Skirling Pass

It was dark in the Skirling Pass. The great stone flanks of the Frostfangs mountains hid the sun for most of the day, so they rode in the shadow, the breath of man and horse steaming in the cold air. They were a scouting party of five. Stonesnake, Dalbridge and Ebben was rumoured to have the best eyes in the Night's Watch and was handpicked by Qhorin Halfhand himself, a living legend among the Black Brothers. Jon had only tagged along because Qhorin wanted Ghost, who could smell the wildlings long before anyone else could see them.

They had left Lord Commander Mormont at the Fist of the First Men a few days ago. They were one of three scouting parties sent into the mountains to discover the size of Mance Rayder's host and what they were looking for. Instead of marching south and attack the Wall as expected, the wildlings were heading straight west, deep into the Frostfangs mountains much to the confusion of Lord Mormont.

They had stumbled upon a band of wildlings on their way up the mountain and were successful in stopping the wildlings from sounding their horn to alert Mance of their presence. After having all the men killed, Qhorin had tasked Jon into hunting down and kill a wildling spearwife.

Ygritte was her name. She had thick, shacky curly hair which was a brighter red than his Stark cousins. However, the prettiest thing about her was her bright blue eyes which remained defiant and fearless even with his dagger at her throat.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life you owe it to him to look him in the eye and hear his last words and if you cannot do that then perhaps the man does not deserve to die. Those were the old way, the Stark way. Unlike the lords of the south, Lord Stark had no headsmen and executed his prisoners personally, though he never took any joy from it.

Jon took one look into Ygritte's eyes and felt his heart drop. She was his enemy and she would likely kill him in order to survive. But there was no evil in her eyes. So he took her dagger and her axe, and set her free. She was behind them, alone, afoot, unarmed, unable to warn Mance of Jon's whereabouts and poised no threat to his mission.

"Halt!" Qhorin commanded once they reached the highest point of the pass. Here the way broadened as it began its long descent toward the valley of the Milkwater River, where Mance was likely to be encamped. "We'll camp here for the rest of the day, until the shadows lengthen."

Jon saw the sense of that. It would be pleasant to ride in the sun for once and to let the light through their cloaks and chase the chill from their bones, but it would also be suicide. Their black cloaks against the white snows would make them easy to spot by watchers in the valley below. Just like Qhorin had said earlier, 'Shadows are friends to men in black.'

Stonesnake curled up under his ragged fur cloak and was asleep almost at once. Jon shared his salt beef with Ghost while Ebben and Squire Dalbridge fed the horses. Qhorin Halfhand sat with his back to a rock, honing the edge of his longsword with long slow strokes. He had lost all of his fingers on his right hand to a wildling axe, except for his thumb and forefinger. His uncle Benjen had told him about how Qhorin had trained his left hand and have become an even deadlier swordsman.

Jon watched the ranger for a few moments, then summoned his courage and went to him. “My lord,” he said, "You never asked me about the girl."

“I am no lord, Jon Snow.” Qhorin slid the stone smoothly along the steel with his twofingered hand. "And there was no need. I saw it in your eyes when you returned. If I wanted the girl dead, I would have asked Ebben to do the deed or do it myself. But now I know you a little bit better... I know that you are truly Benjen's blood. He may be First Ranger but he never killed when it could be avoided."

"Do you think that we will find him?"

"Hard to say," Qhorin genuinely looked concerned as he continued to sharpen his sword with the whetstone. "I do know that it is much more likely for him to find us than for us to find him."

Jon nodded and sat down as he watch Ghost eat. The Halfhand was one of the few in the Watch who knew who Jon were and it felt good to talk to someone other than Samwell Tarly. He wondered if he should ask the Halfhand about the blue-eyed corpses that tried to slay Lord Commander Mormont or even about Craster, the wilding ally who sacrifices his sons in the woods and marries his daughters. But another question was on his lips. "Do you know him? Mance Rayder?"

“We all knew him.” His voice was sad as he raised his head to look at the young prince, his grey eyes seemed to see right through him. "You remind me of him when he was still a boy at the Shadow Tower."

"Me?"

"Aye..." Qhorin tested the edge of his sword with the ball of his thumb. "His knees didn't bend easily, never liked taking orders. It was in his blood. He was wildling born, taken as a child when some raiders were put to the sword. He never felt home at the Shadow Tower. It was in his blood, then one day he met a wrench north of the Wall. Blood is iron. We're all drawn it, to home. But enough talk. You ought be sleeping. We have leagues to go, and dangers to face. You will need your strength."

