Categories > Books > Harry Potter > All Men must Serve
Chapter 32: the rebirth of the Children of the Forest
the rebirth of the Children of the Forest
?Blocked
Chapter 32: the rebirth of the Children of the Forest
JOFFREY
With the money my ex-father, the King, had paid her, Colleen could afford to quit working and take care of the baby a lot longer than would otherwise be possible. This was a bonding time for the three of us. If I hadn’t been bound to The Wall, we would have gotten married.
I now had to perform without her while she cared for baby Julia. Eventually, the baby grew old enough that she could sing an occasional song with me on stage. Then, more than one, then whole sets. She mostly didn’t go back to working as a whore. She no longer needed to. But she would occasionally be one of the three girls that went upstairs with that Payne wanker. And once in a while, one of the men in the audience would catch her eye enough that she’s do him, whether he could afford to pay, or not. When I objected, she gave me a right tongue lashing. As much as we cared for each other, I was NOT her husband and she could fuck whoever she wanted. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
MARGAERY
Once the debris had been cleared and the new sewers finished I could begin planting in Fleabottom. The new plan made all the streets much wider, wide enough for two wheelhouses to pass each other with sidewalks on both sides of the street separated from the street by a line of trees. There was also room set aside for several parks, the largest of which had a large public Gods’ Wood in the center, surrounded by several rows of the birth blossoms I needed for my project to help the burn victims. In reconstructing the children of the forrest, I found it wiser not to rely just on Bran as the “Y” chromosome donor. Although inbreeding causes recessive defects to be more likely to manifest, it’s a myth to think that it causes those defects to come into existence in the first place. If two animals who are closely related, but have no defects, breeding the offspring will have no defects also, barring the rare mutations that occur no matter how distantly related the parents are. So If I filter out the defective genes, as I had long since done with myself, the chances of defects would be low. The process was too time consuming to do with the Y donors, so I would have to just take my chances. Other than the plumbing, which was hermaphroditic, each of these new bodies would look like a 10-year-old daughter of myself and the Y donor. In addition to Bran, my Y donors were Jon, Edric, some of the Wildings, some of the local Riverlanders and some sailors from the port at King’s Landing, the ones who looked the least Westerosi. Growing the plants went much faster than building the buildings so my parks and trees were planted much quicker than the construction was going. I sent wagon loads of seedlings down to King’s Landing, then used to the birth blossoms to go down there and plant them.
Finally, when the Park was finished, Blossom and I traveled down there to make our presentation. In advance, I had spread word throughout the city for all the burn victims to come to the park. When the crowd was gathered in the Gods’ Wood, Blossom and I stepped out of concealment in the bushes and walked over to the Heart Tree. Blossom, was dressed in typical Children of the Forest attire: a sleeveless dress made of leaves, though she had taken to wearing green leaves when she moved to Riverrun. I was in my full Lady of the Forrest regalia, with my skin being openly green, my hair, weirwood red, wearing only a miniskirt of leaves. Though unlike when I dressed this way in Riverrun, I had covered my breasts with a pair of large leaves, as I had when I had been Plant Woman in Kings Landing, before.
“People of King’s Landing!” I began. “I am Lady Margaery Tully, Lady of the Riverlands, also known as the Lady of the Forrest and here, as Plant Woman! And this is Blossom, one of the Children of the Forest! All of you have suffered in the fires that have struck King’s Landing, fires that you feel to this very day! Your pain pulls at my heart! It is for this reason that I gave the recipe for Heroine, a stronger form of milk of the poppy to the factory that used to make it in this district of Fleabottom. And now that the the factory is gone, we have heard the cries of your suffering. After today you need suffer no longer! We come to bring an end to your suffering. We can end your pain today, by transforming you into a Child of the Forrest, like Blossom, here. The process is painless, but has some drawbacks. You will be longer lived that you were. Think of it this way: Humans are like flowers, beautiful in their short lives. You will be trees, with similarly long lives. Although you will now be able to both bear and sire children, your fertility will be greatly decreased. It is usual for the children of the forest to bear only one child in a century. So who will accept our help? Who will be the first to join in the re-birth of the Children of the Forrest?”
SAM
“How do you feel about the prospect?” I asked my wife.
“I want to do it,” replied Shae. “I want this so much I would do it even if you chose not to. Unless you don’t want me to? . . . .”
“If this is your heart’s desire, far be it from me to be an obstacle to its’ fulfillment,” I assured her. “But I think I shall delay, until I have assured myself of the safety of this process.”
