foot against the wall, and pulled.
The entire damaged section ripped away.
Iron and oak crashed onto the pitch-covered floor as Jinx stepped through the opening, the great moss-covered dragon egg still bound against his side beneath strips of torn black cloth.
For one suspended heartbeat, he stood before the Night's Watch.
Then he turned away from them.
Jinx crouched just outside the breach and unwrapped the egg with startling care. His bloodied fingers moved clumsily over the knots, yet none of the impatience he had shown toward the gate remained. He lifted the ancient egg in both hands and carried it toward a shallow recess beside the tunnel wall, sheltered between two fallen pieces of iron.
The five hundred defenders watched him settle it into the snow.
He adjusted the torn cloth beneath it so the scaled shell would not rest directly upon the frozen ground. One pale hand lingered across the fungus-covered surface, tracing a dark ridge with the tenderness of a mother soothing a sleeping child.
Rodrik felt the hope his men had found begin to curdle.
Whatever remained inside Jinx was not wholly mindless.
That meant it could choose.
Jinx rose.
He turned toward them, Dark Sister hanging in his right hand, and left the egg behind.
"Now!" Rodrik shouted.
Torches fell into the channel.
Pitch erupted across the tunnel in a sheet of orange fire.
Flames rolled over Jinx's legs and climbed his torn leathers. Archers released from above, the first volley descending through the smoke with enough force to cover the breach in black shafts.
Jinx ran through it.
Several arrows struck him. One buried itself beneath his collarbone, another entered the meat of his thigh, and a third pierced the side of his neck without passing completely through. Jinx's body jerked beneath the impacts, but his pace never broke.
Dark Sister flashed.
Three arrows split in the air before reaching his face.
He vaulted through the flames and landed among the first rank of spearmen.
The tunnel became blood.
The first brother thrust properly, driving his spear toward Jinx's chest with both hands. Dark Sister cut through the shaft, continued through his jaw, and opened his head to the temple. Jinx stepped around the falling body, seized the broken lower half of the spear beneath his arm, and used it to drag the second man off balance before the Valyrian blade passed through his stomach.
Hot entrails spilled across the stones.
A third brother brought his shield forward. Jinx struck once, Dark Sister cutting through iron-rimmed oak, the man's forearm, and half his ribs in the same motion. The defender folded around the blade as Jinx ripped it free, blood spraying across the men behind him.
"Second rank!" Rodrik roared, forcing his voice above the screaming. "Close, strike, withdraw!"
The next line moved as trained.
Shields pressed forward from three directions while spears stabbed through the gaps. Two points entered Jinx's side. Another tore across his back. A fourth buried itself low in his stomach before the brother holding it shouted in triumph.
Jinx grasped the shaft protruding from his belly.
He pulled himself farther onto it.
The brother's triumph died.
Jinx came within reach, caught him by the front of his mail, and drove Dark Sister through his open mouth. The sword burst from the back of the man's skull, dark steel carrying fragments of bone and teeth into the defender behind him.
Jinx tore the spear from his own body.
Blood poured down his abdomen, black beneath the firelight.
He threw the weapon aside.
He did not bite the nearest corpse. He did not fall upon all fours or tear at the men with his hands. Once the gate had opened and the defenders surrounded him, something in his posture had changed. He stood upright, though slightly hunched, Dark Sister extended before him while his burning eyes followed every moving blade.
He fought like a man.
A feral one, stripped of speech, mercy, and every restraint that kept skill from becoming slaughter, but a man nonetheless.
Rodrik saw it immediately.
"Fall back!" he shouted as Jinx cut another spearhead from its shaft. "Give him the tunnel! Do not feed him ten men where two will do!"
The brothers withdrew toward the first barricade, dragging the wounded when they could. Jinx followed at a measured walk, stepping over bodies while arrows remained buried in his flesh. Fire clung to the hem of his ruined leathers. His black hair had come loose around his face, the strange silver-blond streaks gleaming through blood and smoke.
The defenders threw hooks attached to chains.
Two caught around Jinx's arms. A third wrapped across his waist.
