A Game of Thrones AU Fanfic

Will

Will felt his heart race frantically with a mix of feigning adrenaline and nearly exhausted fear-driven determination to survive, the manaic ranger's eyes darted wild and unfocused with the hard and heavy, with his ragged and nearly hoarse breath coming forth in semi-visible clouds of frigid fog-like mist.

Will's eyes again quickly swept around the heavy shadowed forest, the sound of the young Ranger’s own heart beating slow but heavy like the rhythm beat of a war-drum, Ba-dum Ba-dum Ba-dum, will anxiously kept one hand tightly clinched on the leather bound hilt of his bastard shortsword-fingers wrapped around it’s hilt as if clutching the last thread of hope against the darkness and what unnatural horrors it’s eerie black veil hide.

The unnaturally bitter cold that was so frigid, so sharp that it immediately cut deeply right down to the young man’s very soul. Frostbite immediately pierced thick black leather and matted grey fur of his Night’s watch attire that did nothing against unyielding cold. The sound snapping twigs and fallen weirwood branches as shadowed silhouettes of what appeared to people at first glance…but Will knew better-or at least well enough quickly draw his sword, his fingers though somewhat stiff and brittly rigid as they tighten around the hilt of his sword, Will's mind recollecting the haunting series of events that had led him to his current moment.

“we should start back,” Gared had urged as the woods began to grow around them, the pale faces of the nearby weirwood trees immediately to appear ominous in the waning sunlight.” The wildlings are dead.”

“Do the dead frighten you ser?” Ser waymar Royce asked sarcastically with just the faintest hint of a smile.

Gared did not rise to the bait, not wanting to give the younger man even an ounce of satisfaction by responding to his barbed goating. He was an old man, past fifty, and he had seen the lordlings and young cutthroats alike come and go.” Dead is dead,” he said plainly without any notable sense of pretense.” We have no business with the dead.”

“Are they dead?” Royce asked softly.” What proof have we?”

The older man quickly rolled his eyes with the casual sarcasm and cold dismissal that was not disgust but was far more sharper than simple annoyance at the young knight’s overtly condescending attitude that almost made the old Ranger want to knock out one or more of his teeth.

“Will saw them,” Garrd said.” If he says they are dead, that’s more than enough for me.”

Ser Waymar’s face scrunched slightly in bitter scrutiny.

Will sighed almost despairingly, he had known that they would drag him into their quarrel sooner or later.personally he would have wished for it to have been later rather than sooner. “My mother told me that dead men sing no song,” he quickly put in.

“My wet nurse said the same thing, Will,” Royce replied.” Never believe what you hear at a woman’s tit. There are things to be learned even from the dead.” His echoed, too loud in the twilit forest.

“We have a long ride before us,” Gared aptly pointed out.” Eight days, maybe nine. And night is quickly falling.”

Will quickly nodded in taut agreement with the elder ranger.

Ser Waymar Royce quickly glanced at the sky with disinterest.” It does that every day about this time. Are you unmanned by the dark, Gared?”

Will could sense the subtle shift in the frigid with his marron lightly shuffling at the snap of a fallen branch. Will could see the tightness around Gared’s mouth, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the under the thick black hood of his cloak. Gared had spent forty years in the Night’s Watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of. Yet it was more than that. Under the wounded pride, Will could sense something else in the older man. You could taste it; a nervous tension that came precariously close to fear.

Will silently shared his unease. He had been four years on the Wall. The first time he had been sent beyond, all the old stories had abruptly came rushing back, and his bowels suddenly turned to water. He had laughed about it afterward. He was a veteran of a hundred rangings by now, and he thought the endless dark wilderness that the southron of Westeros called the haunted forest had no more terrors for him…but oh how wrong he had been, how wrong they all had.

Until tonight they had all that the old stories were just that. But something had been different about tonight. There was a particular edge to this darkness that made the senior Night’s watchman’ hackles rise. Nine days they had been riding across the steep rugged landscape that lay north of the known world, north and northwest, northeast and then finally north again, farther and farther away from the Wall, hard on the half-snowcaked track of a sizeable band of wildling raiders. Each day been significantly worse than the one before it. Today was the worst of all yet. A bitter and biting cold wind was blowing strong out of the north, and it made the pale bark weirwood trees rustle like shivering living things. All day, Will had felt as though something, something older than the Wall itself were silently watching him, something that was cold as Ice and as implacable as shadowless phantom that loved him not, and did not appreciate his presence here in the frosted wilderness beyond the Wall.. Gared had also felt too. Will wanted nothing so much as to ride swift and hellbent for the familiar safety of the Wall, but that one was particularly keen on sharing with one’s own commander.