Jon did not think sleep would come easily, something the Halfhand said made him remember something his sister had drunkenly whispered to him. "Ours is the blood of the dragon." Rhaenys had said on one of the countless times she had tried to seduce him, "Blood is iron, Jaehaerys... We're all drawn to it, dragons most of all."

Rhaenys was undoubtedly beautiful and he would be lying to himself if he said he never thought of his own sister in that way. But one of the absolute truths that he believes is that Rhaenys and Aegon were meant to be together. And he would rather die than betray his brother.

He found a place out of the wind, beneath an overhang of rock, and took off his cloak to use it for a blanket. “Ghost,” he called. “Here. To me.” He always slept better with the great white wolf beside him; there was comfort in the smell of him, and welcome warmth in that shaggy pale fur. This time, though, Ghost did no more than look at him. Then he turned away and padded around the garrons, and quick as that he was gone. He wants to hunt, Jon thought. Perhaps there were goats in these mountains. The shadowcats must live on something. “Just don’t try and bring down a ‘cat,” he muttered. Even for a direwolf, that would be dangerous. He tugged his cloak over him and stretched out beneath the rock.

When he closed his eyes, he dreamed of direwolves.

There were six of them. He could smell their scent and hear their call. A grey wolf was howling beneath the shadow of a great weirwood tree, his mighty call bending dogs and lesser wolves to their knees. Two brothers and two sisters played upon the banks of a mighty tricolour river, its waters flowing east to a red castle upon a high hill.

And suddenly he was back in the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness, and a long vee-shaped valley lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colors of an autumn afternoon.

A vast blue-white wall plugged one end of the vale, squeezing between the mountains as if it had shouldered them aside, and for a moment he thought he had dreamed himself back to Castle Black. Then he realized he was looking at a river of ice several thousand feet high. Under that glittering cold cliff was a great lake, its deep cobalt waters reflecting the snowcapped peaks that ringed it. There were men down in the valley, he saw now; many men, thousands, a huge host. Some were tearing great holes in the half-frozen ground, while others trained for war. He watched as a swarming mass of riders charged a shield wall, astride horses no larger than ants. The sound of their mock battle was a rustling of steel leaves, drifting faintly on the wind. Their encampment had no plan to it; he saw no ditches, no sharpened stakes, no neat rows of horse lines. Everywhere crude earthen shelters and hide tents sprouted haphazardly, like a pox on the face of the earth. He spied untidy mounds of hay, smelled goats and sheep, horses and pigs, dogs in great profusion. Tendrils of dark smoke rose from a thousand cookfires.

Across the long lake, one of the mounds moved. He watched it more closely and saw that it was not dirt at all, but alive, a shaggy lumbering beast with a snake for a nose and tusks larger than those of the greatest boar that had ever lived. And the thing riding it was huge as well, and his shape was wrong, too thick in the leg and hips to be a man.

Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings. As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun and searing pain...

“GHOST!” Jon shouted as he jolted from his dream, clutching his face where the eagle had attacked him. His companions woke up immediately as Jon frantically searched for his direwolf.

"W-wildlings...." Jon said breathlessly as Qhorin approached, his face still searing from the pain. "They're close... Must be over a hundred thousand of them."

Stonesnake snickered but the Halfhand silenced him immediately. "Tell us what you saw, Snow. Start from the beginning and tell it true."

Jon suddenly felt silly as he told the experienced rangers all about the dream that he had, about the wildlings digging in the Frostfang, the giants and the mammoths, and the eagle but Qhorin listened intently as if Jon's words were gospel from the Seven-Pointed Star.

"I've been ranging for over twenty years, and I've never seen a giant." Stonesnake commented, "Giant bones... But never a live one."

Jon was about to defend himself but he heard movement in the bushes. The men drew their swords to defend themselves but from the shadows emerged a white wolf. Jon threw down his weapon and rushed to his direwolf, Ghost had a deep gash on the right side of his head, just missing his eye by less than an inch. The Halfhand came closer to inspect and offered Jon his flagon of wine in order to clean the wolf's wound and as Jon reached to take it, he saw movement above them.

Perched high on a branch above them and observing them with inhuman eyes, was the eagle. The same one as from his dreams.

"It may not be the same beast." Stonesnake said hopefully when he saw what Jon was staring at but his voice was hinged just a little bit by doubt. Just then a sound could be heard from the other side of the ridge. A wildling horn. And that could only mean one thing.

The wildlings they were looking for had found them. And there was no escape.