"Come take him then," said Tormund, "but best come with sword in hand, for that's where you'll find mine. Might be I'll boil your bones, and use your skull to piss in. Har!"
"Once I prick you and let the air out, you'll shrink down smaller'n that girl. Stand aside, or Mance will hear o' this."
Ygritte stood. "What, is it Mance who wants him?"
"I said so, didn't I? Get him up on those black feet."
Tormund frowned down at Jon. "Best go, if it's the Mance who's wanting you."
Ygritte helped pull him up. "He's bleeding like a butchered boar. Look what Orell did t' his sweet face."
Can a bird hate? Jon had slain the wildling Orell, but some part of the man remained within the eagle. The golden eyes looked out on him with cold malevolence. "I'll come," he said. The blood kept running down into his right eye, and his cheek was a blaze of pain. When he touched it his black gloves came away stained with red. "Let me catch my garron." It was not the horse he wanted so much as Ghost, but the direwolf was nowhere to be seen. He could be leagues away by now, ripping out the throat of some elk. Perhaps that was just as well.
The garron shied away from him when he approached, no doubt frightened by the blood on his face, but Jon calmed him with a few quiet words and finally got close enough to take the reins. As he swung back into the saddle his head whirled. I will need to get this tended, he thought, but not just now. Let the King-beyond-the-Wall see what his eagle did to me. His right hand opened and closed, and he reached down for Longclaw and slung the bastard sword over a shoulder before he wheeled to trot back to where the Lord of Bones and his band were waiting,
Ygritte was waiting too, sitting on her horse with a fierce look on her face. "I am coming too."
"Be gone." The bones of Rattleshirt's breastplate clattered together. "I was sent for the crow-come-down, none other."
"A free woman rides where she will," Ygritte said.
The wind was blowing snow into Jon's eyes. He could feel the blood freezing on his face. "Are we talking or riding?"
"Riding," said the Lord of Bones.
It was a grim gallop. They rode two miles down the column through swirling snows, then cut through a tangle of baggage wayns to splash across the Milkwater where it took a great loop toward the east. A crust of thin ice covered the river shallows; with every step their horses' hooves crashed through, until they reached the deeper water ten yards out. The snow seemed be falling even faster on the eastern bank, and the drifts were deeper too. Even the wind is colder. And night was falling too.
But even through the blowing snow, the shape of the great white hill that loomed above the trees was unmistakable. The Fist of the First Men. Jon heard the scream of the eagle overhead. A raven looked down from a soldier pine and quorked as he went past. Had the Old Bear made his attack? Instead of the clash of steel and the thrum of arrows taking flight, Jon heard only the soft crunch of frozen crust beneath his garron's hooves.
In silence they circled round to the south slope, where the approach was easiest. It was there at the bottom that Jon saw the dead horse, sprawled at the base of the hill, half buried in the snow. Entrails spilled from the belly of the animal like frozen snakes, and one of its legs was gone. Wolves, was Jon's first thought, but that was wrong. Wolves eat their kill.
More garrons were strewn across the slope, legs twisted grotesquely, blind eyes staring in death. The wildlings crawled over them like flies, stripping them of saddles, bridles, packs, and armor, and hacking them apart with stone axes.
"Up," Rattleshirt told Jon. "Mance is up top."
Outside the ringwall they dismounted to squeeze through a crooked gap in the stones. The carcass of a shaggy brown garron was impaled upon the sharpened stakes the Old Bear had placed inside every entrance. He was trying to get out, not in. There was no sign of a rider.
Inside was more, and worse. Jon had never seen pink snow before. The wind gusted around him, pulling at his heavy sheepskin cloak. Ravens flapped from one dead horse to the next. Are those wild ravens, or our own? Jon could not tell. He wondered where poor Sam was now. And what he was.
A crust of frozen blood crunched beneath the heel of his boot. The wildlings were stripping the dead horses of every scrap of steel and leather, even prying the horseshoes off their hooves. A few were going through packs they'd turned up, looking for weapons and food. Jon passed one of Chett's dogs, or what remained of him, lying in a sludgy pool of half-frozen blood.
A few tents were still standing on the far side of the camp, and it was there they found Mance Rayder. Beneath his slashed cloak of black wool and red silk he wore black ringmail and shaggy fur breeches, and on his head was a great bronze-and-iron helm with raven wings at either temple. Jarl was with him, and Harma the Dogshead; Styr as well, and Varamyr Sixskins with his wolves and his shadowcat.
The look Mance gave Jon was grim and cold. "What happened to your face?"
Ygritte said, "Orell tried to take his eye out."
"It was him I asked. Has he lost his tongue? Perhaps he should, to spare us further lies."
Styr the Magnar drew a long knife. "The boy might see more clear with one eye, instead of two."
"Would you like to keep your eye, Jon?" asked the King-beyond-the-Wall. "If so, tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of Winterfell."
Jon's throat was dry. "My lord . . . what . . . "
"I am not your lord," said Mance. "And the what is plain enough. Your brothers died. The question is, how many?"