Builders heaved from behind the barricade.
The chains snapped tight.
Jinx stopped.
Nearly twenty men pulled together, boots sliding across the blood-slick stones as they dragged his arms outward. Dark Sister's point dipped toward the ground. For a heartbeat, it appeared that weight and iron might accomplish what blades had not.
Rodrik charged.
He crossed the distance with his sword raised in both hands, using the restrained men's bodies to shield his approach. Jinx turned his head, yellow eyes locking upon him just before Rodrik's blade descended.
The northern steel struck Jinx across the left shoulder.
Mail was gone from that side, and the blade bit deeply through leather, skin, and muscle until it stopped against bone. Blood burst across Rodrik's gloves.
Jinx roared.
Rodrik ripped the weapon free and struck again, this time across the thigh. His sword opened the flesh above Jinx's knee almost to the bone, forcing the younger man down onto one leg.
"Pull!" Rodrik bellowed, stepping away before Dark Sister could rise. "Break his bloody arms if you have to!"
The builders dragged the chains harder.
Jinx's shoulders shifted unnaturally beneath the force. One arm was pulled behind him while the other stretched sideways, Dark Sister trapped in his right fist.
Rodrik came forward a third time.
Jinx twisted.
The movement was too sudden for the men holding the chains. He turned beneath one loop, crossed his bound arms, and brought Dark Sister down against the links around his right wrist.
Valyrian steel sheared through them.
The released chain snapped backward. Three builders were thrown onto their backs, while another lost several teeth when the iron links struck his mouth.
Jinx spun into the second chain, wrapping it around his forearm rather than allowing it to hold him. He pulled once.
Seven men were dragged over the barricade.
Dark Sister met them before they landed.
The first was cut through the chest. The second lost both legs above the knees. A third struck the floor intact, only for Jinx to reverse the blade and drive its point through the base of his skull.
Rodrik reached him amid the falling bodies.
Their swords met for the first time.
Rodrik did not block Dark Sister's edge directly. He turned his blade at the last instant, catching the flat and guiding the strike past his shoulder while slamming his armored forehead into Jinx's face.
Bone cracked.
Jinx staggered, his nose collapsing beneath the blow.
Rodrik struck his wrist with the pommel, then drove one knee into the wound across his stomach. Jinx folded slightly, releasing a choked growl as blood spilled from between his lips.
Rodrik's sword came from below.
The blade entered beneath Jinx's ribs and drove upward.
For the first time, Jinx's howl sounded almost human.
Rodrik shoved deeper, both hands locked around the hilt as his shoulder struck the boy's chest. He felt steel pass through muscle and scrape against bone.
"Whatever is left in there," Rodrik gasped, his face inches from Jinx's blood-covered features, "you had better wake up soon."
Jinx's eyes burned brighter.
His left hand closed around Rodrik's blade.
The northern steel cut through his palm as his fingers tightened, but he held it anyway. Rodrik tried to wrench the sword free and found it trapped between Jinx's flesh and impossible strength.
Dark Sister moved.
Rodrik released his weapon and threw himself backward.
The Valyrian blade passed where his neck had been, cutting through the front of his gorget and opening a line from beneath his ear to his collarbone. Blood immediately soaked into his mail.
Jinx pulled Rodrik's sword from his own body.
He stared at it for half a heartbeat.
Then he snapped it across his knee.
A broken piece struck the floor.
Rodrik stood unarmed.
Jinx charged.
Rodrik caught the wrist holding Dark Sister with both hands and turned with the impact. The blade passed alongside his ribs, slicing through cloak and mail without reaching deeply into his flesh. He drove his shoulder beneath Jinx's arm, lifted, and threw him over his hip.
Jinx struck the stone hard enough to crack it.
Rodrik kicked Dark Sister's hand.
The sword skidded several feet across the tunnel.
"Now!" Rodrik shouted as he dropped onto Jinx's chest and drove one gauntleted fist into his face. "Put him down!"
The remaining spearmen surged forward.
Points entered Jinx from every direction.
