Chapter 39 - Hunt in the Wolfswood.
Chapter 39 - Hunt in the Wolfswood.
[Chapter Size: 3400 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Winterfell, 101 AC.
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Two moons had passed since Jon had become extremely skilled in all the areas that made up his daily routine.
But this day was a little different from the usual. Jon found himself in a large group alongside Lord Stark, his two brothers, several soldiers, guards, Rickon, Bennard, and himself in the Wolfswood, mounted on horses and carrying weapons, mainly bows.
Everyone had gathered for a hunt. Ghost was not in Winterfell at the moment, so there was no sign of the direwolf anywhere among them.
"How about a bet?" Jon raised his head toward Rickon, who looked at him with an arched eyebrow from the horse beside him.
"And what would that be?"
"Whoever loses cleans the stables for a week." Jon flashed a challenging smile.
Rickon curved his lips as well. "Sounds good. And how does the bet work?" he asked.
"It's simple. Whoever brings back the heaviest game killed with their own bow wins."
"Deal!" Rickon nodded.
The other men hadn't failed to overhear the conversation between the two children.
"You shouldn't accept that, Rickon. It's not fitting for the heir of Winterfell to make that kind of bet. And pay attention as well: if you lose, it will be even less fitting to see you cleaning horse dung..." Bennard said from beside him.
"Oh, for the love of the old gods, Bennard. We're ten name days old. I won't stop being the heir of Winterfell because I clean dung if I lose. Besides, it's far more likely that Jon will be the one doing it." Rickon mocked his brother before turning his attention back to his father.
"Do you have any objection to it, Father?" he added with that question.
Rickon's uncle began to laugh beside Lord Stark. "Poor boy. It seems he's never hunted with Jon before. He doesn't know that the lad can find any prey in the woods as easily as finding the sun in a clear sky..." Rodrik Stark said.
Benjen Stark ignored his brother's voice and looked at his son. "Just don't make mistakes because of impatience while chasing prey, and don't put yourself in danger. Understood?" It was a warning, but he approved.
Rickon broke into a smile, and Jon nodded as well.
"Well, I'll leave two guards with each of you. And I want the two of you to go with them as well," Benjen said to his brothers, Rodrik and Walton, knowing that the boys would soon split up to hunt on their own.
After all, it was a competition.
"You can count on it, brother!" Rodrik said with a smile.
Walton nodded as well.
Then the hunt continued, and they moved deeper and deeper into the forest.
"Well, I feel like there's something over there. I'm going to split up from you, Jon, future stable cleaner!" Rickon mocked him.
Jon merely shook his head. "We'll talk at the end of the day." With those words, several men and Walton Stark followed Rickon.
Jon remained accompanied by Lord Stark's younger brother, Walton. And they separated from the main group as well.
"So..." Jon spoke once they were farther away and in silence, while watching the younger Stark. "...I heard you're going to the Wall..."
Walton Stark looked at him with some surprise. "Yes." His answer was quick. "I intend to leave in a week... the Wall of Ice will soon be my home." He said it melancholically, maintaining a sad smile.
Jon grew thoughtful, his eyes on the forest ahead of him, focused on nothing in particular. He had heard Walton and was reflecting on it for some reason.
The idea of going to the Wall and serving in the Night's Watch was strange and, at the same time, familiar. Not that he remembered ever having served at the Wall, but that possibility must have crossed his mind at some point in one of his dreams.
It was a distant feeling, almost forgotten, but it was still there.
"Are you sure about that?" Jon asked suddenly.
He had no desire whatsoever to be part of that order. Even though his dreams had shown him countless places scattered across the entire world, they had never properly shown him the Wall. He did want to see it, but he would never become part of it the way Walton envisioned, when there were so many places he could visit and discover.
His dreams had revealed a world so vast that even now he felt anxious to explore it. The idea of being trapped in one place by an oath did not appeal to him in the slightest.
It wasn't as if a ten-year-old boy could do much, but his future had already been planned by himself.