“You’re a good man, my hunter,” said Shae, as she gave me a hug, then announced: “I will! I will be first!”
When she came forward, she was instructed to remove all clothing. On observing this, I perceived that removing her mask in public gave her more trepidation than exposing her body in the sight of this crowd. Never-the-less, she persevered through the ordeal, raised her hands over her head, as instructed, and let the flower bend over and devour her. Once she was completely within the petals of the gargantuan flower, it resumed it’s upright posture. Then, another flower on the opposite end of the Gods’ Wood bend over and a Child of the Forrest came sliding out, naked, with her hands over her head. This one looked more like The Lady of the Forest than it did the true Child of the Forest, Blossom. In fact, she looked like she could easily be the the daughter of Lady Margaery. Her skin and hair were green and although she had the beginnings of mammary growth, her nether region was definitely of both man and woman. I walked over to her.
“Shae?” I inquired, tentatively.
“It’s me, my hunter,” replied the Child of the Forrest, as she tried several seductive poses that I assume were for my benefit, and not the crowd of people who could see this sight in its’ entire. “How do I look?”
“Quite exotic!” I replied. “But the more important question is: how do you feel?”
“Great! I feel great!” gushed Shae. “The pain is completely gone! I thought I had gotten used to it, but I didn’t realise how much pain I was still feeling until it went way! I’ve never felt so good in my life! You have to do this!”
“I believe that I shall,” I said, as I walked over to join the line already forming to undergo the transmutation.
My wife was correct in her assessment. Once the deed was done, I still felt me to be myself and my pain had been alleviated. Once we gathered up our clothes, which were much too large now, we dressed and returned home. Shae’s dress was so long on her that she had to fold it up and tie the bottom around her waist to keep it from dragging. My shirt went down to below my knees, but my breeches were much too large to be worn.
“Now that we have new bodies, we should test out our new naughty bits,” I offered my wife, suggestively.
“And with these new ones, after you fuck me, I could fuck you back,” replied Shae, with a wink.
“I would not be opposed to that experiment,” I agreed. “Just for knowledge’s sake, of course.”
“Of course,” agreed Shae, with a grin.
EDRIC
Sowa, one of the wargs I had taken on as a student, had an owl that he used for warging into. This gave me the idea of starting a breeding program to produce more magical owls. Once we trained them, the first ones were given to Bran and Sansa. Trying to be a Lord on top of all this training was starting to run me ragged, especially since all these students were at different levels and in three different places that I had to apparate to. On top of that Sansa’s siblings, Rob and Rickon were revealed to be wizards! Sansa had taken over their teaching and was mostly focusing on warging. Rob, as an adult heir of a Lord Paramount had duties that slowed his learning and Rickon was a bit young to pay attention to the hard stuff. So it worked out.
On top of all this, I had decided to lure more people to pass over my bridge and increase trade by turning the Twins into a tourist trap. I would lower the tolls for crossing the bridge by a large margin from the levels the Late Walder Frey had charged. I would make up for the loss by building a pair of villages on the road leading to the Twins on each side of the castle. The villages would be made of wood, so they could easily be burned down to prevent them from being used as enemy fortifications and they were both placed in sight of, but beyond bowshot of the castle. The main road through the villages would be widened to quadruple normal to allow shoppers to park along side it without blocking the road. The buildings alongside the road would all be commercial, while the ones behind them would be residential. There would be restaurants, taverns, livery, brothels and highly skilled craftsmen that I would attract to make things of high quality that would be worth traveling to to buy. I also planned for each village to have its’ own Gods’ Wood. I think I’ll invite Bran and Margaery to visit to help me with that.
TORMUND
We probably could have done this a lot faster if we had been in a bigger hurry. But instead, we had taken the time to do things right. This would be our last run to Hardhome. From what I hear from Stanis, Ygrette and her wife had already finished on the West coast. We still had one more trip to make. As usual, we dropped the pirates we had captured off at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, then proceeded on to Hardhome. Once we dropped anchor, we started with loading the livestock and supplies. We’d already pacified the island these tribes were going to. But, we needed to make sure they didn’t starve after they got there. It was slow going, because the water was too shallow for the ships. Everything had to be ferried over in dinghies. We had barely started on loading the people when I heard a horn blast . . . then another . . . then another!
“The Others!” someone shouted, as the crowd began to panic.