One pierced his calf. Another slid between his ribs. A third drove through his forearm and pinned it briefly against the ground. Rodrik struck him again, breaking more teeth, then seized an arrow buried in Jinx's shoulder and forced it deeper.
Jinx convulsed beneath him.
Magenta light erupted from the wounds.
The nearest spearman screamed.
Colour drained from his face in a rush, skin collapsing inward as luminous threads were torn from his body and drawn into Jinx. The effect spread through every man touching him. Hands withered around spear shafts. Eyes sank into skulls. Hair whitened while mouths opened around shrieks that became dry rattles.
Rodrik felt the pull touch him.
Warmth began leaving his limbs.
He threw himself away.
The brothers surrounding Jinx were not quick enough. Six collapsed around him as shrivelled husks, their armor suddenly hanging loose upon bodies that had lost decades in seconds.
Jinx rolled onto his side.
The wounds across his body remained, but his movements strengthened. He ripped the spearhead from his arm, crawled toward Dark Sister, and closed his ruined right hand around its hilt.
Rodrik seized a fallen sword.
"Back!" he ordered, his voice ragged as he forced himself upright. Blood ran beneath his armor from the cut along his neck. "Second barricade! Move while he is looking at me!"
"My lord—" a ranger began, reaching for Rodrik's arm.
Rodrik shoved him away.
"You heard the order," he snarled, never taking his eyes off Jinx. "Prepare the rear tunnel. If I fall, burn everything north of the final gate."
The ranger looked at him, grief and protest twisting together across his face.
Rodrik struck his shield with the borrowed sword. "That was not a request!"
The men withdrew.
Some dragged the wounded. Others backed away with shields raised, unwilling to turn while Jinx climbed to his feet among the dead. The retreat carried them deeper beneath the Wall, leaving the first section of tunnel littered with bodies, broken weapons, and pools of burning pitch.
Rodrik remained.
Jinx straightened across from him.
His left shoulder hung lower from the deep cut. One leg trembled whenever he placed weight upon it. A broken arrow protruded from his neck, and Rodrik's earlier thrust had left blood pouring steadily beneath his ribs.
Yet he raised Dark Sister.
Not like an animal carrying stolen metal.
Like a swordsman.
Rodrik shifted the unfamiliar weapon in his hands and lowered his stance. He had fought faster men before. He had fought stronger men and better-trained men.
He had never fought anyone who was all three while refusing to die.
Jinx moved first.
Dark Sister came high, then changed direction halfway through the swing. Rodrik barely caught the flat, turned the stroke aside, and answered with a cut toward Jinx's wounded thigh.
Jinx withdrew the leg.
Rodrik's blade grazed him rather than biting deeply.
Dark Sister returned from the opposite side. Rodrik ducked beneath it, felt several hairs leave his head, and drove his borrowed sword toward Jinx's stomach.
Jinx twisted.
The point entered his side instead.
Rodrik stepped through the thrust, forcing it deeper before releasing one hand and striking Jinx's broken nose with his elbow. The boy reeled.
Rodrik tore the sword sideways.
The wound opened across Jinx's abdomen in a thick red line.
Jinx's growl shook with pain.
"Good," Rodrik breathed, circling as blood dripped from the point of his sword. His own breathing had become heavy, each inhale scraping against the wound near his collar. "You feel that. Means you are still in there."
Jinx responded with another attack.
Their blades flashed through torchlight.
Dark Sister was lighter, sharper, and controlled by a hand born with monstrous potential, but Jinx's hunger made him impatient. He struck with enough force to kill through armor, expecting every blow to end the fight. Rodrik survived by giving ground, turning cuts aside, and refusing to meet Valyrian steel edge against edge.
He allowed Dark Sister to pass close.
Too close, at times.
One stroke opened his upper arm. Another sliced through two layers of mail and left a deep wound across his stomach. A third removed the top of his left ear and sent blood running down his neck.
Rodrik answered every injury.
He cut Jinx across the chest, opening him from shoulder to sternum. When Jinx lunged, Rodrik stepped inside the blade and smashed his pommel into the boy's mouth. Teeth and blood struck the wall.