"Yes. It is the duty of House Stark to always send a representative to the Night's Watch." Walton shrugged at Jon's question. But after a pause, he continued.
"I won't inherit titles or lands. House Stark is doing very well these days."
There was his older brother, and even he would hardly have any place when Benjen already had two of his three children as sons.
Rickon was destined to inherit Winterfell, and Bennard would become the next lord if anything happened to his older brother and he left no heirs behind.
Jon knew the dynamics of House Stark very well, so there was no need for further explanations.
"Well, I don't mean only titles or lands. You could be a knight. You could travel. Find something you enjoy doing. They say it's good to have a woman's love, to have a good wife and children." Jon said it naturally.
The men exchanged surprised glances.
"HM!"
Then they started laughing.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
Jon's eyes widened. "What are you laughing at?" he asked immediately.
The younger Stark himself was laughing loudly. "Boy, that was too good. Hearing that from a ten-year-old lad!" He placed a hand on his stomach while laughing.
The two guards also seemed to think it was the funniest thing in the world.
Jon no longer even cared about the hunt; those laughs were scaring away every animal in the area. He looked at the three of them, red with embarrassment and anger.
"What are you laughing at? I didn't say anything outrageous!" he growled.
But they continued laughing for a while longer before finally calming down.
"Sorry about that, but it was funny." The young Stark was still smiling. "What do you know about marriage and having children, Jon?" He wasn't saying it to offend him; he simply found the situation amusing.
Jon remained red-faced.
"My lord, who knows? Maybe the boy already has a family somewhere out there," one of the guards said, still chuckling quietly.
"Jon may be the most handsome boy in the North, according to all those ladies who visit Winterfell. I've heard people say we have a Targaryen prince instead of a boy raised like a wolf. But he's far too young to have anything going on. Unless he's been sneaking around with those noble ladies in Winterfell and visiting various corners of the castle where no one can keep an eye on them..." he suggested with a grin.
"Oh, for the gods' sake, don't think such nonsense!" Jon growled again, now even angrier. "I've never done anything like that!"
"I know. I doubt a boy who left his mother's breast so recently could get a woman pregnant," Walton said with a smile. "But you're already ten name days old, Jon. Soon women will start looking at you differently. And you'll start looking at them differently too, and you'll think about more than just their pretty little faces..."
"If you don't control yourself, well... you'll end up having children after all, don't you think, lads?" The man paused and looked at his companions.
"And the feeling of having a woman and children by your side is wonderful," one of the men said with a laugh. That sentence alone was enough to make the men start laughing again.
Jon said nothing. He simply remained irritated, letting them laugh as they continued through the forest.
'My love...'
'Daddy! Daddy!'
"Daddy!"
'Grandma.'
Those voices echoed in his mind. Jon was certain he had lived through that before, even if none of the three men in front of him would believe it. The feeling was a little too real.
If he told them that he had dreams in which he had a family, children calling him father and even grandfather, women more beautiful than any he had ever seen in Winterfell calling him their love and looking at him as though he were the most precious thing in their lives alongside their children, they would probably laugh even harder.
But those memories did not feel false. Through those eyes of children and women in his dreams, he could feel it.
In any case, Jon was no longer paying attention to the conversation. He continued searching for tracks, cheating through his magic. His consciousness entered his raven, and it quickly flew above the men, searching among the trees for any sign of prey.
"It would help even more if I could have some wolves too..." he murmured, and his words echoed almost like a command.
Suddenly, he found himself in the middle of a pack. All the wolves raised their heads at the same time.
His vision changed instantly. Beyond what he shared with his own body, he began seeing through several pairs of eyes at the same time.
It was like watching multiple screens simultaneously... The flood of information hit his brain all at once.
Jon felt a strong wave of dizziness and had to struggle to maintain his composure, preventing the younger Stark from noticing anything strange.
After a few moments, he managed to calm himself and blinked several times.
Then he sighed until a small smile began to form on his face. "Well... I wasn't expecting that. But I'm going to make use of those wolves..." With that thought, he sent the entire pack moving through the forest.
