A medieval McGuiver

An invasion in the making. The northern conflict was brewing and if the pressure increased further, the whole thing would burst. The Others hunt the Wildlings, the Wildlings hunt the Nightswatch and the Nightswatch ought to hunt both. The best outcome would be.... Well, none of the potential outcomes is good, but at least the least bad outcome would be, if the Wildlings wound up here in the true North, even if that meant **** for them. Under absolutely no circumstances could Lyonel let the Wall be breached by the Others and if the Nightswatch falls, or probably even just if the Wildlings manage to widen any of the gates too far, **** would flow right through it and flood the Realm.

So Lyonel collected his resolve and came to a dire conclusion. He needed to sabotage them. Their travel down south would have to come to an abrupt end. And as a consequence, they would probably all di-

*Sllllllllurp* "Mhmmmmmmm"

A sudden sensation of pleasure calmed his troubled mind. Still half asleep, he drifted away from rational thoughts towards more agreeable fantasies. Maybe it wouldn't be sooooo bad for the Wildlings to confront the brothers in black. Maybe they'd even come to some kind of compromise?, Lyonel thought dreamily when a tongue brushed over his princely crown jewels.

But those thoughts of a utopia, in which all of Westeros troubles resolved themselves neatly, disappeared quickly. No, there was no way around it, Lyonel had to commit some war crimes. Wow. That felt harsh, even thinking about it and his body agreed.....

"Is this idea of "morning boners" you've told me about not real afterall?", Ygritte took his now softening cock out of her mouth to taunt him. Seems like contemplating mass **** is not that good for personal potency....

"Eh, it's fine. The little lady here is still out of it, because of what you've done to us yesterday and I'm only awake because this club you've got here expanded so much in my sleeping mouth that I had to wake up. That's why you took me with you for, isn't? My survival instinct!", the redhead beamed up at him from her place between his legs, right next to a blonde sleeping beauty.

"Among other things", Lyonel smirked at her while gliding his hand through her hair. "But work your instincts on this for me, Ygritte, what do you think about this great journey south?"

"Mances outlandish idea to take absolutely everyone here and move them all down there? You want to know what I think about his plan to squeeze his kingdom beyond the wall into your seven kingdoms beneath the Wall? It's madness, nothing more. We've scailed the Wall or took a boat around it since the day it was raised, but that's alway in small groups, some even set forth alone. They go south and try to find their solitude in some piece of forest no one cares about or maybe go into some coastal town and try to work as fishermen. I'm talking about the honest folks here, not the ones that immediately start macking a ruckus and get hung by the nobles they piss on the boots of. These honest folks, keep their head down. Then they got a chance. What Mance is planing? Even if he beats the Nightswatch, breaks open a gate or two and gets everyone through, what then? And that's already a big spekkulation, then he moves further and is bound to meet the Wolves. The lord and knights and everyone that has beaten the Kings Beyond the Wall time and time again. There is no laying low if you have giants, bonerattlers and crying children with you. He'll be noticed and you and your people will slaughter him. The only questions is where they'll all die. Be it directly at the Wall, a hundred foot behind it, or a thousand. It's hopeless."

Lyonel weighted her words carefully. She was opposed to Mances plan, so much was certain. But it was very much in the air if she'd feel any love for his one.

"Ygritte, what would you say to me making sure they'll never even get that far?"

No details, only an ominous message. For an eternally long moment silence hung in the air.

"You have my word. I'll stick with you, through thick and thin."

The three of them stood at the entrance of the cave. Four days had passed since their imprisonment, kept in check by icy winds and a snow that never stopped falling. Right when Lyonel was sure he would not manage to eat another piece of thrice-baked shortbread with a bit of cave mushroom ever again, the blizzard ended. The weather was still far from pleasant, but at least now it wasn't a **** sentence to go out again.