Jinx snarled and headbutted him.
Rodrik's vision flashed white.
His knees nearly folded, but he drove his sword down before falling. The point entered the top of Jinx's foot and struck stone beneath it.
Jinx howled.
Rodrik twisted the blade, then kicked him in the chest and tore it free.
The boy stumbled backward into one of the support posts. Rodrik advanced, slashing once across his forearm and again beneath his ribs. The second strike cut so deeply that Jinx's flesh parted around the blade.
For the briefest moment, Rodrik believed he had him.
Jinx's hand snapped around his throat.
Rodrik was lifted from the floor.
His boots kicked several inches above the stone as Jinx held him one-handed, yellow eyes burning beneath curtains of black and silver-blond hair. Blood ran down Jinx's arm from the cuts Rodrik had opened, dripping across the Lord Commander's chest.
Rodrik could not breathe.
He did not try to pry the hand away.
He drove his sword into Jinx's thigh.
The blade entered almost to the hilt.
Jinx dropped him.
Rodrik landed badly, one knee striking the stone hard enough to send pain through his hip. He rolled as Dark Sister came down, and the Valyrian blade cut through the floor where his head had been.
Rodrik seized his sword where it remained buried in Jinx's leg.
He pulled.
The edge tore sideways through muscle.
Jinx staggered.
Rodrik rose with him, shoulder slamming into the boy's chest. He drove Jinx against the tunnel wall and struck him again and again—pommel to temple, fist to throat, knee into the wound beneath his ribs.
Jinx's face turned beneath the blows.
Rodrik caught a glimpse of him without the hunger's beauty.
A teenage boy, exhausted beyond reason, skin pale beneath layers of blood, his face broken and eyes burning because something inside him refused to let him stop.
Pity entered Rodrik at the worst possible moment.
His next strike hesitated.
Dark Sister cut through his breastplate.
The blade entered beneath his right arm, slicing through mail and flesh before emerging near his back. Rodrik released a strangled grunt as Jinx ripped it free.
He stumbled away, one hand pressing against the wound.
Blood flooded between his fingers.
Jinx followed.
Rodrik raised his sword in time to catch the next strike, but Dark Sister bit halfway through the northern steel. He twisted before the weapon could break completely and drove his forehead into Jinx's face once more.
Both men staggered.
Rodrik's damaged sword hung crooked in his grip. Jinx's right hand trembled around Dark Sister, two fingers bent at angles they should not have held. Blood covered both of them so thoroughly that the stains of one man could no longer be distinguished from the other.
They circled in the corpse-filled tunnel.
Behind Rodrik, the Night's Watch watched from the second barricade.
No one cheered.
No one dared interrupt.
Jinx had ceased noticing them. Every fragment of his attention remained fixed upon the broad northern man who continued standing no matter how often Dark Sister opened him.
Rodrik understood what had happened.
He had become the challenge.
The largest living thing between Jinx and the heartbeats gathered deeper beneath the Wall.
Rodrik lifted his broken sword and gave the boy a bloody smile.
"I was wondering how many men I would need to become before you noticed me."
Jinx growled.
"You are ugly when you are angry," Rodrik continued, shifting his weight carefully away from his wounded side. His voice shook with exhaustion, but the taunt earned the reaction he wanted. "Your mother will be disappointed."
Jinx lunged.
Rodrik stepped aside.
Dark Sister passed his ribs. Rodrik caught Jinx's sword wrist beneath his arm, locked it against his body, and drove the broken remains of his own blade through the boy's abdomen.
The steel burst from Jinx's back.
Rodrik roared and shoved until the damaged guard struck flesh.
Jinx's body went rigid.
The magenta glow around him flickered.
Rodrik held him there, face pressed near Jinx's blood-soaked hair as both struggled to remain upright.
"This ends," Rodrik whispered, his breath wet and failing. "Here."
Jinx released Dark Sister with his right hand.
For one impossible heartbeat, Rodrik thought the boy had finally surrendered.
Then Jinx caught the sword with his left.
His wounded fingers closed around the hilt.