Eighteen wolves began moving between the trees, sniffing everything around them. Not far away, perhaps a few hundred meters east of their position, the animals started searching for tracks.
Until they finally found something.
'Good...' Jon fixed his eyes on that direction.
Then he spurred his horse and began galloping, catching the two guards and the younger Stark by surprise as they had been talking among themselves.
"Wait, Jon! Where are you going in such a hurry?" Walton called out as he saw him riding away.
"I found something," Jon replied, already a dozen meters away.
He galloped through the forest for some time while the others quickly followed him.
He finally stopped when he reached a certain spot; the wolves were not far from there.
Jon jumped off his horse as the younger Stark and the two guards arrived shortly afterward.
"Don't run around like that. There are wolves in these woods," Walton said.
Jon merely raised a finger, asking for silence. "It's fine. Let me do my work." With that, he moved forward while mentally ordering the wolves to leave.
Soon they reached an area surrounded by dense trees, where the ground sloped gently down toward a stream.
There, a massive stag was drinking water. Jon approached without making a sound until he was several dozen meters away. Then he took out his bow and aimed.
However, fate seemed to be against him in that attempt. Walton ended up slipping on the steepest part of the slope while trying to catch up with Jon. He made enough noise for the stag to raise its head and immediately start fleeing as soon as it noticed the human presence.
"Sorry!" Walton said at once.
Jon, however, did not care. He kept his bow aimed at the fleeing stag when he noticed something. He still had it in his sights... He could hit it while it was moving, quickly calculating in his mind how the shot would pass between the trees at the moment the stag appeared.
But...
A roar echoed through the trees.
A bear emerged from the forest on the other side of the stream, and it was an adult. Jon's eyes widened, as did Walton's, when they saw a bear weighing at least four hundred kilograms judging by its size, charging forward to catch the stag.
It was too much of a coincidence for something like that to appear right now...
Even so, Jon remained calm and acted without wasting time thinking about it.
That bear was nothing compared to the monster he had faced before, much smaller...
The difference was striking. After all, that monstrous bear Jon had killed before had certainly weighed more than eight hundred kilograms, while this one probably weighed between three and four hundred.
A huge bear would normally reach around six hundred kilograms, which showed just how abnormal that previous creature had truly been.
The arrow flew from Jon's bow straight into the field of view where the stag and the bear were running. One was fleeing to save its life from both the humans and that carnivorous creature, while the other sought its meal. It wasn't even afraid of the humans there.
In any case, the arrow struck the bear's hind leg just as it was about to catch the stag.
They were no more than fifty meters away, so it was not an extraordinary shot. Even so, Jon managed to send the arrow between all the trees without difficulty.
"Wow! What a shot!" Walton exclaimed behind him.
The bear roared in pain and abandoned the stag. Now, its attention was completely focused on Jon.
Immediately, Jon nocked another arrow and aimed at the bear, which roared furiously before charging toward him despite its injured leg.
Jon waited.
One second.
Two.
The bear had not even covered five meters when the arrow was released.
It struck directly into the creature's eye.
A perfect shot.
Over the last two moons, Jon had become extraordinary in every area related to his training.
Somehow, he had begun performing swordsmanship moves he had never practiced before. He had improved drastically with bow and arrow. Any problem the maester gave him seemed simple to solve.
It was as though memories he had never seen before surfaced whenever he faced a question or challenge... He simply understood everything and answered.
Even some of the things taught by the Citadel seemed wrong in his eyes, and the maester had noticed it. Sometimes Jon answered differently from what was officially taught.
But he did not care. When the maester asked why, Jon simply explained that the Citadel was limited in certain subjects.
That had left the old man intrigued. So Jon began explaining his reasoning. Since then, the maester had started writing down everything the boy said.
After all, Jon always presented logical arguments to support what he believed was correct.
In any case, that arrow had not merely pierced one of the bear's eyes; it had struck directly into the creature's brain.
The animal simply went dark at that very instant. Its enormous body stumbled forward from its own momentum before completely losing strength and collapsing onto the ground.
