The Guardian Hall was the big new building the Free Folk had slapped together in the last few days—logs, clay, moss, and animal hides. It was roughly the size of an indoor basketball court and actually felt spacious.
No more cramming twenty chiefs into Mance's tent for every meeting.
The doorway was built tall enough for a giant to duck through. Made sense—they'd done most of the heavy lifting when it was raised—but Lynn still wished the giants would bathe once in a while. The smell could drop a man at twenty paces.
Quenn delivered the message and left.
Weeping Blood shot straight up, flung the wooden post high with his claws, and Lynn moved like he'd been doing it all his life. He plucked a raven-feather arrow from the quiver at his hip, drew, and loosed in one smooth motion.
No theatrics. The technique and muscle memory were already burned into his brain from Bloodraven. The black shaft streaked like a meteor and punched dead-center into the spinning post.
When he lowered the bow, Weeping Blood still looked disappointed. Ever since he'd taken over Lyanna's old job of tossing targets, the dragon had decided this was his favorite game.
Today he wasn't getting to play.
The captured rangers were being brought to the Guardian Hall. Lynn wasn't sure if the man he wanted was among them—two men alone wouldn't have dared push this deep into the Frostfangs—so he had to see for himself.
The walk wasn't far, so he went on foot.
He carried the white-oak longbow in one hand. Lyanna followed close behind, cradling Dark Sister. Weeping Blood sometimes loped along on his hind legs and wing joints, sometimes spiraled lazily overhead.
Campfires dotted the whole route, flickering beside sleds, carts, and wagons. The Free Folk had thrown up hundreds of hide tents and felt shelters. Some just curled up against big rocks or slept under their carts.
A pack of Hardfoots sat sharpening the tips of long wooden spears. Two Ice Shore boys in oversized adult leather armor whacked each other with clubs, leaping over fires and shouting. A circle of spearwives sat gluing fresh feathers onto arrows with hot pine resin.
Every single one of them bowed or nodded the second they saw Lynn.
Even though Mance had been hammering the war talk, not everything felt like an army on the march. Girls danced around one fire. Babies cried. A small boy wrapped in furs sprinted past, red-faced and laughing.
Sheep and goats wandered wherever they pleased. Cattle pawed through the snow along the riverbank for leftover grass. The smell of stew and roasting pork drifted everywhere. A whole pig turned slowly on a spit.
A handful of toddlers—too young to tell boy from girl—burst out from under their Thenn mothers' skirts and swarmed Lyanna.
"Lyanna of the Son of the Stars! Lyanna of the Son of the Stars!"
She laughed, pulled out a few pieces of honey-glazed dried fruit, and handed them over. Her big green eyes curved into happy crescents.
This scene played out almost every day now.
It was these stubborn, tough-as-weeds lives that had slowly hardened Lynn's decision: he was going to get them through this alive.
Outside the Guardian Hall he heard dogs barking from a long way off.
A few raiders were yelling at the pack, trying to shut them up. It wasn't working.
When Lynn got closer he saw the cause: a massive white direwolf standing alone, twice the size of any camp dog, silent and completely unfazed.
The dogs were losing their minds. Weeping Blood gave a single shrill cry, swept low over them, and landed on the roof beam above the hall doors.
He stretched his scarlet body, long neck arched, tail flicking. His wings—only six or seven feet across—still looked plenty impressive.
The dogs went dead quiet. The direwolf tucked its tail and stared up at the strange red creature it had never seen before.
Only then did the raiders notice Lynn. They bowed at once.
These men belonged to the Bone Lord and the Weeper—two chiefs who used to mouth off to Lynn without a second thought. Now they lowered their heads like everyone else.
Between them stood two men in black wool cloaks.
One was empty-handed, maybe twenty years old, lean and long-faced with brown hair and gray eyes. It was the same bastard son of the Lord of Winterfell Lynn had seen through Orell's eagle.
The second the kid spotted the dragon, pure shock and terror flooded his face.
The other man lay strapped to a sled. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and clearly dangerous—even half-dead and bleeding everywhere, his wrists and ankles were lashed tight.
His face was clean-shaven. Long, frost-streaked hair was braided into one thick queue that hung off the sled. His black cloak had faded to gray from years of hard use.
This was Qhorin Halfhand—the ranger who'd killed Alfyn Crowkiller. Mance had told Lynn the stories.
Lynn noticed the man's right hand: only the thumb and index finger remained. The rest had been chopped off years ago when he blocked a wildling axe meant for his skull.
After that blow, Halfhand had punched the axe-man in the face with the bloody stump, blinding him with his own blood, then killed him with his left hand.
From that day on, every wildling beyond the Wall had treated him as the most dangerous crow alive. He'd earned the reputation.
Even after losing half his sword hand, Qhorin had retrained himself to fight left-handed—and become even deadlier.
"Bring them inside," Lynn said, stepping through the tall doors.
Weeping Blood dropped like a red ghost and followed without a sound.
A red-haired spearwife shoved Jon Snow forward. The young ranger finally snapped out of his dragon-induced daze and walked forward like a man in a dream.
His direwolf hesitated, then padded after him.
The guard at the door was a lot tougher than the one who'd watched Mance's tent.
"Beast stays out!" he snarled, leveling a bronze spear at the direwolf.
"Ghost, stay," Jon ordered. The wolf sat.
"Longspear, watch the white-furred bastard," the Bone Lord told one of his men.
Then he and the two prisoners followed Lynn inside.
The rest of the raiders carried Qhorin's sled like it was made of glass—afraid the prize would die before they could claim double merit.
In their eyes, Halfhand was a big name among the crows. Taking him down was damn near "kill the commander" level.
And "Lynn the Just" never shorted anyone their reward.