THEON
He lay chilled and feverish in a corner of the holdfast tower, a heap of ragged straw his only bed and an old dirty blanket his only cover. It was so good, it was so fine, he wanted to clutch the ground to him and disappear into it sooner than be taken from it again, hung up in chains on the wall. He barely dared to believe that Reek had earned something so wonderful, but then he would remember. Theon, my name is Theon. It rhymes with nothing but it is mine own.
Theon was still unsure why he had not burned. He had been meant to, he knew, offered as a sacrifice on a flaming pyre before Stannis and his unruly northern clansmen marched out to give battle to the advancing Bolton horde. Lord Ramsay is leading them. He wants his pet. He wants his Reek. And then he would curl up tight and shiver under the blanket, like a child hoping the monsters under the bed would go away, if he only shut his eyes and wished upon a star. Has Lord Ramsay discovered by now that the king he captured was a fake? Does he think his war is won, or does he know it only begun? The thought of what Ramsay would do when he realized this was enough to make Theon shrivel in his skin. What I still have of it.
The last thing Theon remembered with any certainty was Stannis' men clomping into the room with broad, evil grins on their faces, telling him that the scouts had reported a vanguard of Freys not three leagues distant. Therefore, the honor of his presence at his very own auto-da-fé was now required. "We've a bet, Turncloak," Ser Clayton Suggs said, as he unlocked the cuffs around Theon's wrists, causing him to fall several feet straight down to the floor. "Whether you start screaming to your wet little squid god when the fire kisses your toes, or if you'll hold all the way out until it gets its whore's mouth around your cock and balls." He hauled Theon upright and gave him a hard slap. "Just be the coward you are, and squeal. I could use the five golden dragons."
Bizarrely, Theon's first reaction had been abject relief. Ser Clayton doesn't know, they didn't take off my clothes, they didn't see. He was so grateful that he mustered no protest as they half carried, half dragged him down the tower steps and out into the icy wold. Hairy northmen in skins barreled past on all sides, spoiling for a fight. Through the fog, Theon could faintly glimpse Stannis' banner, the crimson heart on a sheet of gold. Flying it openly? Foolish, foolish, foolish.
He looked from side to side as Ser Clayton and a few henchmen shoved him toward the pyre. King Stannis himself stood beside it; he was wearing a heavy hooded cloak, but that tall stature, those dark blue wounds of eyes, and that furiously grinding jaw could belong to no one else. At least he had not been quite so mad as to display Lightbringer, which was also supposedly in Lord Ramsay's custody. Theon supposed they had done something similar to the illusion they had worked on Arnolf Karstark.
He did not see his sister, or Qarl the Maid or Tristifer Botley or any of her other men. I was a fool to place any hope in Asha. To be sure, she had tried to talk Stannis out of burning him alive, but only to suggest chopping off his head in its place. The clansmen hissed and jeered at him as he stumbled through their ranks. "Vengeance!" they shouted. "Vengeance for Bran and Rickon! Vengeance for the Young Wolf! Vengeance for the Starks! Vengeance! Vengeance! Vengeance!"
There is no way out of this. Theon was, again, perversely relieved. After being flayed inch by inch in the bowels of the Dreadfort, let the fire flay him all at once, make an end of it. He smiled as they lashed him to the bundles of kindling on the pyre.
"Lord of Light," one of the knights began, standing before it with a flaming torch. "Look down on us in your favor, and accept this sacrifice to your fiery heart. Give us strength to defeat your enemies, and lead us through the night of the Great Other, to the dawn which has no end. And so, purify us in the flames, give us justice for the ones this traitor has killed, and in all things, know that you are master of us and our – "
At that moment, a horn called in the woods. Once, and then again. A northern horn.