“Men and spear-wives!” shouted Stanis. “We need to protect the mothers and children so they can get onto the boats. So, go man those walls! Ser Davos! get in this boat. I want you go back to the ship and speed up the unloading process as much as possible so the boats can return for more people. Send word to the other captains to do the same. Ser Lionel! I want you to stay here at the docks. Don’t let any boat leave until it is completely full! Tormund! You’ll help me defend the walls. Where do they store the growth grenades?”
“I believe they are stored in the towers,” I guessed.
“Then let’s get there,” commanded Stanis. “We have wights to slay and people save!”
When Hardhome had first been made the pick-up site, we planted weirwood shoots all around the village. A wall of logs lashed together had been added with log towers at the corners, that stuck up a little higher than the wall. There was a walkway, about two feet below the top that ran the length of the wall, allowing men to stand on that and fire down on the wights when they came.
I followed Stanis as he ran to the tower where there was a ladder to allow us access to the wall ledge. Once I reached the top, I looked out of the tower to see what we were dealing with. They were still some distance away. But is was like looking at the shore of the ocean! How many was I seeing? A hundred thousand? A million? According to Stanis, it had been 8,000 years since the Long Night. 8,000 years for the Others to accumulate bodies that could be turned into wights. 8,000 years to sit and think up strategies for the next time. They looked like a great black tide of an army, with the occasional Wight Walker sticking up above because in was on the back of a dead horse.
“Where’s those grenades?” demanded Stanis.
“Here,” said the man who had already been in the tower, as he indicated a box.
“Every man gets one,” commanded Stanis. “But wait until my signal to throw them.”
I took mine and proceed down the walkway. About halfway down the length of the wall I could go no further, because the gate interrupted the ledge on which I was standing. A group of men had closed the gate and were dropping a large wooden bar in place to lock it. There was someone on the ledge across the gate from me, so I yelled Stanis’ instructions to him and had him pass them down. The people on the other side were passing the glass spheres like a bucket brigade until they got to the end and all on them had one. As the Army of the dead drew closer, I could make out individual wights. Some of them looked like still living, people. Others were little more than skeletons.
“Hold! . . . Hold! . . . Now!” yelled Stanis.
I threw my glass sphere along with the others. It shattered when it hit the ground. The results varied because it was an uneven advancing line and the skill of the men throwing them varied. Some of then landed perfect, at the feet of the advancing wights and a weirwood tree would grow through the wight, instantly killing it. Others fell short and the weirwood tree did nothing. Some landing on the wights, them selves. When the fluid dripped down the wight, it still worked. The effect was just delayed. But the force of all the wights behind pushed over the affected ones and they kept coming. The top of this log wall was uneven and the ledge we were standing on was only a couple of feet below the average top of the wall. So when the wights hit the wall and it shook, a lot of men fell off! The ones who fell forward were torn apart by the wights! I willed the Sword of Icy Fire to appear and began stabbing down at the wights which were trying to climb over the wall. The ones behind were climbing on the shoulders of the ones in front in order to get up here. I stabbed down at them same as my fellows along the wall were doing with their spears and daggers and axes. Every wight I stabbed de-animated instantly. The others were having less success. Most of their weapons were useless agains the wights. Though the ones with stone headed axes were having some success. The wall was swaying back in forth from the force of the wights pushing against it. Some men were adding poles at an angle with their butts stuck in the ground to reinforce the gate. In the end, the gate held, but the wall didn’t. As I felt it falling over, I prepared myself so I would land on my feet.
“Back to the boats!” yelled Stanis, and the wights came swarming through.
The wights behind me were repeatedly stabbing me in the back as I ran. But I didn’t dare stop. I was, by now, surrounded by wights. With the Sword of Icy Fire I stabbed the ones in front of me and trampled them as they went down. With my other hand I pushed away the ones coming at me from that side. I heard a strangled cry as I saw Stanis go down in a pile of wights ahead of me. I fought my way over to him. I arrived at a writhing dog pile of wights. I reabsorbed the Sword and started grabbing the wights by the arms with each hand. with some of them, I threw them over the heads of the ones surrounding us. Other times I just pulled the arm off a wight. The whole time I was doing this the wights were constantly stabbing and cutting my arms, legs and back. When I got to the bottom of the pile, Stanis was curled up in a ball, desperately trying to protect his body. This position and the armor he was wearing may have just saved his life! Stanis yelped in fear as I grabbed him by his arm and pulled him to his feet. Then he looked behind me in fear. I suddenly noticed that the Wights had stopped attacking me.
