Chapter 2 — Part I
Castle Black | 278 AC
The courtyard of Castle Black smelled of sweat and wet sawdust. Steel rang against steel and the metallic echo bounced off the dark wooden walls. I stayed seven more days at the Wall. During the afternoons, the group shared the packed-earth training yard with Qorgyle's rangers.
Morghaz dropped a recruit with a shaft strike behind the knees. The boy fell face-first into the trampled snow. The former Unsullied did not change his expression. He simply extended the spear tip to the fallen boy's throat and waited for him to get up. In another corner, Perseu traded heavy blows from his greatsword against two veteran rangers, the breath of all three turning white smoke in the cold air.
The inflammation in Aemon's eyes disappeared on the fifth day. The thick redness around the iris receded. The risk of the flesh rotting and the infection reaching the nerve vanished completely.
The maester changed his routine. The wooden cane he used to feel his way through the corridors stayed propped in the corner of his room, gathering dust. Aemon spent his mornings near the rookery window, his face turned toward the courtyard, following the movement of the carts and the training of the men with eyes magnified by the glass lenses.
In the Castle Black library, the candles burned to the base. The sound of dry pages turning filled the dusty air. He read with both hands flat on the table, his nose a handspan from the parchment, his fingers tracing the path of the ink. He smiled to himself at the end of a page, the thin lips curving under the wrinkled skin.
On the eighth day, the wooden winch groaned against the colossal wall. The iron cage rose to the top of the Wall. The wind up there cut the skin of the face like broken glass.
I walked beside Aemon on the suspended platform. The old man wore a thick black wool cloak, his shoulders pulled in against the cold. He stopped at the edge and rested both hands on the smooth ice of the parapet. His eyes, protected by the silver frames, looked out over the white vastness of the Haunted Forest.
"I had forgotten the color of the pines", Aemon's voice competed with the hum of the wind. "Memory paints everything with a grey crust after too many years."
I stood beside him, looking north. Fenrir lay near my boots, ears alert to the empty space.
"The swelling is gone", I said, adjusting the collar of my coat. "The corneal wound has sealed. You are out of danger."
Aemon did not turn his face from the forest.
"A blind man near the end of his life usually just sits and accepts the dark", he said, pulling the frozen air in hard. His chest filled under the heavy wool. "You tore the darkness from me, Arthur. You gave back the words of my books and the shape of the clouds."
The wind whipped the hem of his cloak, scattering a cloud of ice dust across the platform.
"My brother Aegon sent me here with an honor guard, long ago", Aemon continued. His bony fingers tightened on the ice edge. "He emptied the dungeons of King's Landing to escort me. Ser Duncan the Tall rode at my side down the Kingsroad. I chose the Wall so that my blood would never be used as a weapon against him on the throne."
Aemon turned his face in my direction. The reflection of the snow shone in the curved surface of the lenses.
"Royal blood is an anchor that drags you to the bottom, boy. The North takes its price in ice, and the South takes its in fire", the old maester said, his voice dropping. "You carry the wolf on your chest, but I did not need my eyes to notice your nature. I felt the complete absence of tremor in your hand when the blade cut my flesh, and I know the methodical patience you used to shape this glass alone in the small hours."
Aemon raised his right hand and touched the silver frames of his own spectacles.
"Men who act with such coldness and precision tend to burn the bridges they cross, certain they will never need to return", he said. The gaze behind the lens was sharp, stripped of the fog of age. "Build roads, Arthur. Winter is not survived alone."
The wind howled harder, carrying the sound away. I did not answer. I turned my eyes back to the white sea beyond the end of the world, while the ice cracked under the weight of the Wall.
The smell of bitter herbs and melted wax still filled the rooms in the rookery tower. I closed the metal clasp of the surgery case with a dry snap and ran the leather strap over the top.
Aemon was seated in the high-backed chair. An open parchment with logistics notes rested in his lap, but his restored eyes, magnified by the thick lenses, followed the steady movement of my hands securing the equipment.
"My men are at the stables with the horses saddled in the courtyard", I said, throwing the weight of the dark wool cloak over my shoulders. "I'm leaving for the south."
The old maester set his bony hands on the wooden arms of the chair and rose slowly. His knees cracked with the effort of his age. He took a short step, dragging his boot across the plank floor, and stopped in front of me. The firelight reflected in the silver frames. Aemon studied the cut of my jaw, the scar, and the dark scabbard of the Valyrian blade at my hip with a focus that had previously been impossible for him.
"I have spent most of my life advising men to forget the families, the crowns, and the kingdoms they left behind", Aemon said. His breath wheezed faint in the wrinkled throat. "You are the first I advise to go back to them."
"Keep the lenses clean with the silk cloth", I said, lifting the wooden case and tucking it under my arm. "And avoid straining to read when the fire is dying. The glass demands light or it exhausts the eye muscles."
Aemon extended his right hand. The fingers were long, bent by decades, marked with age spots.
I took his hand. The rough skin felt like thin paper stretched over dry bones. The grip lacked physical strength but held the rigid firmness of someone who knew exactly what they were holding.
"The ice of the Wall preserves", the maester murmured, releasing my fingers and drawing his arm back toward his body. "May the Old Gods preserve you, Arthur Snow."
