FicWad

Chapter 40: Fighting alongside the big woman

TORMUND

I charged forward and fought the wights alongside the big woman. Stanis called back my people. There were now enough of us that we could take turns defending the end of The Wall. I ignored him, so that I could fight alongside her. The Wight Walkers could throw the armored knights around like rag dolls. I repeatedly killed a Wight Walker, only so see it revived by another one, along with any of us who had recently fallen and the wights too. After hours of this, Stanis called for us to switch places with some fresh knights. So when the big woman left the line, I stepped back with her.

“You handled you self pretty good up there,” I told her.

“Thank you, My Lord,” said the woman, as she removed her helmet. Her face showed the scars of many fights and her hair was a very light shade of blonde. She was more beautiful than I had thought!

“I’m not a lord,” I told her, offering my hand. “I’m one of the Free Folk. Tormund Bearsbane.”

“Brienne of Tarth,” she said, as she shook my hand. “You fought pretty well too. I’ve never met a Wild- . . . one of your people before. You’re different than I thought you would be.”

“Yeah, well a woman knight surprised me too,” I replied.

“I’m not a knight!” she snarled. “Women are not allowed to be be knights!”

“Well that’s just fuckin’ stupid,” I replied. “We don’t don’t hold our women back. You might have noticed some of the spear-wives.”

“Yes, they seem like they can handle them selves,” agreed Brienne.

“How’d you like to be my spear-wife?” I proposed.

“What!?!” asked Brienne.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” I told her. “And you fight better than any of the other spear-wives. How about you let me steal you an make you my spear-wife.”

“Now, you’re just mocking me,” she growled as she stomped away from me.


Over the next few days, I got to know her better. Having the kneelers here helped a lot. It gave us a chance to rest and get some sleep. I made sure that I fought on the line during the same times that she did. That way I could spend my off time with her too. I came to realise that she only had eyes for that pretty-boy brother of Stanis. When it was his turn, Renley always made sure to be several ranks back, where it was safe. While Stanis always fought on the front of the line. I couldn’t tell that Renley cared about her at all, except her usefulness as a human shield.

As the sea continued to freeze and our people continued to fall and join Army of the Dead, the line of fighting to hold them back became longer and longer and it became harder and harder to allow some of us to take a break. Stanis was on the front of the line leading the defense when it happened. Renly was taking a break and Brienne had followed him to do the same, just hoping for a little attention from him. I was hanging near Brienne for the same reason.

“The Prince! The Prince!” someone on the line yelled.

I turned to look and saw that the wights were breaking through, led by a White Walker, who was throwing men aside as he plowed through them!

“Come on! We’ve got get back up there!” yelled Brienne.

But the men were in full route, running away in every direction as the Army of the Dead surged through. We didn’t need to go to them, they came to us and swarmed us. I’d called up the Sword and was stabbing them in every direction as Briene and Renley did with their dragon glass spears.

“Renley!” screamed Brienne.

I looked to see, and saw that they’d killed Renley and that she was kneeling over him, crying and not defending her back. I stepped between her and the wights, defending her better than I was, myself. The wights were stabbing me repeatedly. If this continued, I would be too hurt to heal before they killed me. Looking around, Brienne and I were the only living people I could see. And coming towards us I could see not one, but two Wight Walkers! I threw her over my shoulder and charged through the crowd of wights, away from the Wight Walkers. I kept running and fighting until we were free of the press of wights. By then, Brienne had recovered enough to wiggle off my shoulder and tried to go back.

“What are you doing!?!” I yelled. “Run!”

We both ran away as the horde of wights chased us.


EDRIC

Something about the blizzard was interfering with our attempts at divination. This affected not only me, who was not very good at it anyway. It also clouded the sight of Bran and Jojen too. It seemed to be directional and related to the weather. The further North they looked, the less clear they could see. South was hazy too, but not as bad.

After the King and Lord Stark left with the bulk of the armies, the days got shorter and shorter, until it was night all the time. The weather also became worse as the snow and wind increased, cutting down how far we could see with normal vision.

We all prepared for the battles to come, training with obsidian weapons. I had the wizards training to fight with their wands in their favored hand and short spears, about the length of a sword, in their off hand. Bran and I spared with them to see who could handle this. Bran, Jojen and I had trained to fight this way with swords, so it wasn’t a big change for us. Robb Stark was the worse. He had started learning magic too late and between his duties and his wife, he had not learned to cast fast enough to make magic a useful main attack form for him. He preferred to fight with spear and shield. The wargs from my Free Folk were a little better. Most had learned enough by now to fight with both magic and spear. But they were by no means fully trained and were more skilled with their spears than their wands.

The weather had become too severe for the owls I’d trained to carry messages anymore. If only I had trained snowy owls instead of barn owls!


JON

Staying at Winterfell was frustrating, but necessary. It was dark all the time now and the weather kept getting worse. It had become too severe for Edric’s magical owls to fly, then, it got too bad for the ravens. This had been first noticed when ravens failed to return from The Wall. From there, the zone of silence gradually crept southwards through the kingdom of the North. To make up for this, I would send runners to carry messages to the castles throughout the North. This is why I had to remain here. Winterfell was the most central location to communicate with the rest of the North and the roads all led here. The most recent runner had said that the King’s forces should reach Castle Black within a day. But that message had been sent a week ago. Who knows how well things are going up there? None of the lords near the west coast had reported seeing the Lannisters or Ironborn troops that were supposed to be coming by sea. And Bear Island had gone silent. None of the couriers sent there had returned. That was worrying.