I turned and looked into the face of the enemy. The wights were parting to let him pass as an Other, a Wight Walker came forward. His skin was as white as ice, his hair and beard a more gray shade of white. And his glowing blue eyes glared at me with inhuman hatred.
“Go back to the boat,” I told Stanis. “I’ll handle this.”
I didn’t look to see if Stanis had obeyed me. I was too focused on my opponent. He had a 3 foot long sword that looked like an icicle. I willed the Sword of Icy Fire to appear. I had fought them before and always managed to dodge those ice swords of theirs. I could tell they had some kind of magic in them and was not about to find out what they would do if I got stabbed by one. He thrust at me and I dodged. I thrust at him and he dodged. We traded missed stabbings a few times before he got a good one in I couldn’t dodge. I had no choice but to parry. When our swords met, mine started flaming in these weird, completely white flames. His sword had snowflakes pouring off it in every direction. We were both shocked by this and after pausing this way for a few seconds we resumed our sword fight. Knowing that I could parry changed my whole approach the the clash. It became a proper sword fight now. And ever time one of us parried, there would be a flash of flame from my sword and a blast of snow from his. Finally, I got in a lucky shot, after parrying his trust, I slashed down in him diagonally, catching him on the shoulder of his sword arm and cutting all the way through him to the opposite hip. He shattered into a million pieces as all the wights within 20 feet of us de-animated and fell to the ground.
I ran to the dock, a horde to wights chasing after me. The ground around the dock was covered in the bodies of the Free folk who had died there. I could see Stanis, standing up on the last boat leaving. I ran off the end of the pier and dove into the icy cold water. I swam until I reached the boat. I grabbed the edge of the boat and was going to try to pull myself in. But Stanis wasn’t even looking at me. Instead, he was staring at the shore in shock. I turned my head to see what he was seeing. One of the White Walkers had walked to the end of the pier and was standing there with his arms raised. behind him, every one of the Free Folk that had fallen, and every wight we had killed, were climbing to their feet and staring at us with their shining blue eyes. But the worse thing was: the Wight Walker I had killed. The shards of ice were rising up, re-assembling themselves until the Wight Walker was fully restored.
We all stared at the sight in silence as the men rowed back to the ship.
JOFFREY
With the money my ex-father, the King, had paid her, Colleen could afford to quit working and take care of the baby a lot longer than would otherwise be possible. This was a bonding time for the three of us. If I hadn’t been bound to The Wall, we would have gotten married.
I now had to perform without her while she cared for baby Julia. Eventually, the baby grew old enough that she could sing an occasional song with me on stage. Then, more than one, then whole sets. She mostly didn’t go back to working as a whore. She no longer needed to. But she would occasionally be one of the three girls that went upstairs with that Payne wanker. And once in a while, one of the men in the audience would catch her eye enough that she’s do him, whether he could afford to pay, or not. When I objected, she gave me a right tongue lashing. As much as we cared for each other, I was NOT her husband and she could fuck whoever she wanted. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
MARGAERY
Once the debris had been cleared and the new sewers finished I could begin planting in Fleabottom. The new plan made all the streets much wider, wide enough for two wheelhouses to pass each other with sidewalks on both sides of the street separated from the street by a line of trees. There was also room set aside for several parks, the largest of which had a large public Gods’ Wood in the center, surrounded by several rows of the birth blossoms I needed for my project to help the burn victims. In reconstructing the children of the forrest, I found it wiser not to rely just on Bran as the “Y” chromosome donor. Although inbreeding causes recessive defects to be more likely to manifest, it’s a myth to think that it causes those defects to come into existence in the first place. If two animals who are closely related, but have no defects, breeding the offspring will have no defects also, barring the rare mutations that occur no matter how distantly related the parents are. So If I filter out the defective genes, as I had long since done with myself, the chances of defects would be low. The process was too time consuming to do with the Y donors, so I would have to just take my chances. Other than the plumbing, which was hermaphroditic, each of these new bodies would look like a 10-year-old daughter of myself and the Y donor. In addition to Bran, my Y donors were Jon, Edric, some of the Wildings, some of the local Riverlanders and some sailors from the port at King’s Landing, the ones who looked the least Westerosi. Growing the plants went much faster than building the buildings so my parks and trees were planted much quicker than the construction was going. I sent wagon loads of seedlings down to King’s Landing, then used to the birth blossoms to go down there and plant them.
