Game of Thrones Iron Stark

Ygritte ran until her lungs burned.

The giant white spiders were still behind them, relentless. Tormund Giantsbane ran beside her, carrying their warg on his back. The man's eyes had rolled white while he spoke with his eagle.

"Go west!" the warg gasped. "There's a thawing lake. We can hide in the water!"

Tormund bellowed orders and the Fire-Kissed clan veered west. They reached the lake and plunged in without hesitation, splashing like ducks. The cold was brutal, but it was better than being torn apart on land.

The ice spiders gathered at the edge but refused to enter the water.

Tormund treaded water and spat. "We can't keep living like this. When is Mance finally going to take us south?"

Ygritte kept one hand on a floating log. "He found the Horn of Winter, but it won't work without a Stark. A real one. Named Brandon Stark."

Tormund grunted. "The old stories say only a Brandon Stark can blow it loud enough to wake the giants sleeping under the ground."

They floated in silence for a while, listening to the spiders clicking on the shore.

"We don't even know how many Starks are left south of the Wall," Tormund said. "We know Eddard and Benjen. The rest are a mystery."

The spiders suddenly turned and scuttled away, called back by something only they could hear.

Ygritte stared after them. "Either they caught Benjen Stark… or something worse just happened."

---

Benjen collapsed half a mile from the Wall.

He had run until his legs gave out. The black bearskin cloak made him look like a dead crow against the snow.

High above, ravens circled and screamed.

Jon Snow felt it before he saw it. Something in his blood pulled his eyes north.

He spotted the dark shape on the snow and knew instantly.

"Uncle!"

Three long blasts of the horn rolled across the Wall.

Every brother dropped what he was doing and grabbed weapons.

Jon ran for the gate. "Open it!"

Lord Commander Mormont stepped out of his tower. "Snow, stand down. We don't open for anything until we know what's out there."

"My uncle is out there! He's the First Ranger!"

Samwell Tarly looked terrified. "Lord Commander, please. If the Others get inside—"

Mormont studied Jon's face, then the growing mist and cold wind rolling in from the north.

"Fifteen minutes," he said at last. "If you're not back, we close the gate."

"Open it!"

Jon rode out alone into the worsening snow.

He found Benjen face-down and hauled him onto the horse. Visibility was dropping fast. Shapes moved in the white haze ahead — wights. Jon turned the horse and kicked hard for the gate.

The White Walker watched from a distance. It did not order an attack on the Wall. Instead it simply flung a few corpses forward and withdrew with its dead.

By the time Jon reached the gate the snow had thinned and the unnatural cold was fading.

Brothers helped pull Benjen inside. Everyone stared at the empty ground beyond the Wall.

"That was one of them?" a man whispered. "Looked like death itself. Why didn't it attack?"

Mormont answered quietly, eyes still on the horizon.

"Because the Wall still stands. And while it stands, the magic holds. They can't pass."

He glanced at the unconscious Benjen.

"Not yet."