Especially not a commander like this one.

Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs and not enough land to give. He was handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife. Mounted on his huge destrier, the knight towered above Will and Gared on their smaller garrons. He wore slick black leather boots, black woolen pants, oiled black moleskin gloves, and a fine supple coat of gleaming black ringmail over layers of black wool and boiled leather. Ser Waymar had been a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch for less than half a year, but no one could say he had not well prepared for his vocation. At least insofar as his wardrobe was concerned.

His cloak was his crowning glory; sable, thick and black and soft as sin. “Bet he killed them all himself, he did,” Gared had once told the Barracks over mulled wine,” twisted their heads off, our mighty warrior.” They had all shared a laugh.

It had is hard to take orders from a man you laughed at in your cups, Will reflected as he sat shivering atop his garron. Gared must have felt the same.

“Mormont said as we should track them, and we did,” Gared said.” They’re dead. They shan’t trouble us no more. There’s hard riding before us. I don’t like this weather. If it snows, we could be a fortnight getting back, and snow’s the best we can hope for. Ever seen an ice storm, my lord?” He questioned, though was something semi-sarcastic in his voice that more than hinted at it being a barbed jest at the little lordling’s expense.

The lordling in turn seemed not to hear him. He briefly studied the deepening twilight in that half-bored, half-distracted way he had. Will had ridden with the knight long enough to understand that it was best not to interrupt him when he looked like that.” Tell me again what you saw, Will. All the details. Leave nothing out.” Ser Waymar ordered casually, with the same disinterested he was making conversation with someone he had long decided in his mind was far beneath him.

Will had been a hunter before he joined the Night’s Watch. Well, a poacher in truth. Mallister freeriders had caught him red-handed in Mallisters’ own woods, skinning one of the Mallisters’ own bucks, and it had been a choice granted…or rather forced truthfully, a choice of taking the black or losing a hand. No one could move through the woods as silently as Will, and fortunately…or unfortunately, it had not taken the Black brothers long to discover his particular talents.

“The camp is two miles farther on, over that ridge, hard beside a stream,” Will said, somewhat vaguely.” I got close as I dared. There’s eight-perhaps ten of them at best, men and women both. No children as far as I could see. They put up a lean to against the rock. The snow’s pretty well covered it now, but I could still make it out clear enough. No fire burning, but the fire pit was still plain as day. No one moving. I watched for a long time. No living man ever lay so still.” He states, visible unease written plainly across his face.

“Did you see any blood?” Gared questioned, with straight-lined wrinkle across his brow.

“Well, no,” Will admitted.

“ Did you see any weapons?” Ser Waymar inquired, his gaze still fixed on the ever darkening sky distracted with an air of immediate dismissal.

Will paused in immediate yet brief thought.” Some swords, a few bows, one man had an axe. Heavy-looking, double-bladed, cruel piece of iron. It was on the ground beside him, right by his hand.” The young man states, his gloved hands moving in awkward gestures.

Gared nodded taking immediate note of the placement of the scattered bodies.” Did you make note of the position of the bodies?” He questioned the younger Night’s watchman with a stern look that read of skepticism and alert caution.

Will shrugged.” A couple sitting up against the rock. Most of them on the ground. Fallen, like.”

“Like they were dead?” Gared stated.

“Or sleeping,” Royce suggested.

“Fallen,” Will firmly insisted.” There’s one woman one woman up an ironwood, halfhid in the branches. A far-eyes.” He smiled thinly.” I took care she never saw me. When I got closer, I saw that wasn’t moving neither.” Despite himself, he shivered.

“You have a chill?” Royce asked.

“Some,” Will muttered, half-under frost rotten breath.” The wind, m’lord.”

The young knight turned back to his grizzled man-at-arms. Frostfallen leaves whispered past them, and Royce’s destrier moved restlessly beneath him.” What do you think might have killed these men, Gared?” Ser Waymar asked casually. He adjusted the drape of his sable cloak.

“It was the cold,” Gared said with iron certainty.” I saw men freeze last winter, and the one before. when I was half a boy. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the frigid north, but the real enemy-the real enemy is the cold. So bitter and harsh it quickly steals up on you quieter than Will-quieter than any beast, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter so loud that you could hear it plain as day and you stamp your feet and dream of warmth, of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns somethin’ horrible it does. Aye nothing truly burns like the cold. Sharp, bitter and slithering like wyvern worm digging into your skin and into your bone and veins, But only for a short while. Then ah yes, then it gets truly inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a short while you don’t have the strength to fight it…not anymore. Soon it’s easier just to sit down or quietly go to sleep. They say you don’t feel any pain towards the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade into bliss dark, and then it’s like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Bittersweet and all peaceful, like.” He says with a faint grin that held neither mirth or malice any measure.