The knight stopped his prayer abruptly. He looked wildly to his king for instruction, and Stannis's head snapped up like a hound on point. He knew what that meant, the same as every other man. Then three horns winded at once, very nearby in the fog, and the northmen abandoned every pretense of loitering about for a ceremony dedicated to a god they did not believe in. They unlimbered their stone axes and greatswords and claymores, thrust their arms through the straps on their targes, and seized more knives and dirks in their free hands. And then before one could say "R'hllor" they were charging away, and there was nothing for Stannis to do but give his men the signal to join them.
Theon swayed. He's there, he's out there, it was a northern horn, not the Freys, the Boltons, Boltons, Boltons. Mad panic seized him. He turned his head and started to gnaw his bonds with his broken teeth, but the pain was excruciating and he could tear off no more than a few hempen threads. I will burn myself sooner than let Ramsay have me back. He strained and struggled, but could not quite reach the torch; the knight had dropped it when he ran. It was guttering in the falling snow, but still burning. He reached out with his mutilated foot, felt the heat sear through the filthy rags wrapped around it. He sobbed, and his courage almost deserted him. Fire is a horrible death – but Ramsay Bolton was worse.
And then he saw shapes, three shapes, appearing out of the fog at a run. They struggled through the snowdrifts, sprinted flat-out across the clearing, and reached him. One of them pulled out a knife and sawed through the ropes, and Theon fell headlong. He lay there, tasting mud and shit. Memories crawled through the scarred darkness of his mind. Yes, Lord Ramsay, of course I'll eat it. I'm sorry they didn't laugh enough. Your Reek wants them to laugh. . . no, don't whip me, I'll eat it and be funny, I swear I swear I swear. . .
Hands were under his armpits, pulling him to his feet. Not Ser Clayton. He looked up under the hood, and didn't believe it. "Qarl?" he rasped.
"No time. You have to get out of here before they find out they've been tricked." Qarl the Maid hefted him by the shoulders, and another figure – Tris Botley – lifted his feet. Slinging him between them like a sack of meal, they hustled him to a thoroughly disreputable-looking horse that a third cloaked shadow was holding nearby. Asha. It can't be.
But it was. His sister swung into the saddle, and reached down to grab him by the waist, hauling him up in front of her. "Qarl," she said. "Tris. Come with us."
"There's only the one horse, m'lady," Qarl answered softly. "And we both love you too well to think of going in your place. For your lady mother's sake. Run."
"Follow me, at least." Theon had never heard Asha sound like that. "On foot, or on mule. . . whatever you can, just don't stay here. Promise me you'll follow."
"We'll follow." Tristifer Botley did not sound at all like the mooning boy he customarily was around Asha Greyjoy. "We swear it."
"Now." Qarl slapped the horse's rump, and it whinnied and reeled away. The last Theon saw of him and Botley was their silhouettes vanishing in the fog. They are going to die. He had no idea what had just happened. Did Asha arrange that? Was it her and Qarl and Tris who blew the horns, fooled the northmen into thinking the attack was already come. . . when Stannis finds out that he's been deceived and his prize has escaped, he'll be furious. . . when Ramsay finds out that he's been deceived and his prize has escaped, he'll be worse. . .
He lost track of how long they rode. It all blurred into agony. The ironborn were no saddle-bred knights, preferring to stride the deck of a ship rather than straddle a horse, but Theon had learned to ride passably well during his years with the Starks. He thought of racing Robb across the highland meadows, then of going out wenching and drinking with Benfred Tallhart, and had to abandon both. They hurt too much.
The horse floundered and plunged through the frozen underbrush, and they ducked under low-hanging branches laden with snow. We must be leaving a trail a blind man could follow. Asha's breath was hot on his neck, and he tangled his maimed hands in the horse's mane. Gods, don't let me fall. He wondered if Stannis would hunt them down, or not waste his waning strength on a pursuit of two escaped prisoners when so many real enemies awaited. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
It was near dusk when they finally stumbled across the abandoned holdfast, tottering in the shadow of a bare, upthrust spur of rock. Asha reined in, snow spraying from beneath the horse's hooves, and dismounted, glancing nervously to all sides, but nothing moved in the darkening woods save for their shadows. Then she held out her arms and permitted Theon to fall into them, which he did.