"Holy shit, lad... You really are a bear killer. There's no doubt about that anymore!" Walton muttered, clapping beside him.
Jon shot him a deadly glare.
"You made my stag get away. Why are you celebrating?"
Walton raised his hands in surrender.
"Sorry. I was supposed to be watching over you. I just didn't mean to get in your way."
"It's fine. Let's put the bear on the horse and head back..." Jon replied.
The younger Stark began calling his men. Meanwhile, Jon approached the dead animal. He took the opportunity to drink water from the stream, and the men arrived shortly afterward with comments about the hunt after hearing from Walton that Jon had killed the bear.
All four of them had enormous difficulty trying to move the creature, which weighed close to four hundred kilograms.
"We won't be able to take this back to Winterfell. We need to call my brother and a few more men."
"Leave it to me," Jon said, and then he whistled.
A raven flew out from the trees and came to him, landing on his shoulder.
"Can you call Lord Stark?"
"Looord Staaark!" the bird cried, imitating a human voice.
Jon had taught that to the animal over the last two moons, and somehow, the raven had begun imitating him.
"Go bring him here."
Upon hearing those words, the raven took flight.
Ravens were intelligent creatures.
That was why it was not so surprising that the bird living in Jon's room obeyed commands in that way, almost like an assistant.
Even so, everyone present watched the scene with envy, since no one else had a raven like that.
Meanwhile, Rickon was quite excited elsewhere.
He had managed to bring down a wolf weighing around sixty kilograms.
"I doubt Jon managed to get anything better!" he declared while looking at the dead animal.
Given Jon's history, he was not usually the one to bring back the largest prey, since he had always been better known for finding tracks and guiding hunters to elk and other large animals through the forest, but he had never personally brought one down.
That was when a raven appeared before the group. "Lord Stark! Lord Stark!" the bird cried. "Help! Help!"
The men exchanged glances.
"Show me the way." Lord Stark was already familiar with the nature of that raven.
Because of that, he immediately followed it with several men while ordering the rest of the group to remain where they were and prepare for departure.
All they had to do was tie up the slain wolf to bring it back to the castle.
Meanwhile, the others followed to find out what had happened. Some time later, they arrived at the location.
The first feeling was relief upon realizing that nothing had happened to any of the four men.
The second was surprise.
A tremendous surprise at the sight of the bear.
"Damn..." Several guards stood open-mouthed as they stared at the dead bear, which had already been dragged to a flatter area.
"This is unprecedented... It seems you've outdone my son this time."
Benjen looked at Jon and gave him a small nod, clearly pleased with the boy's hunt.
And Jon smiled.
"We'll take it back. The path from here is already clearer. Get the ropes, and let's place it on a platform."
The men immediately got to work.
Since they were experienced hunters, they knew exactly what to do when they came across prey too large to carry.
The solution was simple: build a drag platform.
Some men cut down smaller trees, while others gathered sturdy branches. The ropes were used to tie the entire structure together.
With the work of more than a dozen men, the platform was completed quickly. Its purpose was to drag the bear to the wagon left at the edge of the forest, already intended to carry the game back to Winterfell.
Then they placed the bear on top of it.
"Tonight's feast is going to be excellent," Walton commented to his brother.
Benjen merely nodded. "We have nothing left worth hunting after this. Let's head back. The children outdid us today."
Some time later, Rickon was completely dejected.
Everyone entered through Winterfell's gates at that moment, with the wagon carrying the dead wolf, the bear, several rabbits, and other small animals the men had caught, but nothing that could compare to game worthy of praise for either of the two boys, considering they were only ten name days old.
Unfortunately, whatever glory Rickon might have gained from the dead wolf was completely overshadowed by the bear Jon had brought down.
A bear killed with only two arrows, and the first shot had not even been intended to kill it, merely to prevent it from reaching the stag and to draw its attention.
Jon looked proud as he returned to the castle, and they were greeted by Lyra and the others.
As soon as she heard about the bet, the girl immediately became excited, and even Bennard could not resist mocking Rickon about his upcoming work in the stables.
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