Jon's face was throbbing, the snow kept coming down, and it was hard to think. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you, Qhorin had told him. The words stuck in his throat, but he made himself say, "There were three hundred of us."
"Us?" Mance said sharply.
"Them. Three hundred of them." Whatever is asked, the Halfhand said. So why do I feel so craven? "Two hundred from Castle Black, and one hundred from the Shadow Tower."
"There's a truer song than the one you sang in my tent." Mance looked to Harma Dogshead. "How many horses have we found?"
"More'n a hundred," that huge woman replied, "less than two. There's more dead to the east, under the snow, hard t' know how many." Behind her stood her banner bearer, holding a pole with a dog's head on it, fresh enough to still be leaking blood.
"You should never have lied to me, Jon Snow," said Mance.
"I . . . I know that." What could he say?
The wildling king studied his face. "Who had the command here? And tell me true. Was it Rykker? Smallwood? Not Wythers, he's too feeble. Whose tent was this?"
I have said too much. "You did not find his body?"
Harma snorted, her disdain frosting from her nostrils. "What fools these black crows be."
"The next time you answer me with a question, I will give you to my Lord of Bones," Mance Rayder promised Jon. He stepped closer. "Who led here?"
One more step, thought Jon. Another foot. He moved his hand closer to Longclaw's hilt. If I hold my tongue . . .
"Reach up for that bastard sword and I'll have your bastard head off before it clears the scabbard," said Mance. "I am fast losing patience with you, crow."
"Say it," Ygritte urged. "He's dead, whoever he was."
His frown cracked the blood on his cheek. This is too hard, Jon thought in despair. How do I play the turncloak without becoming one? Qhorin had not told him that. But the second step is always easier than the first. "The Old Bear."
"That old man?" Harma's tone said she did not believe it. "He came himself? Then who commands at Castle Black?"
"Bowen Marsh." This time Jon answered at once. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you.
Mance laughed. "If so, our war is won. Bowen knows a deal more about counting swords than he's ever known about using them."
"The Old Bear commanded," said Jon. "This place was high and strong, and he made it stronger. He dug pits and planted stakes, laid up food and water. He was ready for . . . "
" . . . Me?" finished Mance Rayder. "Aye, he was. Had I been fool enough to storm this hill, I might have lost five men for every crow I slew and still counted myself lucky." His mouth grew hard. "But when the dead walk, walls and stakes and swords mean nothing. You cannot fight the dead, Jon Snow. No man knows that half so well as me." He gazed up at the darkening sky and said, "The crows may have helped us more than they know. I'd wondered why we'd suffered no attacks. But there's still a hundred leagues to go, and the cold is rising. Varamyr, send your wolves sniffing after the wights, I won't have them taking us unawares. My Lord of Bones, double all the patrols, and make certain every man has torch and flint. Styr, Jarl, you ride at first light."
"Mance," Rattleshirt said, "I want me some crow bones."
Ygritte stepped in front of Jon. "You can't kill a man for lying to protect them as was his brothers."
"They are still his brothers," declared Styr.
"They're not," insisted Ygritte. "He never killed me, like they told him. And he slew the Halfhand, we all saw."
Jon's breath misted the air. If I lie to him, he'll know. He looked Mance Rayder in the eyes, opened and closed his burned hand. "I wear the cloak you gave me, Your Grace."
"A sheepskin cloak!" said Ygritte. "And there's many a night we dance beneath it, too!"
Jarl laughed, and even Harma Dogshead smirked. "Is that the way of it, Jon Snow?" asked Mance Rayder, mildly. "Her and you?"
It was easy to lose your way beyond the Wall. Jon did not know that he could tell honor from shame anymore, or right from wrong. Father forgive me. "Yes," he said.
Mance nodded. "Good. You'll go with Jarl and Styr on the morrow, then. Both of you. Far be it from me to separate two hearts that beat as one."
"Go where?" said Jon.
"Over the Wall. It's past time you proved your faith with something more than words, Jon Snow."
The Magnar was not pleased. "What do I want with a crow?"
"He knows the Watch and he knows the Wall," said Mance, "and he knows Castle Black better than any raider ever could. You'll find a use for him, or you're a fool."
Styr scowled. "His heart may still be black."
"Then cut it out." Mance turned to Rattleshirt. "My Lord of Bones, keep the column moving at all costs. If we reach the Wall before Mormont, we've won."
"They'll move." Rattleshirt's voice was thick and angry.
Mance nodded, and walked away, Harma and Sixskins beside him.
Varamyr's wolves and shadowcat followed behind. Jon and Ygritte were left with Jarl, Rattleshirt, and the Magnar. The two older wildlings looked at Jon with ill-concealed rancor as Jarl said, "You heard, we ride at daybreak. Bring all the food you can, there'll be no time to hunt. And have your face seen to, crow. You look a bloody mess."
"I will," said Jon.
"You best not be lying, girl," Rattleshirt said to Ygritte, his eyes shiny behind the giant's skull.