He pulled himself farther down Rodrik's embedded blade, closing the last space between them, and drove Dark Sister beneath the Lord Commander's ribs.
The Valyrian steel entered cleanly.
Rodrik's breath stopped.
Jinx pushed upward.
The blade pierced the heart.
The pain was strangely distant. Rodrik felt pressure, cold, and then a tremendous weakness spreading outward through his limbs. His grip loosened around the broken sword but did not release it.
Jinx withdrew Dark Sister.
Rodrik swayed.
One boot slid backward through the blood until it found solid stone. He planted the point of his broken weapon against the floor and locked both hands around the hilt, using it to hold himself upright.
Jinx stood before him, waiting.
Rodrik's vision narrowed around the boy's burning eyes.
He could no longer hear the brothers behind him clearly. Their shouts had become distant, swallowed by the hammering of a heart that was no longer beating properly.
Still, he did not fall.
An Umber rarely did anything quietly.
Death would receive no greater courtesy.
Rodrik straightened as far as his ruined body allowed, shoulders settling beneath torn mail while both hands remained wrapped around his weapon.
Jinx lifted Dark Sister.
The defenders behind the barricade cried out, expecting him to take Rodrik's head or split the dying man apart as he had done to the others.
The blade stopped.
Jinx stared at him.
Something moved behind the hunger—not recognition, perhaps, but an instinct older than language. A predator acknowledging the creature that had wounded it. A swordsman recognizing the man who had stood longer than anyone else.
Rodrik met those unnatural eyes.
"Go on," he whispered, blood slipping over his teeth as the faintest trace of defiance remained in his face. "The North is still behind me."
His last breath left him.
Rodrik Umber died on his feet.
His hands remained closed around his broken sword, its point braced against the stone. His head bowed only slightly, and his back remained straight enough that, from a distance, he might still have been waiting for Jinx to attack again.
Jinx lowered Dark Sister.
He stepped around the Lord Commander without touching him.
No bite was taken from his flesh. No hand reached for his heart. The hunger that had torn apart every lesser body in the tunnel left Rodrik intact, standing among the dead with his weapon still in his grasp.
For three silent heartbeats, Jinx remained a man.
Then his head turned toward the surviving brothers.
Hundreds of heartbeats pounded beyond the barricade.
His shoulders dropped.
His spine bent.
Dark Sister's point scraped across the floor as he lowered onto one hand, blood pouring from the sword still buried through his abdomen. The strange discipline that had guided his duel with Rodrik vanished beneath the scent of fresh fear.
His lips peeled away from his broken teeth.
A growl rolled through the tunnel.
The men of the Night's Watch raised their shields.
Jinx howled over Rodrik Umber's still-standing body and charged them like a beast.
Jinx had taken only three steps toward the second barricade when his body finally rebelled.
The broken sword still buried through his abdomen shifted as his leg gave out beneath him. His shoulder struck the tunnel wall, leaving a thick smear of blood across the ice-covered stone before he collapsed onto both knees beside Rodrik Umber's unmoving body.
Dark Sister slipped from his grasp.
The Valyrian blade struck the floor with a clear metallic note, then lay beside him beneath the flickering torchlight, its dark steel almost completely hidden beneath blood.
For one heartbeat, the brothers behind the barricade thought the Lord Commander had done it.
Rodrik had died standing, but the wounds he had carved into Jinx were finally dragging the monster down with him. The prince's breathing had become wet and uneven. Blood poured from the deep opening beneath his ribs, from the sword piercing his abdomen, and from more cuts than any of them could count. One leg no longer supported his weight properly. His shoulder hung partially ruined, and the fingers of his sword hand had been broken so badly that several pointed in the wrong direction.
Hope, desperate and almost painful, moved through the survivors.
A ranger near the front tightened both hands around his spear, his eyes flicking toward the others as he prepared to climb over the barricade. "He's dying," the man whispered, scarcely trusting his own voice while Jinx swayed upon his knees. "Rodrik killed him."
"No," an older builder rasped beside him, catching the ranger by the back of his cloak before he could move. His face had gone grey beneath the blood splattered across it, his gaze fixed upon the faint magenta light beginning to gather around Jinx's body. "Look at the floor."
