Game of Thrones Iron Stark

read more inpatreon

CaveLeather

The feast was still raging in the Red Keep when a raven from the North found its way to an old colleague.

Janos Slynt's quarters in the city were warm, richly furnished, and smelled of good wine and clean linen. Ser Alliser Thorne stood just inside the door, snow still melting on his black cloak. Janos shut the windows fast and threw the bolt.

"Seven hells, Thorne. What are you doing in King's Landing? If Robert sees you, we're both dead men."

Alliser looked around the room and gave a short, bitter laugh. "Robert spends gold like water. Back when Aerys sat the throne, the Gold Cloak commander didn't live like this. Where'd the coin come from, Janos? The crown? Or someone with deeper pockets?"

Janos poured two cups of Arbor gold and slid one across the table. "You came alone, or did the Lord Commander send you?"

Alliser drained the cup in three long swallows and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Not just me. Not just the Watch. We brought others. And other things."

Janos felt the first cold prickle at the back of his neck. "What kind of things?"

"The dead."

The cup slipped from Janos's fingers and hit the table. Wine ran across the wood and dripped onto the floor.

"White Walkers?" he whispered. "You brought a fucking White Walker into the city?"

"Pieces," Alliser said, almost cheerful now that the wine was in him. "An arm. A head. Both still moving. The rest we burned."

Janos stared at him. "If you have dead men that won't stay dead, why the fuck are you standing in my room instead of dragging them in front of the king?"

"Robert won't see me," Alliser said. "I'm a Targaryen man. Always was. You know that." He leaned forward. "Tell me straight, Janos. Are there any Targaryens left? Real ones?"

Janos hesitated, then nodded once. "Daenerys Stormborn. She's Khal Drogo's khaleesi now. Word is she's made some kind of pact with the Lhazareen sheep people east of the Dothraki sea."

Alliser was quiet for a long moment. For the first time since he'd walked through the door, something like hunger crossed his face. Then it was gone.

"She'll come for the throne one day," he said softly. "And when she does, the dead will already be at our backs."

He stood up, snow melting off his boots onto Janos's fine carpet.

"I can't go south with her. I took the black. The real war is in the North. Always has been."

He left without another word.

---

Winter had already claimed the lands beyond the Wall.

The world was white and silent. Thick snow covered everything, turning the ground into a soft, endless blanket. The wind moved through the trees with a low, constant howl that never quite stopped. Even the rivers that still ran were edged with ice.

A wildling rose from a drift of snow, rabbit dangling from one hand. He cut its throat with a quick slash and drank the blood while it was still warm. The heat hit his belly like fire. He grinned, wiped his mouth, and started walking toward the distant smoke of his people's camp. His wife would be waiting. His children. Even here, life went on.

Farther north, past the last ragged trees, another wildling waited beside a frozen stream. A golden eagle dropped from the gray sky, talons full of thrashing carp. The fish hit the snow at his feet. He laughed, picked it up, and headed back to his fire.

They called them wildlings south of the Wall, but they were just people who had been on the wrong side when Brandon the Builder raised the ice. They hunted. They fucked. They raised their kids. They survived.

North of even them lay the true dead lands.

No one who went into the Lands of Always Winter ever came back. There were no trees. No rivers anyone had ever seen. Only endless cold, endless night, and the things that moved in it. The kind of cold that didn't just kill you. It unmade you.

Winter had come.

And something worse was already awake.