And so the group stepped out of the cave, almost in synchronization took a deep breath in and with freezing lungs, but energized by their reclaimed agency, set forth on their journey. Snowy patches of forest, snowy stretches of meadows and lakes, that were unsurprisingly covered in snow. Without an experienced scout familiar with these lands, Lyonel would have surely been lost many times over, lucky enough he had two with him. Which is not supposed to mean that he didn't pull his weight in the team. Right on the first day of their travel, he managed to hunt their first prey.

Without being properly armed, the three of them tried their hand at a trap. Val had noticed fresh deer excrements and about half an hour later Ygritte had managed to track down the pack. As a team they stalked their prey until that group traversed a narrow passage. From here they split up, the women followed them unsean and unheard, while Lyonel rushed around the obstacles outer rims. He had to be fast and at least moderately silent, to be able to await the prey and cut off their escape route. He managed to get himself into position and only had to wait mere moments for his signal.

Ygritte yelled out an aching cry and the women rushed forward toward the pack of deer, herding them towards the pass, which was now sealed off by Lyonel. With the panic for their life almost a dozen animals rushed towards him and he knew the plan: Tackle at least one of them down and fixate the animal long enough for the girls to bring their knives.

Only that it didn't happen like that. The leader of the pack, a heavy stag, a mighty twelve-ender, rushed towards Lyonel. The prince left his post on instinct and rushed forth to meet his sigil animal head on. While the lesser stags, the deer and fawn escaped through the now opened bottleneck, Lyonel had crashed with the pack leader and was busy pushing away the antlers that could have easily gutted him.

Their eyes met and Lyonel felt a familiarity there, a sentience he had already missed with a few of the people he had met since arriving here. Their stalemate held steady, until even the last animal had left the area and fled to safety. At that point the counterforce dropped. Only by a bit, but Lyonel knew his opponent had done his dues. He managed what he had set out to do. Protect his family, protect his loved ones, protect those under his care. He understood the situation and he made his peace with it.

In one swift motion, Lyonel twisted the antlers and thus the head attached to it so far that it snapped. The proud animal died in an instant. Lyonel kneeled down before it and looked into his opponents eyes a final time.

"Wasn't the plan to tackle down a couple of those jumpers? We don't get a chance like this often, you know? We need this catch to carry us through at least a week", his blonde companion hushed down to him after catching up.

"She's right, damn it. We don't have the proper tools to take this one properly apart, so we can't even get the most out of it", Ygritte used her foot to nudge the body to the side.

"Hey! Show a bit more respect!", Lyonel adressed the two, "we'll use what we can and give everything else back to the other animals here. I still have a bit of the moldy bread with me, we'll manage."

He made a great sacrifice, not for us, but for those he loved. Life doesn't pay that back, but I respect that, Lyonel thought to himself, contemplating his own sacrifices yet to come.

They saw Shadow Cats Peak in the distance when Lyonel halted his little group. Still undecided on how to proceed, he urged his two guides to have them find a rest in a nearby cave. He had to stop the wildling marsh. No one would listen to him, the most likely outcome of an open plea would be imprisonment. Or ****. Probably ****. Unless they somehow valued him as a prisoner worth a ransom in gold or political favour. But yes, his chances of halting the complete horde of wildlings aimed southward were slime to none.

He had to stop them by ****. The question remained though: How?

Killing Mance? No, someone else would pick up the mantle and continue the same endavour. Poisoning the whole leadership of their crusade? That was the same, just on a bigger scale. Set free their horses and mammoths etc.? Nah, that might slow them down a tiny bit as all the heavy lifting the animals used to do would need to be done by people, but that would mostly just be a pain on the people, no considerable lengthening of their journey. Lengthen.....How would their journey become longer?

Altering their path! While coming here, Lyonel experienced it multiple times that Val and Ygritte pointed at a point "close by" and it still took them an eternity to get there, because the terrain was very tricky here in the northern North. A mountain ridge that's impossible to descend, a lake that's frozen enough for a rabbit to traverse, but wouldn't hold a grown man, plains that are so open, that the frozen winds and nightly temperature drops make impossible to set up camp on, etc.