MARGAERY

When Edric arrived here, he brought some of his Wilding spear-wives with him. This gave me and Dacy some women warriors to talk to. There were even a few women amongst the levies that Edric had brought. Apparently contact with the Wildings had affected the culture of his local small-folk enough that some of their women had chosen to try their hand a fighting in a war. But in spite of them, the male-female ratio was very skewed here in favor of the men. I was lucky I had Bran here with me, and that we were important enough to rate our own private room in the castle. I couldn’t believe how warm the castle was compared to the air outside. Apparently, there were hot springs that fed pipes inside the walls. But there were not enough rooms for everyone. And so the Great Hall had been turned into a sleeping space that had to be cleared out when people began breaking their fast. To be more considerate, the Starks and high ranked people did not usually break their fast in the Great Hall. But, instead, would have breakfast in their rooms and often invite another couple to join them for it. Bran would often invite his mother, Edmina and Rickon to join us. And Dacy and Robb would often invite Bran and I to join them. I would often invite Jon, Edric and Jojen to eat with us. Lunch and Supper was always in the Great Hall and after Supper, it would turn back into a sleeping space.


TRYSTANE

We went cross country East until we found a road, which was just a place that looked lower than the surrounding land but actually had deeper snow because there were no trees there. But the trees along side the road had helped a little to catch some of the snow. It had taken a couple of days to find the road. Going North up the road, the weather kept getting worse and worse. We could barely see it when some figures came out of the blizzard from ahead of us.

“Dead or alive?” called out a girls voice.

“What?” I answered.

“Are you dead or alive?” asked the girl again.

“Lyanna?” asked Arya.

“Arya?” called back the voice, before they came forward.

Nymeria was wagging her tail at them, which I took for a good sign. There are about 40 of them, led by a little girl and a fat woman.

“Lyanna! What are you doing here?” asked Arya.

“Bear Island has fallen,” replied Lyanna. The sea froze all the way out to the island and the Others came for us. The wights just swarmed over the Ice. Most of us fell in battle. I know my mother did. I saw her die. I guess that makes me Lady of Bear Island now.”

She gave a bitter laugh that no girl that young has any business making.

“I would have died too if not for the Ironborn here,” said Lyanna, as she indicated the woman with the red hair peaking out from under her hood.

I now realized that the woman was pregnant, not fat.

“Our ships froze in the sea, all of them. Yara tried to save the people of Bear Island, but the blue eyes got most of us,” said the woman.

“This is Ygrette,” introduced Lyanna. “She was Yara Greyjoy’s wife.”

“Rock Wife,” corrected Ygrette. “And she was Tyrion’s Rock Wife, that’s why the King made her change her name to Lannister.”

I didn’t bother asking what happened to Yara, it was obvious to me from Ygrette’s face that she’d loved her late wife a great deal.

“We’re all that’s left of the Ironborn, Westerners, Wildlings and Notherners of Bear Island,” stated Lyanna. “All the rest are dead!”

“We need to tell someone that this has happened.” I said. “The rest of Westeros needs to know!”

“We’ll go to Winterfell,” commanded Arya. “My father needs to know what happened!”


SAM

Having Freedom of religion codified into Law and proclaimed throughout the city seems to have squashed what little of the religious war that remained. The people of this City have welcomed the advent of a standardized Law Code. This became more true when a few people were released, unharmed and untortured after having been arrested on charges that had not actually been against the new laws. Seeing that the law applies even to the enforcers of said laws makes the people more content with the new way of doing things.

The days are getting shorter, as is normal for Winter. And the snow is increasing in depth and intensity. This allowed us to create new jobs for the purpose of clearing the snow from the streets.

Even though the task is not in my purview, I investigated the status of the cities’s food stores. They had apparently been allowed to go low during the previous summer. But Jon, during his term as Hand, had arranged for them to be re-filled so that we had enough in storage to feed the city for 2 years if it became necessary.


JOFFREY

When I died, the first thing I saw was my mother, happier than she’d ever been in life, with a golden light behind her shining through her golden hair. Then people from my previous life began to appear: my wives, my children, my best mates that I had become estranged from later in life, even Stu was there! And here come my parents, and my aunt.

“Wait! Wait! where are you going!”

If was like I was a fish on a line being reeled in and pulled away from my loved ones!

“No! I don’t want to go back! Don’t make me go back!”


I awoke back on The Wall. Everything had a bluish tint to me. I looked over and the King and the King’s guards were gazing back at me with their bright blue eyes. And nearby, stood my master, standing there, all white, with his arms raised. He pointed to the elevator and I felt compelled to obey. At the bottom of The Wall were a bunch of Living people. I felt a compulsion to go and kill them all! We all got on the elevator, myself, the King, his king’s guards and as many of my fellow dead men as would fit. Then we pulled the lever so that we could go down . . . down to kill them all.


Note: Early on I got reviews from people who thought my SIs were overpowered. I had planned from the beginning to make the Others more powerful an adversary to compensate.

Also, on the show, wights were sometimes shown thinking creatively, going around if one way was blocked by fire and things like that. So, Joffrey will now be a point of view character to show us the wight’s side of this story.