The stone beneath Jinx's knees was cracking.
His hands struck it suddenly.
Fingers already stripped of skin drove into the fractured surface, splitting nails and forcing broken pieces aside until they reached the frozen earth packed beneath the tunnel. Jinx curled his hands into that dirt as though the world itself were the only thing preventing him from being dragged into death.
His head lowered.
Blood-matted black hair fell across his face, pale silver-blond streaks shining between the darker strands. His back rose and fell with each broken breath, the muscles trembling beneath ruined leather and torn flesh.
Then he howled.
The sound began so deep that the men nearest him did not hear it at first.
They felt it.
The ground vibrated beneath their boots. Shields rattled against the barricade, arrowheads trembled inside quivers, and the remaining torches bent away from Jinx as though struck by a wind no one else could feel. The iron plates of the destroyed gate shuddered upon the floor, scraping over stone while frost burst from the tunnel walls in thin white lines.
The growl climbed.
It passed through Jinx's chest, into the earth beneath his hands, and outward through the foundations of the Wall. The sound swelled until it was no longer the howl of a wolf or the cry of a wounded boy. It was hunger given a voice vast enough to shake the ancient ice above them.
Men covered their ears.
It made no difference.
The howl entered through their bones.
It rolled north across no-man's-land and tore through the dead remains of the Haunted Forest. Snow fell from distant branches in great sheets. Animals that had hidden beneath roots and rocks fled blindly from their dens, only to collapse as the sound overtook them.
It passed south through the tunnel and erupted into Castle Black.
Windows cracked. Horses screamed within the stables, throwing themselves against stall doors until wood splintered beneath their hooves. Brothers stationed along the southern towers fell against the battlements, clutching stone for balance as the Wall groaned behind them.
Still, the howl travelled.
It crossed the Gift, moving through frozen fields and silent villages like distant thunder. Ravens erupted from trees. Dogs crawled beneath tables. Men sleeping beside hearths awakened with hands already reaching for weapons, unable to explain why terror had settled suddenly inside their chests.
Far to the south, the sound reached Winterfell.
It arrived faintly at first, low enough to be mistaken for the winter wind passing through the ancient towers. Then every direwolf banner hanging from the walls stirred despite the still air. Horses whinnied in the stables. The ravens inside Maester Luwin's rookery began screaming together.
Within the Great Keep, Eddard Stark stopped breathing.
His head turned north before anyone else in the room understood that something had happened.
The sound continued.
A fractured howl carried across impossible distance, weakened by leagues of wilderness but unmistakable to the one person who had heard Jinx make smaller versions of it as a child—when fever twisted through him, when hunger became too painful to hide, or when he awakened from nightmares he refused to explain.
"Jinx," Eddard whispered, one hand gripping the edge of the table as cold moved through his body.
Back beneath the Wall, the howl reached its peak.
The earth answered.
Magenta energy began rising from the blackened ground around Jinx.
At first, the strands were thin enough to resemble smoke catching torchlight. They curled around his blood-covered fingers, passed beneath his torn nails, and disappeared into his hands. More emerged from cracks between the stones, pulsing upward in narrow streams that wrapped around his wrists and travelled beneath his skin.
Then the draining spread.
Outside the ruined northern gate, the final patches of living grass in no-man's-land collapsed into grey dust. Moss died upon rocks. Roots shrivelled beneath the earth, and the few surviving trees along the forest's edge twisted inward as brilliant magenta light was ripped from their trunks.
The energy raced toward the tunnel.
It passed through iron, ice, and stone as though none existed.
South of the Wall, the livestock reacted first.
Cattle collapsed inside their enclosures, their legs folding as colour drained from their flesh. Horses already driven mad by the howl went suddenly still, their bodies thinning while luminous strands poured from their eyes, nostrils, and open mouths. Chickens dropped from their roosts. Pigs squealed once before falling silent against the mud.
Grass across Castle Black's yard withered beneath the snow.
