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The southerners were startled at his roar knights and spearmen scattering to their captains' cries yet something in the Northman's tone brooked no delay. Men scrambled, boots pounding on the ice-slick stones, shields raised though no arrow had yet flown.
And then the heavens split.
From the white churn of cloud above came a tearing gale, a shriek that flayed the marrow. A shadow swelled in the storm vast, black-rimmed, and glinting with an unholy frost. Wings like broken glaciers unfurled, sending the snow in a whirlpool of deathly chill.
The ice dragon fell upon them with a roar that froze blood. Its eyes burned the blue of a winter grave as it tore through the mist, each beat of its wings a hammerblow of wind. The sea heaved beneath its shadow, ships groaning and splintering against their moorings.
"Gods preserve us!" a Tyrell spearman screamed, diving for cover as the beast opened its maw.
A torrent of cold fire burst forth not flame, but a stream of killing frost that turned the ships to brittle crystal and shattered them with a sound like breaking bones. Men screamed as the dock became a storm of ice shards, splinters, and death.
"TO THE WALLS OF THE FORTRESS!" Karstark bellowed over the chaos, his sword flashing free. "HIDE IF YOU MUST, BUT HOLD YOUR GROUND!"
Horses reared, ships tore free and listed, the banners of the Vale whipped into the air and vanished in the maelstrom. The southern lords scattered for the gatehouse, a Martell knight cursing in his tongue as he dragged a stunned fellow knight to his feet. The Tyrell men tried to rally, their leader shouting for formation, but the dragon's second scream drowned him out so close it made the stones quiver.
Arrows loosed, some snapping in midair as the freezing gale caught them. The beast wheeled, wings cracking like thunder, its vast tail sweeping a galley into the rocks as if it were kindling.
Snow fell harder, turning the sky to a white shroud. Somewhere beneath it, a man prayed aloud. Somewhere else, a boy wept.
The wind had not ceased howling since the dragon's attack. Men stumbled through the snow, some screaming, some silent as the dead, clutching stumps of limbs or dragging comrades gone pale and stiff. The keep's gates were barred now, the walls lined with every man able to hold a bow, yet the chill that gripped them was not from the winter alone.
High above, the watchmen on the battlements peered into the endless white beyond the forest of Karhold, the trees shifted unnaturally branches cracking, frost tumbling from them as if something heavy and vast pushed through. One of the men rubbed his eyes, thinking the storm had played a trick in his eyes. Then his breath caught in his throat.
"…Gods…" he whispered, his voice barely more than a ragged thread.
"Do you see it too?" hissed another, his knuckles white on the parapet stone.
Through the curtain of snow came movement at first a ripple, then a tide. Figures, endless and black against the white, moving with a number no mortal army could keep muster. There were no banners, no horns only the silence of the grave and the crunch of a thousand, thousand feet on frozen earth.
The youngest watchman's mouth opened to call his Lord but his tongue felt frozen. The others stared, some clutching their cloaks tighter, one muttering a prayer to the Old Gods with lips that barely moved. They were already being attacked by an undead Dragon and now this.
"Call the lord!" someone finally managed, voice cracking. "Call Lord Karstark! He needs to see this now!"
A runner bolted down the stairs, slipping on the frost-slick stone as screams still echoed from the lower yards where the dragon's frost-fire had taken men alive. He shoved past wounded soldiers, past Dorne's crimson banners torn and Tyrell's green drenched in ice, until at last Lord Karstark himself strode forth, sword still sheathed but jaw tight as iron.
"Make way!" he barked, his cloak snapping behind him as he climbed the wall steps two at a time. Arrows clattered from the ramparts above where men still loosed blindly into the storm, hoping the beast would return. The lord reached the top, breath clouding thick in the freezing air, and looked.
His face, north hardened did not flinch, but his eyes tightened as the truth unfolded before him. The forest was no longer a forest. It was a tide of corpses. Wolves with bones for faces, giants of half-rotten flesh, men, women, even children, their eyes the same cold blue as the dragon's breath. And they were coming fast, far too fast.
