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"That is a stupid idea!" Robb snapped. "You'll never make it!"
Jon frowned. He knew it was a stupid idea. And even that Jon knew it was stupid but he was desperate.
"They'll never let you within a hundred yards of him."
Robb nodded at the vindication.
"And if you did, even if you managed to kill him."
"He'll kill me. If I don't go he'll kill me anyway. They'll kill the rest of us too."
"He won't just kill ya. They'll boil you. They'll filet you. They'll make it last days!"
"I think we've learned that only one clan would do that. The rest would drink from your skull or fuck your corpse!" Tyrion tried to joke.
It didn't take.
People glared at him
"Tough crowd" Tyrion gulped his wine. He honestly didn't care much for what happened now. He was going to die so he didn't need to live to see the day the Wildlings ran rampant over Westeros. He simply hated the tension in the air.
[JON stands there for a second as he and SAM look at each other, then he walks off, SAM scampering after him. They walk down the tunnel toward the gate. The giant and GRENN and his men are dead on the ground]
Robb winced. Those men died fighting because he sent them there...
"They fought bravely" Robert nodded softly. Loyal and brave men till the end, even the one that was pissing his pants.
"They held the gate. Get some brothers down here to help you. You need to burn the bodies. Raise the outer gate, then lower it again as soon as I'm out."
"This is a stupid idea" Daenerys pointed out blankly.
Jon looked at her with a smile. He knew it was a stupid idea.
[SAM waves his torch to signal the raising of the gate. JON removes his sword]
"What are you doing?"
"I promised Jeor I'd never lose it again."
[JON hands the sword to SAM]
"In case I don't come back."
"You're going out unarmed?!" Lyanna snapped, making Jon wince again. "Are you trying to die?!"
"You won't find weapons on the other side to just pick up and fight with" Ned made his displeasure known.
Jon sighed. He has decided to stop talking and defending himself as no matter what they can't just differentiate between the Jon on the screen and him.
[The gate raises and JON walks through it]
"I swear if you die doing something as stupid as that" Lyanna muttered, adding just like his father' for herself and just herself.
[JON SNOW leaves the tunnel and walks out into the snow. Smoking dead bodies lie all around him. As he walks into the forest he becomes surrounded by Wildlings. He has entered the Wildling camp unarmed]
"Good luck killing him now" Robb muttered with a scowl. He knew this was a stupid idea.
"You're wearing a black cloak again."
"I've been sent to negotiate with you."
Robb's brows unfurrowed. Going with that logic, being without a weapon made sense. If they saw him unarmed, they'd let him get closer.
"Would the Wildlings even think about that?" Lyanna murmured in worry. These were Wildlings... would they negotiate?
[Mance and Jon enter Mance's tent and take a seat]
"It appears my trusting nature got the better of me. It's happened before. I was hoping your loyalty was real when you pledged yourself to us, Jon Snow, truly I was."
"He liked you," Rickard said unhelpfully.
"Hard not to like him, he's the best" Arya said with her chest puffed out.
Jon rolled his eyes at them both.
"He saw another one like him, someone who wanted freedom from the vows to be their own person. He didn't like me, he liked what he saw in me" Jon clarified softly.
It was the same thing to the deceased Lord of Winterfell, but he did not voice that part.
"The Halfhand ordered me to join your army and bring back whatever information I could to Castle Black. He made me kill him so you'd trust me. I was loyal, to him and to my Night's Watch vows."
"All of your vows? She wasn't enough to turn ya, eh? Were you enough to turn her?"
"She put three arrows in me when I escaped."
"Did you see her again at Castle Black?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"She's dead."
"Your doing?"
"No."
"We'll drink to her."
"So he was enough to turn her then" Tyrion muttered. Guess love, as fickle and mythical as it was, worked both ways. Which made him think of Tysha, his beautiful commoner wife who his father destroyed. Where was she now? How was she now?
[One of the Wildlings gets two cups and fills them with liquid. Jon looks at Mance]
"Of all the ways I'd kill you, poison would be the last."
[They pick up their cups and drink to YGRITTE. Jon begins to cough]
Lyanna tensed. Surely not...
"That's not wine."
The woman relaxed. Good...
"No, it's a proper Northern drink, Jon Snow. You did well. Fought hard. Killed some of our strongest men. One of our giants went into your tunnel and never came out again. Mag the Mighty."
"He's dead. He killed my friend Grenn."
"He was their king. Last of a bloodline that stretches back before the First Men."
"Can you imagine? A bloodline that comes from the First Men? And now they are nothing, gone in the wind. How easily such bloodlines are wiped away" Tyrion mused out loud. It made many think. Some didn't care, bloodline rose and fell all the time. But some also cared, some were saddened to lose such an old bloodline. A King's bloodline.
"He as a King... I thought the Wildlings did not have kings" Tommen asked.
They all turned to Jon
"They don't" Jon clarified. "But they have leaders, people they trust to lead their clans. Mag the Mighty was the chosen leader, as was his father and his father before him. A King, if you will, for his lineage and history.'
They nodded in understanding.
"Grenn came from a farm."
"The noblest of farms, no doubt" Tyrion raised his cups for grenn. Truthfully, he only needed a reason to drink. Which was a lie in itself. Who would stop him?
[They lift their cups]
"Mag and Grenn."
"Grenn and Mag."
"Kullback, could I trouble you for something to eat? I don't imagine our guest has eaten anything in quite some time. So. You're here to strike a bargain?"
"Turn your army around and go home."
"You know I know you're low on arrows. You're low on oil. You're low on men. How many are left? 50?"
"I told Tormund and Orell. We have more than a thousand men."
"That won't work anymore. Mance knows it's a lie" Stannis muttered. No doubt he's received words by now. Or maybe a Warg has kept an eye and informed him.
"I showed you everything I had. The whole army, a hundred thousand strong, and what did you do? You fired on us with everything you had. It wasn't much. Soon as I saw that I sent four hundred men to climb the wall. An unmanned stretch five miles west of here. A lot of them will die climbing, but most of them will be over by the end of the day."
"Fuck" Brandon the Elder groaned. Even half of those men die, and that's a big if, two hundred men were more than enough to overwhelm the Watch as they are now.
"This is me being honest with you, Jon Snow, which is more than you've ever done for me. My people have bled enough. We're not here to conquer, we're here to hide behind your wall just like you. We need your tunnel. Now we both know that winter is coming and if my people aren't south of the wall when it comes in earnest, we'll all end up worse than dead. Wanna strike a bargain with me? Here's a bargain. You go back, you open the gates to us and I swear to you that no one else will die. Refuse and we'll kill every last man in Castle Black.'
Ned thought for a moment. If this was what the Wildling planned, if this what these men and women followed with Mance at their helm... Ned could work with that. Perhaps... he had found a way to integrate the Wildlings to the North...