Stored vegetables blackened inside baskets. Wooden doors and beams creaked as the last traces of life still sleeping within the timber were drawn away. Even the stubborn weeds growing between courtyard stones curled inward and crumbled.
All of it flowed north.
All of it entered Jinx.
The brothers behind the barricade watched in horror as the magenta light thickened around him, no longer resembling smoke but rivers of living energy twisting through the tunnel. It coiled around his body, sank into his wounds, and pulsed beneath his pale skin.
Then the nearest man began screaming.
He stood at the edge of the barricade, close enough that the energy surrounding Jinx brushed against the point of his spear. His hands locked around the shaft as his back arched. Thin magenta threads tore from his fingertips, his face, and his chest, drawn through the air toward the kneeling prince.
His cheeks hollowed.
The dark hair at his temples turned grey.
The strength vanished from his arms so suddenly that his spear clattered to the ground. The brother beside him caught his shoulder, only to jerk away when the draining leapt between them.
"Back!" someone screamed, falling over the man behind him in his desperation to escape. "Get away from him!"
The order came too late.
The magenta current spread across the front ranks.
Some men felt only a moment of weakness before stumbling away. Others had been wounded too badly or stood too close. Their remaining life poured from them in luminous streams, shrinking muscle beneath mail and drawing years across their faces in seconds.
One collapsed as an old man despite having been younger than twenty moments earlier.
Another remained standing long enough to look down at his withered hands before his knees folded and his body struck the floor like an empty cloak.
The dead already scattered through the tunnel were not spared.
Whatever warmth remained in blood, flesh, and bone was pulled from them. Bodies darkened and shrank. Freshly spilled blood turned black across the stones, its vitality torn free and carried toward Jinx until the corpses around Rodrik became pale, dried husks.
Rodrik alone remained untouched.
His body stood exactly as it had when his final breath left him, both hands still locked around his broken sword, its point braced against the floor. Blood remained wet upon his armor. No magenta thread rose from his flesh. Even the draining force flowing around him split apart before reaching his boots, curling along either side of the dead Lord Commander before joining again behind him.
Whether Jinx consciously protected the body or some remnant of instinct refused to desecrate the man who had defeated him so many times before falling, none of the surviving brothers could know.
They only knew Rodrik remained whole while everything else was consumed.
Jinx's body began repairing itself.
It was not gentle.
The arrow embedded through his neck shifted first. Flesh contracted around the shaft, forcing it slowly outward until it fell from the wound and rolled across the floor. Torn muscle drew together beneath his skin, closing enough to stop the blood pouring down his chest.
The broken sword through his abdomen moved.
Jinx's stomach clenched around it as his back arched. A guttural snarl tore from his throat while the metal was pushed from his body inch by inch. It struck the stone beside his knee, trailing strips of flesh and blood behind it.
The wound did not disappear.
Its edges dragged together, knitting just enough that his insides no longer threatened to spill through the opening. A jagged red seam remained across his stomach, raw and unfinished, but no longer immediately fatal.
The deep cut Rodrik had carved beneath his ribs tightened. Blood slowed to a dark seep. The muscles of Jinx's thigh shuddered violently as severed fibers twisted back toward one another, binding themselves in rough bundles that restored movement without truly healing the damage.
Then came the bones.
His left shoulder snapped back into place with a sound that echoed through the tunnel.
Jinx's body jerked, his nails digging farther into the dirt as another growl built behind his teeth. The bent fingers of his right hand straightened one after another, each returning to its proper position with sharp, wet cracks.
His nose shifted beneath the blood covering his face.
Bone ground against bone before snapping back into alignment.
One rib moved visibly beneath his skin, drawing inward until its broken ends met with a dull click. Another followed. Then another.
Jinx threw his head back and howled again, though this cry carried more pain than power. The magenta glow beneath his skin flared with every break repaired, illuminating the veins along his throat, chest, and arms.
The Night's Watch could only watch.
Rodrik's wounds remained.
The Lord Commander had done too much damage for stolen life to erase within moments. Deep slashes stayed open across Jinx's chest and limbs. His leathers hung in bloody strips. Several arrows remained lodged in his back, and every movement still released fresh blood from injuries too severe to close completely.
