Game of Thrones Iron Stark

Benjen Stark led his best rangers beyond the Wall. They stopped first at Craster's Keep, where the old wildling watched them with open contempt.

"You're taking too few men," Craster said, laughing. "You won't be coming back. North of here even your precious Stark blood won't save you. We survive because we're hard. You southerners break easy."

Benjen didn't answer. He and his men checked their gear one last time and kept moving north.

The cold beyond the Wall was worse than anything in the North. Even the black brothers walked slower, heads down against the wind.

In the Haunted Forest they ran into wildlings again and again. The maneuvering rigs and repeating crossbows turned the fights into quick, one-sided slaughters. Nearly a hundred wildlings died before the rangers finally stopped.

Jack looked at the bodies. "You really want to burn them? The smoke will bring every wildling for miles."

Benjen's answer was cold and final. "Burn them."

He climbed a tree with his rig and used Tony's improved far-eye to scan the horizon. Far to the north he could just make out the edge of the Lands of Always Winter.

"Tony never even came out here," Benjen muttered to himself, "but he still thinks wildlings and we might be able to stand together against whatever's coming. Maybe he's right."

Below him the rangers piled the corpses and lit the pyre. The smell of burning flesh filled the forest. One of the younger men, Leo, stared at the roasting meat with hungry eyes and actually reached for it.

Jack yanked his arm back. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"They're already dead," Leo said. "Thenns eat people. Why can't we?"

Benjen dropped from the tree and grabbed Leo by the front of his cloak. "Because we're still men. We don't eat people. Not wildlings. Not anyone. Remember that or you're no better than the Thenns."

They left the burning bodies behind and pushed on.

A few hours later a small band of Thenns arrived, drawn by the smoke and the smell. Shaved heads, gray furs, axes and round shields. Cannibals. Even other wildlings hated them.

One of them, the second-in-command, looked at the burning corpses and spat. "Night's Watch came in force. We need to tell Mance."

They turned and left fast. A warg in their group had already seen the fire through an eagle's eyes. But something else made them move quicker — a sudden cold mist rolling in from the north. The kind that came before the dead walked.

Benjen's party reached the foothills and climbed a rocky ridge. From the top they looked down into a narrow valley and froze.

Hundreds of figures marched in perfect silence. Some wore the black of the Watch. Most wore ragged wildling furs. Their eyes glowed blue. Behind them rode a single figure on a dead horse, ice spear resting across its lap.

A White Walker.

"Fuck me," Jack whispered. "If that many reach the Wall…"

"We can't stop them," another ranger said. "Cut them down and they just keep coming. You have to take them apart."

The snow under their boots shifted and slid down the slope. The White Walker's head snapped up. It raised its spear.

Every wight in the valley turned at once and charged.

"Back to the trees!" Benjen shouted. "Move!"

They ran. The dead ran faster.

Two brothers from House Umber — Leo and Astar — stopped at the tree line. They dumped every drop of wildfire they carried onto the ground and onto themselves.

"Go!" Leo yelled at Benjen. "Tell our father we did our duty!"

They lit themselves on fire and charged straight into the wave of wights, screaming as the green flames spread.

Benjen and the rest kept running. They could still hear the brothers' voices even after they couldn't see them anymore.

When the last ranger reached the Haunted Forest, the White Walker finally arrived at the burning brothers. Cold poured off it in waves. The wildfire guttered and died at its feet like it had never burned at all.