Finally, when the Park was finished, Blossom and I traveled down there to make our presentation. In advance, I had spread word throughout the city for all the burn victims to come to the park. When the crowd was gathered in the Gods’ Wood, Blossom and I stepped out of concealment in the bushes and walked over to the Heart Tree. Blossom, was dressed in typical Children of the Forest attire: a sleeveless dress made of leaves, though she had taken to wearing green leaves when she moved to Riverrun. I was in my full Lady of the Forrest regalia, with my skin being openly green, my hair, weirwood red, wearing only a miniskirt of leaves. Though unlike when I dressed this way in Riverrun, I had covered my breasts with a pair of large leaves, as I had when I had been Plant Woman in Kings Landing, before.
“People of King’s Landing!” I began. “I am Lady Margaery Tully, Lady of the Riverlands, also known as the Lady of the Forrest and here, as Plant Woman! And this is Blossom, one of the Children of the Forest! All of you have suffered in the fires that have struck King’s Landing, fires that you feel to this very day! Your pain pulls at my heart! It is for this reason that I gave the recipe for Heroine, a stronger form of milk of the poppy to the factory that used to make it in this district of Fleabottom. And now that the the factory is gone, we have heard the cries of your suffering. After today you need suffer no longer! We come to bring an end to your suffering. We can end your pain today, by transforming you into a Child of the Forrest, like Blossom, here. The process is painless, but has some drawbacks. You will be longer lived that you were. Think of it this way: Humans are like flowers, beautiful in their short lives. You will be trees, with similarly long lives. Although you will now be able to both bear and sire children, your fertility will be greatly decreased. It is usual for the children of the forest to bear only one child in a century. So who will accept our help? Who will be the first to join in the re-birth of the Children of the Forrest?”
SAM
“How do you feel about the prospect?” I asked my wife.
“I want to do it,” replied Shae. “I want this so much I would do it even if you chose not to. Unless you don’t want me to? . . . .”
“If this is your heart’s desire, far be it from me to be an obstacle to its’ fulfillment,” I assured her. “But I think I shall delay, until I have assured myself of the safety of this process.”
“You’re a good man, my hunter,” said Shae, as she gave me a hug, then announced: “I will! I will be first!”
When she came forward, she was instructed to remove all clothing. On observing this, I perceived that removing her mask in public gave her more trepidation than exposing her body in the sight of this crowd. Never-the-less, she persevered through the ordeal, raised her hands over her head, as instructed, and let the flower bend over and devour her. Once she was completely within the petals of the gargantuan flower, it resumed it’s upright posture. Then, another flower on the opposite end of the Gods’ Wood bend over and a Child of the Forrest came sliding out, naked, with her hands over her head. This one looked more like The Lady of the Forest than it did the true Child of the Forest, Blossom. In fact, she looked like she could easily be the the daughter of Lady Margaery. Her skin and hair were green and although she had the beginnings of mammary growth, her nether region was definitely of both man and woman. I walked over to her.
“Shae?” I inquired, tentatively.
“It’s me, my hunter,” replied the Child of the Forrest, as she tried several seductive poses that I assume were for my benefit, and not the crowd of people who could see this sight in its’ entire. “How do I look?”
“Quite exotic!” I replied. “But the more important question is: how do you feel?”
“Great! I feel great!” gushed Shae. “The pain is completely gone! I thought I had gotten used to it, but I didn’t realise how much pain I was still feeling until it went way! I’ve never felt so good in my life! You have to do this!”
“I believe that I shall,” I said, as I walked over to join the line already forming to undergo the transmutation.
My wife was correct in her assessment. Once the deed was done, I still felt me to be myself and my pain had been alleviated. Once we gathered up our clothes, which were much too large now, we dressed and returned home. Shae’s dress was so long on her that she had to fold it up and tie the bottom around her waist to keep it from dragging. My shirt went down to below my knees, but my breeches were much too large to be worn.
“Now that we have new bodies, we should test out our new naughty bits,” I offered my wife, suggestively.
“And with these new ones, after you fuck me, I could fuck you back,” replied Shae, with a wink.
“I would not be opposed to that experiment,” I agreed. “Just for knowledge’s sake, of course.”
“Of course,” agreed Shae, with a grin.