But he was no longer dying.
His breathing strengthened.
Muscle returned to his limbs.
The trembling in his wounded leg stopped.
Jinx slowly lifted his hands from the earth.
Dirt, blood, and fragments of stone clung to his fingers. He turned them before his face, studying the restored movement with the dim, alien attention of something rediscovering its own body.
His fingers curled.
First the left.
Then the right.
Both became fists.
The surviving brothers understood too late.
Jinx raised his arms above his head.
"Shields!" a ranger screamed, throwing himself behind the barricade as the others followed. "Brace the line!"
Men locked shields together. Builders threw their weight against support beams. Archers abandoned their positions above and flattened themselves against the tunnel walls.
Jinx slammed both fists into the ground.
The impact did not merely crack the stone.
It drove the world away from him.
A magenta pulse erupted from beneath his hands, expanding outward in a circular wave. The shattered floor lifted first, slabs of stone rising into the air before exploding toward the defenders in a storm of jagged fragments.
The force struck the remains of the first barricade and erased it.
Timbers snapped into splinters. Iron chains tore free from their anchors. Shields bent around the men holding them before both were hurled backward through the tunnel.
The wave reached the brothers behind them.
Bodies left the ground.
Men flew through the air in black-cloaked masses, colliding with one another and smashing into walls hard enough to split helmets and bones. Some disappeared beneath overturned wagons. Others struck the ceiling before falling among the dead. Spears became spinning shafts that impaled men behind the ranks meant to carry them.
The force continued.
The second barricade ripped from the floor and crashed backward, crushing brothers beneath several tons of oak and iron. Barrels of pitch burst against the walls, coating stone and armor in thick black liquid before loose torches ignited it.
Fire rolled through the tunnel.
Screams followed.
One man struck a support pillar spine-first and folded around it, blood bursting from his mouth. Another had both legs torn away beneath a flying length of chain. A group of archers vanished beneath a section of timber that struck them broadside and carried them nearly twenty paces before pinning what remained against the wall.
The pressure wave pushed deeper toward Castle Black, tearing doors from hinges and extinguishing torches beyond the final defensive line. Men farther south were knocked from their feet despite having never seen Jinx. Frost exploded from the tunnel walls, filling the air with white mist and glittering fragments of ice.
Through all of it, Rodrik Umber remained standing.
The wave parted around him.
Stone fragments passed to either side of his body. Splintered beams twisted away before striking him. Even the magenta force curved around his armor, leaving the dead Lord Commander untouched in the center of devastation.
Everything else had been thrown back.
Rodrik remained where he had died, weapon in hand, the only unmoving figure within a tunnel filled with fire, dust, blood, and screaming men.
Jinx stayed upon his knees several paces away.
The shockwave faded.
Silence rushed into its absence, broken only by burning pitch, collapsing timber, and the groans of wounded brothers buried beneath the wreckage.
Jinx lifted his head.
His yellow eyes burned through the drifting dust, their red edges brighter than the flames surrounding him. Blood continued running from the wounds Rodrik had left behind, but his body no longer sagged beneath them.
He reached for Dark Sister.
His repaired fingers closed around the hilt.
Jinx used the sword to pull himself upright, rising slowly from the crater beneath his knees while the surviving men struggled to free themselves from the ruins of their defence.
He glanced toward Rodrik.
The dead Lord Commander still stood between him and Castle Black.
Jinx lowered his head slightly.
Not a bow any court would have recognized, nor a gesture the beast controlling him could have named, but enough to show that some buried part of the boy understood what stood before him.
Then the nearest wounded brother cried out.
Jinx's head snapped toward the sound.
His shoulders lowered.
Dark Sister scraped across broken stone as he fell forward onto one hand, the last trace of the swordsman who had fought Rodrik disappearing beneath the scent of exposed blood and frantic life.
A growl rolled from his chest.
The men trapped beneath the wreckage began trying to crawl away.
Jinx sprang into the smoke, leaving Rodrik Umber standing alone behind him.