“Such profound eloquence, Gared,” Ser Waymar observed with mock sincerity.” I never suspected you had it in you.”

“I’ve had the cold too, lordling.” Gared stated to the young southerner with a deep, dark monotone that was as sharp and frigid as the foggy mist of his breath, the old ranger calmly pulled back his hood, giving Ser Waymar a good long look at the frostbitten stumps where his ears had been.” Two ears, three toes, and little finger off my left, I got off light. We found my brother Fredrick frozen at his watch at his watch one night , with an unsettling peaceful smile on his face.”

Ser Waymar shrugged.” You ought of dressed more warmly, Gared.” He suggested in a voice that was clearly trying to hide his discomfort and unsettled fear.

Gared quickly glared at the lordling, the frost-kissed scars around his ear holes instantly flushing a faded red that was almost a bright shade of pink, with anger and the bitter familiarity of burning cold where old Maester Aemond had cut the ears away.” We’ll see how warm you can dress when winter comes…truly comes.” He pulled up his hood and hunched over his garron, silent and sullen.

“If Gared said it was the cold…” Will began.

“Have you drawn any watches this past week, Will?” Ser Waymar inquired his sworn brother, tone somewhat deep with mild skepticism.” And how did you find the wall ?”

“Weeping,” Will admitted with a bitter frown. He saw it clear enough, now that the lordling pointed it out.” They couldn’t have froze. Not if the Wall was weeping. It wasn’t cold enough.” He stated, while casually eyeing the half frozen body of a dead wildling.

Gared soon wandered off a few paces east finding three...four...six no eight more wildling bodies four children, two women, one older woman in her mid fifties mayhaps older and one headless man lying next to crude bone crafted battleax, the older Night's Watchman quickly dismounted his garron, the soft and powdery snow coding the ground lightly crunches under the thick bllack leather boots...Gared looked one of the wildling children-a boy from the looks of 'em...though isn't sayin' much giving that the poor child's skull was half caved-in by what was either a roughly carved wooden club or crudely made warhammer with splinters of bone, chunky pieces of brain and visible blotch of blood-the other three didn't appear to have die anymore peacefully with one...a girl-no older seven…perhaps eight by the looks with subtly more feminine features, pale, frostbitten to well past the point of becoming visibly covered in ice, and messy mud brown hair that was completely caked over in snow-the color completely drained and replaced with a bone white complexion with her eyes pale and lifeless with a faint slash visibly trailing across the nape area of her neck that was carved into a dried blood crimson grin...Will cautious approached, his stomach immediately lurches at the sight of the little girl's pale, frost-kissed face that had vacant, glassy eyes that were completely lifeless.

Will quietly muttered a prayer for mercy (whether for the souls of th slain or his own was unclear)...he prayed first to the new gods of the seven pointed star...and then prayed softly again to the older gods of the North and nameless faces of the werewood trees that cropped the forests, but alas none have seen it fit to answer the young ranger's prayer-or at least not in the manner that Will would liked. The next thing Will remembered was a type of horror plucked from the old stories that Will's Mother had told over and over.

******

Will quickly felt the around grow colder and colder, the frigid touch coiling tightly around him like a viper's grip; bitter, suffocating and burning with an icy sense of frigidity that cut deep and burning as the winter frost itself, the young ranger again murmured a fleeting, disperated prayer to any gods that still listened out here this North of the Wall.

The young Night's Watchman could feel the very air around him swiftly grow ever colder, his soon becoming a thick icy fog and fingers quickly became stiff as wood with bones instantly beginning to grow rigid and brittle as glass. Will heartbeat raced with the type of impendant fear that prey get when they instantly realize that the predator chasing thm was near and about to close-in for the final kill.

"Mother have mercy," Will muttered in prayer to the mother of above-one the seven faced god of the south-but he that his plea was useless now as a mob of numerous human silhoueted shapes quickly began encrouch upon."Mother please mercy-" he began to repeat again and again until the end.

The shadowed veiled figures awkwardly shuffled forward into the pale silver light of the moon-the frost-kissed pale white faces of Ser Waymar Royce, old Gared and-the little wildling girl, her throat still slit with crimson red smile.

Will soon put on the feeble mask of courage, longsword raised high as if in some grand final display of defiance as he madly charged forward." For Rhaeger!" he bellowed with the King's name died on his lips.