Asha sat him on a boulder, then found a sturdy branch and banged on the rotted wood of the holdfast door until she broke the latch loose. Inside, it was dark as an Umber's armpit and smelled near as bad, icicles sheeting through the cracks in the sagging roof and unmortared stone walls. Frozen cobwebs hung like veils of lace, and broke with a tinkle when Asha knocked into one. But it was warmer than the air outside, if barely, and a wooden ladder that was still mostly intact climbed to a loft above. Ghosts. I am the ghost in Winterfell. But no longer. He would never see Winterfell again.
Asha led the horse into the lower room, shut the remnants of the door and barred it with some of the fallen masonry, then boosted Theon up the ladder and crawled in after him. The floor in the loft was made of stone and strongly fixed, and they discovered the pile of straw and the moth-eaten blankets in the corner. Asha had made him his bed there, his bed on sweet flat ground. She used a flint to light a smoky, struggling fire, and huddled close to it, a formless wraith in the darkness. They could hear the snow still coming down outside, scratching on the shutters.
Theon had now been lying there for most of the night, sometimes dozing but always waking; every time he slipped into sleep, he saw Ramsay's face, with his long dry hair and his smirking plump lips and pale soulless eyes. Finally, he pushed himself up on an elbow. "Asha?" he whispered.
Her shadowed head turned slowly in his direction, as if she'd almost forgotten he was there. "Aye?"
"Where is. . ." Theon paused. "Where is Arya? Lady Arya. I saved her. Where is she?" Jeyne, her name is Jeyne. Jeyne Poole, she was Sansa's friend. Her eyes are brown, not grey.
"Ser Justin took her to the Wall," Asha said at last. "The northmen were against it. They thought one of them should be granted the honor of keeping her safe, send her to one of their castles. But Stannis was adamant."
Yes, he said he would send her to Castle Black. Theon remembered now. Jon Snow will know she's a fake, he'll know. If anyone found out that the girl wasn't Arya Stark, they would lose their interest in her well-being. There was no time for altruism in the grips of a northern winter, or in a clash of kings.
He rolled over, staring at the ceiling. He had questions, he had so many many questions, but he couldn't start to think of how to ask them. He was so hungry he almost couldn't stand it, but the actual thought of food turned his stomach. "Where are we going?"
Again, Asha did not answer immediately. Then she said, "There's no safe haven in the north for any ironborn right now, and I wouldn't call the south any better. We can't go back to Pyke, so long as Euron sits the Seastone Chair. So we make for Harlaw. Our nuncle Rodrik will protect us, if we can get there with no word whispered of our arrival."
"What. . . Rodrik? Rodrik the Reader?" Theon had hoped for something a bit more tactically sound than this. He couldn't even imagine what it would be like to return to the Iron Islands, and wasn't sure he wanted to. They'd be shocked and repulsed and scornful, they'd account it a mercy to slip a knife between his ribs and end his miserable jape of an existence. It was only the soft and foolish greenlanders who let such weaklings live.
Asha blew out a breath. "I know it's not much," she admitted. "But short of setting sail for Valyria, it's the only place I could think of. And our lady mother will be there." Her voice briefly caught, but she tried to disguise it as a cough.
Mother. Theon couldn't remember what she looked like, and for a brief, panic-inducing instant, he couldn't remember her name either. "Mother," he repeated, like a talking raven.
"I'm not doing this for your sake," Asha said quietly. "Not all of it, at any rate. You were vain and stubborn and stupid, and you dug your own grave thrice over. But you've paid for it a hundred times, and you are my brother. I will bring you home for Mother to look on one more time before she dies. I swear it."
She swore it. A chill ran down Theon's back. And after that, I might as well die too. And her, and Mother. We can all die together. He took a short, shallow breath, and began to sob.
