If you're enjoying these stories, consider leaving a comment, review, or vote.
Support me by leaving a comment, review and vote
visit my Pat**on at CaveLeather (9$)
"No time," Qhorin said calmly, as if he hadn't just defected from the Night's Watch but had always belonged with the Free Folk. "You need to send a mounted party to Craster's Keep right now. Any survivors will head there."
"What's the point?" Mance asked. "I'll bet no more than a hundred made it out. Even if it's a hundred, they're just a bunch of crows who've had the shit scared out of them by the Others. They won't make a damn bit of difference when we hit the Wall. If anything, they'll wreck the morale of the men left on it."
Mance was in a damn good mood. Trading the turncloak Jon Snow for the rangers' nightmare "Halfhand" Qhorin felt like the deal of the century.
He didn't doubt the defection for a second—partly because he knew Qhorin, and partly because he trusted Lynn without question.
"No," Qhorin said bluntly. "The goal isn't to hunt down the survivors. It's to save them."
He looked straight at Mance.
"Your Son of the Stars gave me his word he would do everything possible to keep every brother of the Night's Watch alive."
Mance frowned.
"That's going to be tricky. The Thenns are already howling for their heads in exchange for land and titles."
He glanced at Lynn. Your policy.
"Alive counts double," Lynn answered simply.
Mance was momentarily speechless. After a long pause he said, "Just let them crawl back to the Wall. Craster won't eat them. He'll give them food and shelter… even if the food's shit, it'll keep their bellies full."
"Not that simple," Qhorin said slowly. "You've lived beyond the Wall for years. You never noticed anything off about Craster?"
Mance frowned again.
"Off? The bastard refused my messenger and cut the poor kid's tongue out. I meant to teach him a lesson, but never found the time."
"It's worse than that," Qhorin said, shaking his head. "I heard it from the Old Bear and Jon Snow. One of Craster's daughters told them he sacrifices his newborn sons to the pale cold gods."
"The Cold God," Mance repeated. "Walks only at night, eyes blue and bright as stars, cold as ice."
He understood instantly. It matched exactly what Lynn had described about the Others.
"Mormont and his rangers had barely left Craster's Keep when the Others hit the Fist. That's no coincidence. Remember Craster's favorite line?"
"I am a godly man."
Mance recited it. Craster said it constantly.
"So the god he worships is the Others?" Mance's voice hardened. "I always figured he just killed the baby boys so they wouldn't grow up and take his wives and his house."
Qhorin shook his head.
"Everyone was fooled."
"He has a daughter about to give birth. She was terrified it would be a boy, so she begged Jon to take her away. Without that, we might never have learned the truth."
"That son of a bitch!"
Mance's face darkened.
"Also," Qhorin continued, "notice something about the dead horses we found? Every one left behind had its legs broken."
"Of course. The ones that could still run probably became wight mounts."
"It means the Others are short on numbers too. I asked around. They never strike when people are strong in numbers. They follow, pick off stragglers, wait for the right moment."
Lynn and Mance both nodded. They already knew that.
Of course, there was another reason: the Free Folk always kept huge fires roaring in camp. They knew wights feared fire.
The Night's Watch had the ringwall for defense, but they hadn't lit many fires to avoid giving away their position, and their numbers weren't overwhelming. So they became the target.
One thing still puzzled Lynn: who the hell had Qhorin gotten all this information from? The Free Folk either hated him or feared him so badly he could quiet crying children at night.
"When I killed that Other," Lynn added, "I saw a lot of the wights were already dried-up corpses. Some of them looked like half-man, half-ape things from the old days."
He remembered the small, ape-headed wight he had knocked down.
"Either way, we can't let the Others grow their army of the dead any bigger. I looked at the fight marks on the Fist. The wights that attacked couldn't have outnumbered the rangers by more than three to one."
No wonder he was the best ranger alive. Half-dead and still thinking like one.
Lynn thought with real respect.
Qhorin's meaning was crystal clear: the men at the Fist were the elite of the Night's Watch. Even behind defenses, they couldn't hold. That told you exactly what kind of disaster was coming for all of humanity.
It was also why Halfhand had surrendered to Lynn without hesitation.
Even if the Night's Watch somehow made it back to the Wall at full strength, they probably couldn't stop the trained wildling army now.
And with the Others on the move—if they let more than a hundred thousand wildlings become wights, and the dead really did find a way around the Wall like Lynn said, the entire continent would turn into a living hell.
Mance nodded. "Fine. I'll send Harma's cavalry. But only at first light—riding at night is suicide."
"Or we might run straight into the Others. Tomorrow I'll take the dragon and go myself," Lynn said.
"No!" Mance and Qhorin said at the same time.
"You and the dragon are too important. You can't risk it."
Mance's expression was dead serious; Qhorin nodded in full agreement.
"If something happens to you, settling the Free Folk will turn into a nightmare."
Lynn tried to explain that his armor hid his heat signature so the Others couldn't sense him, but neither man would budge.
"When did you two start sharing a pair of pants?" Lynn asked, half-laughing.
Mance and Qhorin had never heard the expression, but both felt it fit the moment perfectly.
Back when Mance was still at Shadow Tower, Qhorin had taught him swordwork. Qhorin had still used his right hand then and wasn't called Halfhand yet.
The two had been on good terms—both among the best rangers.
Now, after all these years, they had gone from black brothers to mortal enemies, and now, because of the Others, they were sitting at the same table again as allies.
Compared to Mance's wild, romantic nature, Lynn saw in Qhorin the ultimate rationality.
He had first tested Jon Snow's character by ordering him to kill Ygritte. Then, when surrounded by wildlings, he calmly arranged for Jon to go undercover and, at the critical moment, unhesitatingly sacrificed his own life to earn the wildlings' trust.
Meticulous and utterly selfless.
And when he realized the Others were unbeatable, he cast aside every oath he had sworn and immediately joined forces with his former enemies. The shift was clean and decisive—everything for the survival of the living. His strength of character could only be called Westeros' own Little Ice-Heart.
Even Mance, when he had recited the Night's Watch oath again after more than ten years in the Guardian Hall, had been unable to hide the emotion in his voice.
The more Lynn thought about it, the more he felt those forty merit points had been worth every single one.