EDRIC
Sowa, one of the wargs I had taken on as a student, had an owl that he used for warging into. This gave me the idea of starting a breeding program to produce more magical owls. Once we trained them, the first ones were given to Bran and Sansa. Trying to be a Lord on top of all this training was starting to run me ragged, especially since all these students were at different levels and in three different places that I had to apparate to. On top of that Sansa’s siblings, Rob and Rickon were revealed to be wizards! Sansa had taken over their teaching and was mostly focusing on warging. Rob, as an adult heir of a Lord Paramount had duties that slowed his learning and Rickon was a bit young to pay attention to the hard stuff. So it worked out.
On top of all this, I had decided to lure more people to pass over my bridge and increase trade by turning the Twins into a tourist trap. I would lower the tolls for crossing the bridge by a large margin from the levels the Late Walder Frey had charged. I would make up for the loss by building a pair of villages on the road leading to the Twins on each side of the castle. The villages would be made of wood, so they could easily be burned down to prevent them from being used as enemy fortifications and they were both placed in sight of, but beyond bowshot of the castle. The main road through the villages would be widened to quadruple normal to allow shoppers to park along side it without blocking the road. The buildings alongside the road would all be commercial, while the ones behind them would be residential. There would be restaurants, taverns, livery, brothels and highly skilled craftsmen that I would attract to make things of high quality that would be worth traveling to to buy. I also planned for each village to have its’ own Gods’ Wood. I think I’ll invite Bran and Margaery to visit to help me with that.
TORMUND
We probably could have done this a lot faster if we had been in a bigger hurry. But instead, we had taken the time to do things right. This would be our last run to Hardhome. From what I hear from Stanis, Ygrette and her wife had already finished on the West coast. We still had one more trip to make. As usual, we dropped the pirates we had captured off at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, then proceeded on to Hardhome. Once we dropped anchor, we started with loading the livestock and supplies. We’d already pacified the island these tribes were going to. But, we needed to make sure they didn’t starve after they got there. It was slow going, because the water was too shallow for the ships. Everything had to be ferried over in dinghies. We had barely started on loading the people when I heard a horn blast . . . then another . . . then another!
“The Others!” someone shouted, as the crowd began to panic.
“Men and spear-wives!” shouted Stanis. “We need to protect the mothers and children so they can get onto the boats. So, go man those walls! Ser Davos! get in this boat. I want you go back to the ship and speed up the unloading process as much as possible so the boats can return for more people. Send word to the other captains to do the same. Ser Lionel! I want you to stay here at the docks. Don’t let any boat leave until it is completely full! Tormund! You’ll help me defend the walls. Where do they store the growth grenades?”
“I believe they are stored in the towers,” I guessed.
“Then let’s get there,” commanded Stanis. “We have wights to slay and people save!”
When Hardhome had first been made the pick-up site, we planted weirwood shoots all around the village. A wall of logs lashed together had been added with log towers at the corners, that stuck up a little higher than the wall. There was a walkway, about two feet below the top that ran the length of the wall, allowing men to stand on that and fire down on the wights when they came.
I followed Stanis as he ran to the tower where there was a ladder to allow us access to the wall ledge. Once I reached the top, I looked out of the tower to see what we were dealing with. They were still some distance away. But is was like looking at the shore of the ocean! How many was I seeing? A hundred thousand? A million? According to Stanis, it had been 8,000 years since the Long Night. 8,000 years for the Others to accumulate bodies that could be turned into wights. 8,000 years to sit and think up strategies for the next time. They looked like a great black tide of an army, with the occasional Wight Walker sticking up above because in was on the back of a dead horse.
“Where’s those grenades?” demanded Stanis.
“Here,” said the man who had already been in the tower, as he indicated a box.
“Every man gets one,” commanded Stanis. “But wait until my signal to throw them.”
I took mine and proceed down the walkway. About halfway down the length of the wall I could go no further, because the gate interrupted the ledge on which I was standing. A group of men had closed the gate and were dropping a large wooden bar in place to lock it. There was someone on the ledge across the gate from me, so I yelled Stanis’ instructions to him and had him pass them down. The people on the other side were passing the glass spheres like a bucket brigade until they got to the end and all on them had one. As the Army of the dead drew closer, I could make out individual wights. Some of them looked like still living, people. Others were little more than skeletons.
“Hold! . . . Hold! . . . Now!” yelled Stanis.