The possible problems were endless, Lyonel would bet his favourite body part that if he **** them to take an alternate path, he could slow down a travel party of this size, including families and heavy animals, for months.

Yes, that was his way to move forward. Changing their path and postponing their wanna-be invasion.

"Hey Val, we aren't far away from the wildlings now, are we? We should probably adjust our routes, not to move past them by accident. Could you do me a favour and draw me a map in the dirt of the terrain in this area and where they'll move along?"

"A god catch my king! This area is especially tricky, one wrong move and you're", Vals thumb went over her throat and she angled her head to the side."But the good news here is that we can't miss them if we take the only proper way here through the mountain pass."

She spent the evening explaining the layout of the area to Lyonel, who in turn listened attentively and went through possible uses for this information. On the side of his shoulder, an exhausted Ygritte already fell asleep. She had shared the burden of small rations with Lyonel and each evening her body tried its best to at least indulge on sleep.

After his exchange with Val, he layed Ygritte on their makeshift sleeping place, excused himself from Val and set out to stroll a little through the caves here under Shadow Cats Peak. What he didn't tell her, was that he was actively looking for something. Something slighty yellow and speckled through some of the deeper cave walls he had observed. Sulfur.

This was the major bottleneck for the pilgramige to go through, he had to sabotage them here. If he succeeded, he'd easily throw them off course for half a year. Probably more. And how do you sabotage a mountain pass, thoroughly and lastingly? Right, you cause an avalanche. And as Lyonel had no intention to stand outside and scream all day long in the hopes of triggering an avalanche, he was instead planing to shake things up from the inside.

The legends about Hardhome, lyndworms in the north and massive fires erupting from the earth, all that gave Lyonel the impression of sulfur being a common occurance in these caves. And indeed, he found them time and time again. But he had to keep looking until he found a sufficently big vein of sulfur. He only had one try for this.

"You want us to do what?! We're so close, a few days and we'll meet everyone, why would we turn back now, that's insane", Val talked herself into a stupor.

"She's right, you know. We can't just turn back now, then our whole journey would have been for nothing", Ygritte proved that Lyonel hadn't been that convincing in his suggestion to leave.

Not a big surprise, considering that he didn't, no, couldn't give any reasoning behind it. What was he supposed to tell them? "Oh, I'm gonna try to make things go BOOM, so you two shouldn't be here.", yeah, that wasn't going to happen. Instead he tried arguing for them all to leave, with the vague reason of the weather getting bad. That convinced them as well as one might suspect. Barely.

"Ygritte. We'll leave", his eyes implored her again.

"Fine then", she gave way when realizing his urgency. The redhaired woman started packing their belongings, next to a flabbergasted blonde.

"That's it? You'll go back, just like this?!"

"No, not me. Us. We'll leave, you heard the king", Ygritte pointed suggestively at Lyonels junk and tried to turn the mood lighter again.

Val blushed lightly and huffed on her way outside. She was still very much a wildcard, but at least she relented when flustered enough. Something that Ygritte had refined into an art form at this point. The two tried to leave the cave and make their way back, when Lyonel takes Ygrittes arm to give her some final words. Hopefully not truly final.

"Ygritte? You two will go ahead, I'll join you as soon as I can, but don't wait up."

"You're kinda scaring me here.... Can't you say that a bit less ominously? Haha", the spearwoman lightly punched his arm and made her way out.

If only this wouldn't feel ominous....

Lyonel waited a few minutes until he was certain the women had left the cave. Then he waited some more to steel his will. He made his way into the depths of the caves, picked up two rocks that fit well into his hands and practiced scratching them on each other. Sparks. To keep the northern powderkeg from blowing up, he'd need to set sparks flying. The irony was not lost on him.

When Lyonel arrived at the longest sulfur vein he had found, he located the thinest outlier that still connected to the main vein. Aimed at that, Lyonel brought his rocks close.

*Clack*

*Clack*

*Clack*

*Spark*