Karstark drew in a slow breath, his gauntleted hand gripping the parapet. "Gods help us," he muttered, just loud enough for the wind to carry it. "But we will stand our ground. Even if all we win is the chance to make them pay for each drop of our blood."
Behind Lord Karstark, the crippled Prince Doran Martell who silently followed him, hunched in his litter, raised his dark eyes toward the wall as his guards shielded him with spear and shield. Snowflakes clung to his beard, his breath ragged from the cold.
"It was this bad… all while we quarreled over wine and pride back home," he said, his voice bitter as the chill.
Karstark's laugh rumbled, grim and almost fond despite the doom before him. "Well, now you know why Northerners are hard men, Prince. Winter carves us so."
He straightened, cloak whipping in the gale, and turned to the archers clustered on the battlements, their faces pale but their hands steady on bowstrings.
"Archers! Nock your arrows! Drench that cursed wood with fire and send it screaming into their ranks! If the dead would march through our forest, let it be ash they tread upon!"
Torches flared as men hurried to light their pitch-soaked shafts. Flames licked the winter dark, the first volley streaking skyward like a swarm of fireflies. The air filled with the hiss of burning fletching.
The forest below erupted with light as the arrows fell, streaks of fire cutting through the swirling snow then the first ranks of the dead shuddered as the flames struck, only to march on still, smoldering, their jaws clacking in a sound that carried over the wind like snapping ice.
And on the wall, men gritted their teeth, clutching at charms, whispering prayers, and watching the end of the world come closer with every heartbeat.
Men shouted on the walls, their breaths coming in frantic plumes.
"Keep shooting!" one cried, fumbling with his bowstring, fingers numb. "Gods curse this cold! fire won't hold! It dies quick!"
Another cursed and slammed his torch against the parapet. "The pitch won't stay lit! They smother the flame with their damned wind!"
Below, the gate shook first a knock, then a slam, then a thunderous, repeated battering. Dead hands clawed at the wood, axes struck with eerie rhythm.
Lord Karstark stood at the ramparts, jaw set, his cloak whipping in the storm. His face was ashen with frost and firelight, but his voice carried, firm as iron.
"Hold the gate! Hold it! If the cold kills your fire, then cut them down with steel and Dragonglass! Let them feel the bite of the North!"
Doran Martell, his guards flanking him, his breath thin but his eyes steady as he took in the nightmare below. His fingers tightened on the armrest of his chair, the bitter wind catching his silks.
"I thought the dwarf was exaggerating." he murmured, his voice almost lost to the gale. "Even we in Sunspear spoke of winter as a tale... yet here it is, seeing this with my own eyes I realized his words were not enough describe this threat.."
he inclined his head faintly, the corners of his mouth twitching, yet the words froze in his throat. For in that moment, a sound cleaved the storm.
A roar long, deep and monstrous rolled from the clouds above. It was not the shattering shriek of the ice dragon that had already burned their fleet to splinters, nor the keening howl that had sent men scurrying like frightened deer. This was darker and angry and it made men falter mid-step, arrows fall forgotten from their hands, and the bravest clutch at their hearts.
"Gods…" a soldier whispered, his voice a ghost. "He comes again… he's above us.. TAKE COVER!"
"No." Another man's voice cracked. "That… that is not the same sound…"
"Who cares about what kind of sound it makes!"
From the swirling white veil above, a shadow tore through the storm vast wings, dark as midnight, wreathed in a crawling haze of black and violet. Its eyes glowed. It was no pale horror of ice, this one reeked of Death itself.
Karstark's breath caught in his throat as he stared skyward, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword and then he smiled.
"That is… no beast of theirs."
The men around him muttered in confusion and fear, ducking behind stone, some crossing themselves, others cursing aloud.
Doran Martell in his chair, his guards forming a wall before him. His voice was low, uncertain. "What manner of creature is this…?"
Karstark exhaled through his nose, a ghost of a smile twisting his frost-bitten beard. "That's the King."
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