I threw my glass sphere along with the others. It shattered when it hit the ground. The results varied because it was an uneven advancing line and the skill of the men throwing them varied. Some of then landed perfect, at the feet of the advancing wights and a weirwood tree would grow through the wight, instantly killing it. Others fell short and the weirwood tree did nothing. Some landing on the wights, them selves. When the fluid dripped down the wight, it still worked. The effect was just delayed. But the force of all the wights behind pushed over the affected ones and they kept coming. The top of this log wall was uneven and the ledge we were standing on was only a couple of feet below the average top of the wall. So when the wights hit the wall and it shook, a lot of men fell off! The ones who fell forward were torn apart by the wights! I willed the Sword of Icy Fire to appear and began stabbing down at the wights which were trying to climb over the wall. The ones behind were climbing on the shoulders of the ones in front in order to get up here. I stabbed down at them same as my fellows along the wall were doing with their spears and daggers and axes. Every wight I stabbed de-animated instantly. The others were having less success. Most of their weapons were useless agains the wights. Though the ones with stone headed axes were having some success. The wall was swaying back in forth from the force of the wights pushing against it. Some men were adding poles at an angle with their butts stuck in the ground to reinforce the gate. In the end, the gate held, but the wall didn’t. As I felt it falling over, I prepared myself so I would land on my feet.
“Back to the boats!” yelled Stanis, and the wights came swarming through.
The wights behind me were repeatedly stabbing me in the back as I ran. But I didn’t dare stop. I was, by now, surrounded by wights. With the Sword of Icy Fire I stabbed the ones in front of me and trampled them as they went down. With my other hand I pushed away the ones coming at me from that side. I heard a strangled cry as I saw Stanis go down in a pile of wights ahead of me. I fought my way over to him. I arrived at a writhing dog pile of wights. I reabsorbed the Sword and started grabbing the wights by the arms with each hand. with some of them, I threw them over the heads of the ones surrounding us. Other times I just pulled the arm off a wight. The whole time I was doing this the wights were constantly stabbing and cutting my arms, legs and back. When I got to the bottom of the pile, Stanis was curled up in a ball, desperately trying to protect his body. This position and the armor he was wearing may have just saved his life! Stanis yelped in fear as I grabbed him by his arm and pulled him to his feet. Then he looked behind me in fear. I suddenly noticed that the Wights had stopped attacking me.
I turned and looked into the face of the enemy. The wights were parting to let him pass as an Other, a Wight Walker came forward. His skin was as white as ice, his hair and beard a more gray shade of white. And his glowing blue eyes glared at me with inhuman hatred.
“Go back to the boat,” I told Stanis. “I’ll handle this.”
I didn’t look to see if Stanis had obeyed me. I was too focused on my opponent. He had a 3 foot long sword that looked like an icicle. I willed the Sword of Icy Fire to appear. I had fought them before and always managed to dodge those ice swords of theirs. I could tell they had some kind of magic in them and was not about to find out what they would do if I got stabbed by one. He thrust at me and I dodged. I thrust at him and he dodged. We traded missed stabbings a few times before he got a good one in I couldn’t dodge. I had no choice but to parry. When our swords met, mine started flaming in these weird, completely white flames. His sword had snowflakes pouring off it in every direction. We were both shocked by this and after pausing this way for a few seconds we resumed our sword fight. Knowing that I could parry changed my whole approach the the clash. It became a proper sword fight now. And ever time one of us parried, there would be a flash of flame from my sword and a blast of snow from his. Finally, I got in a lucky shot, after parrying his trust, I slashed down in him diagonally, catching him on the shoulder of his sword arm and cutting all the way through him to the opposite hip. He shattered into a million pieces as all the wights within 20 feet of us de-animated and fell to the ground.
I ran to the dock, a horde to wights chasing after me. The ground around the dock was covered in the bodies of the Free folk who had died there. I could see Stanis, standing up on the last boat leaving. I ran off the end of the pier and dove into the icy cold water. I swam until I reached the boat. I grabbed the edge of the boat and was going to try to pull myself in. But Stanis wasn’t even looking at me. Instead, he was staring at the shore in shock. I turned my head to see what he was seeing. One of the White Walkers had walked to the end of the pier and was standing there with his arms raised. behind him, every one of the Free Folk that had fallen, and every wight we had killed, were climbing to their feet and staring at us with their shining blue eyes. But the worse thing was: the Wight Walker I had killed. The shards of ice were rising up, re-assembling themselves until the Wight Walker was fully restored.
We all stared at the sight in silence as the men rowed back to the ship.
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