Asha looked at him with an expression somewhere between startlement and disquiet. She seemed to be hoping that he would stop on his own accord. But when he didn't, when his skeletal shoulders racked with shaking and he clutched his clumsy hands with their missing fingers to his face, she crawled across the floor and pulled him into her arms.
Theon buried his head in her chest, tasting snot and salt on his tongue. He cried as if he couldn't stop, while she awkwardly rocked him. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, Lord Ramsay, your Reek isn't crying, your Reek is happy, so happy. . . no, please, please don't, please. . . no, anything but that, take my finger, take my hand, no, no, Lord Ramsay, don't, I'm a man, I'm your man, no, my lord, my. . . no. . . NO. . . NO!
After an eternity, his tears were finally spent. He hiccupped, gasped, and fell silent, eyes glued shut and throat as dry as sand. Mayhaps the snow will wipe our tracks away. But how then could they hope to run? How could they make it to the coast with the drifts rising higher every day, without succumbing to the cold, the fear, the hunger, the wolves, or any of their uncle Euron's monsters? She's right. I should never have tried to take Winterfell, should have gone to the Red Wedding, should have died with Robb. But at that moment, Theon Greyjoy was beyond all caring. He only wanted to lie in Asha's arms and listen to her hum. It was some nonsense song for children, about wings on a fish and toes on a cow. He liked hearing it. He felt happy here in this broken-down tower in the snow. They had all the straw they needed, all the blankets. They could just stay here and she could sing to him.
Some time went by. Theon didn't know how much. Asha didn't let him go, just sat silent with her chin resting on his head. Then at last, grey light began to seep through the broken shutters, throwing thin shadows on the floor.
Asha roused herself and stood up. "I'll be back in a moment," she said. "I need to see how much snow there is."
Theon peaceably acquiesced, and watched as she swung the ladder through the hole and disappeared down it. He listened to her jump the last few rungs to the bottom, move around and give the horse a few pats, then move the stones away from the door, swearing in a conversational tone as she did so. He felt the sudden blast of cold air. . . and then, utter silence.
"Asha?" he called nervously. What if she'd gone away after all, what if something in the snow had gotten her? What if Ramsay had been waiting outside all night?
Still silence, for a further few heartbeats. Then his sister's quick, sharp strides crossed the floor, and she pulled herself up and over with one angry thrust. "Fucking hellfire," she said. "There are men outside."
"Men?" A cold grue swept Theon from head to heel. "How many? Where?"
"Fifty at least, a hundred at most. Just distant, on the other side of the outcropping. I heard them talking, but I didn't understand any of it. I don't know who they are, but I don't think they're Boltons, Freys, or Baratheons."
"What do we do?" Theon shivered.
"We have to stay here." Asha was already pulling the ladder back up, muscles straining in her wiry strong arms. Ten fingers, ten toes. "There's at least two feet of new snow, trying to blunder away would only alert them to the fact that we're here. Stay down. Stay quiet."
Theon did not need to be told twice. Trembling, he covered himself in his blanket and lay there listening to his heart pounding in his ears. Once or twice he peeked out, and saw Asha sitting on her knees by the window, tense and motionless. He had just started to wonder if he should join her when his sister said, "Oh, bugger. They're coming this way."
No. No! It wasn't fair, he just wanted them to leave him alone. But then Asha scooted backwards as fast as she could and threw herself flat. And then he heard the door below rattle, once and then again. A deep, booming voice called, "Who's a-hidin' in there, now? Come on out! Har!"
Go away, Theon prayed fervently. Go away go away go away.
The speaker and his companions didn't. Instead, there was a rending crash as whatever remained of the door was broken anew, and footsteps echoed heavily in the lower room. The horse gave a startled whinny at the entrance of intruders, and a different voice said, "That's the worst-looking horse I ever did see in my born days. I'd barely bother stealing me a horse like that, not even if some knightly knight pranced up to me and begged I take it off his hands."