I nodded once. I turned on my heels and went out through the heavy oak door. Glancing over my shoulder before pulling the latch shut, I saw the maester standing in the center of the room, following my steps in complete silence with his own sight.
The wooden winch descended creaking to the ice base. The iron cage struck the hard ground with a dull thud, lifting a cloud of fine snow. I unlatched the grate and walked into the courtyard.
Kevin, Perseu, Belzakar, and Morghaz were waiting near the stables with the horses already saddled. The animals' breath formed thick clouds in the morning air. I adjusted the buckles of Sleipnir's saddle and secured the saddlebag.
"What do we do now?", Kevin asked, settling the weirwood bow on his shoulder and knocking his boots together to clear the snow.
I pulled the reins and mounted.
"One thing left", I answered, turning the horse south.
We left Castle Black under the grey sky. After a few hours of riding through the broken terrain of the Gift, the line of pines opened into an isolated clearing. At its exact center stood a massive weirwood. The bark was white as old bone and the blood-red leaves shone against the frost.
Leaf and Ash were crouched at the base of the tree. An obsidian dagger scraped against the white wood, carving the deep lines of a smooth face. Red shavings fell into the snow.
"Leaf. Ash", I said, dismounting from Sleipnir.
The Child of the Forest stopped the movement of her arm and turned her small face in my direction.
"Oh, you took your time", Leaf said, dusting the white powder from her hands. "We are already on the last one."
Ash murmured a series of rough syllables in the True Tongue, the sound imitating the crack of dry branches. The structure of the sentence translated in my mind. I let out a low laugh, matched by Leaf's sharp smile.
Kevin, Perseu, Belzakar, and Morghaz exchanged heavy looks, eyebrows drawn together, shifting their weight from one leg to the other in complete silence.
"You are right", Leaf agreed with Ash, turning her yellowed eyes back to me. "That Dreadfort is a grim place. The air there smells of old blood and rotting stone. It drains the life from anyone who steps near it."
"Was she seen by anyone?", I asked, pulling my heavy leather gloves and tucking them into my belt.
"You underestimate me?", Leaf answered sharply, her jaw tightening and the markings on her skin darkening.
"Never", I said.
"I have already carved all the anchoring runes into the other trees. The circuit is ready", Leaf gestured with the dark blade toward the wide trunk. "If you want to engrave the matrix into this last weirwood, to say you did something, the space is yours."
"Right", I agreed.
I walked to the back of the white trunk, on the face opposite the carved features. I drew the Valyrian steel dagger and sank the edge into the pale bark. Red sap ran slowly down the shallow cuts as I traced the complex network of angles and straight filtering lines.
The work demanded tendon strength and exact repetition. The wind cut through the clearing dozens of times before I finally stepped back and lowered the blade.
"Done", I said, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.
"Finally. Come", Leaf called, sheathing the obsidian.
I walked around the wide trunk. The face carved into the white wood stared at the clearing with deep eyes and a mouth open in a silent cry. The proportions aligned perfectly with the old gods.
"Was something supposed to happen?", Kevin asked, leaning against the flank of his horse.
"Technically yes", I answered, walking back to stand before the wooden face. "It needs ignition."
I stopped a handspan from the bark. I closed my left hand around the sharp edge of my own dagger and pulled. The cut opened across the palm. Dark blood rose immediately. I pressed my bleeding hand against the white cheek of the weirwood, spreading the red across the smooth texture.
The words of the True Tongue rose through my throat and filled the clearing air with raw clicks and whistles.
The sound of the wind disappeared. The breeze froze in the leaves. The clouded sky above vanished, replaced by an absolute opalescent white. My eyes rolled back.
A heavy, collective hum took the clearing. Dozens of birds broke from the canopy of the surrounding trees. Ravens, falcons, owls, and birds of prey formed a frantic whirl around the weirwood's branches, beating wings in a noisy chaos. My consciousness was not there to watch the storm of feathers. The mind sank through the network beneath the frozen earth, feeling the pulse of the sap expand and connect from coast to coast of the North, running along the lines of force.
The torpor lasted an uncountable number of minutes. When my vision focused again, the clearing was empty of birds and submerged in silence.
The thick, reddish sap bubbled and ran from the carved eyelids and the hollow of the weirwood's mouth, staining the white trunk all the way down to the snow-covered ground.
"The weirwoods are connected", I said, heavy breath coming out in hot jets of steam.
Leaf moved to the trunk. She extended her hand and pressed her three fingers into the pool of sap running down the wood.
"You did it", the Child of the Forest said. She turned and pressed her red-stained palm onto my shoulder.
"We did it", I replied, squeezing the wound in my palm to stop the bleeding.
The silence stretched heavy between the trees.
"Do you need anything more from us right now?", Leaf asked, stepping back and blending into the shadows of the foliage.
"No", I shook my head. "I know you have something you want to do. Go. If I need anything, I will know how to call."
"Right", she nodded. "Take care."
"You two as well."
The silhouettes of Leaf and Ash turned their backs and simply disappeared between the trunks as quickly as the blink of an eye, without a single dry branch breaking under their small feet.
I turned and faced the other four. They stood still near their mounts, watching the thick drops of sap stain the snow.
"Now we are ready", I said, walking to Sleipnir to take a strip of linen and bind the cut hand. "We have a hunt to begin."