"You're not far wrong, Soren," said the deeper voice with a snort. "Makes me feel happy that with me member the size it is, I can't ride a horse besides."
"Ah, Giantsbabe, you great sack of shite. Best make sure first you'd have the chance." The second man raised his voice. "You'd best come out wherever you're lurking, kneelers. This is Soren Shieldbreaker and Harle the Huntsman, the Wanderer and the Great Walrus. Oh, and Tormund Thunderfist, but he don't count."
Wildlings, Theon thought. His experience with the free folk had been thankfully limited, but anyone who had spent any amount of time in the north knew the tales. But what are wildlings doing so far south of the Wall?
Still, at least it wasn't the Bastard's boys. Theon didn't want to be shot, didn't want them to come up here and kill him and Asha both, and some courage he didn't remember having in a god's age moved him. He threw off the blanket and crawled toward the loft hole. "We're up here," he called. "Please don't hurt us."
The wildlings jumped, jerked, and – upon catching sight of him – swore nearly in unison. "What in the hundred howling hounds of hell is that?"
"Thought it was a ghost."
"Bloody for sure looks like one." The second man, the one who had called himself Soren Shieldbreaker, beckoned to Theon sharply. "You, thing. Get down here so we can take ourselves a proper look at you. Slowly, and nothing funny."
Theon obediently clambered down the ladder. He made no attempt to come any closer, and pretended not to notice the glances of horrified fascination they were all giving him. At last Soren said, "What's your name, kneeler?"
"Theon. Theon Greyjoy." He liked that question. It always made him feel better, more secure.
"Greyjoy. . ." The wildlings exchanged frowns; the name was only a sound to them. Then the big white-bearded one said, "Har, isn't that the one took Winterfell in the first place? The one Lord Snow said killed his brothers?"
A stab of panic went through Theon like a blade. "No," he begged. "No, I didn't, I never did, I didn't kill Bran and Rickon. The heads. . . they weren't theirs, only the miller's boys, I never wanted. . ."
"Then you still killed you some miller's boys, kneeler," Soren Shieldbreaker remarked. "There's that."
"What?" a voice said from the loft. Before Theon could tell her not to, Asha vaulted down with a thump, and the wildlings, recognizing that she posed much more of a potential threat, immediately reached for their weapons. But she held out her hands, showing that she had none, and they grudgingly stood down. Besides, all her attention was on Theon. "What did you just say?"
"I. . ." He struggled to speak it again. "I. . . didn't kill Bran and Rickon. I never."
Asha just stared at him for a never-ending moment. Then finally she said, "Gods," and turned away with a jerk. "For all you've suffered for it. . . you didn't?"
"No. I didn't. I don't know where they are."
The wildlings exchanged more astonished looks. "Mad as a Thenn, this one," Tormund Thunderfist said at last. "And I'm sure knowin' that will be a great comfort to Lord Snow in his cold grave. But if you were the one that did it. . . I think we have ourselves a prize, lads."
"No. . ." Not again. Anything but that. Not that. "I'm not a prize. I'm just Theon. I. . . I was Reek, but I'm not anymore. Please. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Hold with your blathering, boy," Tormund said, not unkindly. "We came south to fight on Lord Snow's behalf, since he's no longer about to be doing it himself. Free Winterfell and Mance Rayder, though no sooner we'll do that then he'll start kinging it over the lot of us again." He flashed a gap-toothed grin. "So that's what you'll be helping with."
"What?" Theon wanted to weep for the loss of his home here, the tower in the snow where Asha had sung to him. "What do you want me to do?"
"Well, I'd not say it's a matter of wanting, seeing as you're coming with us no matter what you think." Tormund scratched his beard. "Back to Winterfell. Telling us what we'll need to know. To blood and bugger wi' King Stannis and his sort. That's not what we're here for. I'll tell you what is." The wildling reached out and put one massive paw on Theon's shoulder. "Victory. Freedom. Vengeance."