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A young woman riding a horse with a baby in her arms was brought before them. She looked about the same age as Lyanna—round doll face, messy black hair.
"You're Craster's… daughter?" Mance asked in a low voice. "I'm Mance. Tell me what happened back there."
The girl stayed calm. The infant in her arms didn't cry either; it just squirmed, pink mouth working.
"The crows were hungry. They got tired of black bread and started demanding sausage and ham. When Craster said no, they killed him. The Lord Commander tried to have them executed, so they turned on him too and killed him."
She laid out everything she knew in a few short sentences.
"How many?" Mance asked.
"Forty or fifty. A lot of them were wounded, and a few died. The ones who didn't join the mutiny ran off—they were scared the mutineers would kill them too, to cover it up."
While she spoke, three black brothers were dumped in the snow in front of Mance's horse. They had been dragged all night and looked half-dead.
"We… surrender," one of them rasped—the one missing half his left arm—as he struggled to sit up. "We killed the Old Bear. We meant to join you. We planned it before the wights even hit us. There were fourteen of us. We were going to bring you Mormont's head as a gift for the King-Beyond-the-Wall."
Mance stared down at him coldly.
"The gods will curse you. Murdering your host under his own roof is an abomination. Why the hell would I shelter godless oathbreakers who spit on guest right?"
"Craster started it!" the one-armed man protested. "He grabbed an axe and tried to kill Karl and Garth!"
"You called him a bastard first!" the girl snapped in her thin, sharp voice.
Craster had been a monster, but he had still fed her and kept her safe. That kind of loyalty didn't vanish overnight—especially not when she was facing enemies.
Qhorin's arrival ended the argument. The moment the three mutineers saw him, they froze, tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths.
"Ollo the Half-Hand. Shortear. Garth of Greenaway," Qhorin said quietly, naming each one. "I heard you confess with your own mouths—conspiracy and the murder of the Lord Commander."
Ollo and Garth went white as corpses. Only Shortear still tried to bargain.
"You ride with wildlings—you're a traitor too! You've got no right to judge us!"
Qhorin's voice stayed flat. "True. I am a traitor. But Jon Snow is not."
He looked at Jon.
The three mutineers hadn't recognized him at first—he was dressed like a wildling.
"Take their heads, Jon Snow. Avenge Lord Commander Mormont and the brothers who died."
Lynn tossed Longclaw at Jon's feet. For the first time in hours, hatred flashed in Jon's eyes.
He drew the Valyrian steel sword with hands still bound in bronze manacles, stepped behind the nearest man—Garth—and said quietly, "Kneel straight. Head down. I'll make it quick."
Shortear suddenly lunged up and bolted toward the trees, hands still tied behind his back. He ran surprisingly fast.
He never saw the giant sitting beside its mammoth.
The giant's shaggy fur blended perfectly with the beast. One casual swing of a massive fist sent Shortear flying like a broken kite. He hit the snow, slid forty yards, and lay twitching. Blood poured from his nose and mouth. Then he was still.
The other two stopped struggling. Jon spoke a short prayer in the name of the old gods, then took their heads with two clean strokes.
When it was done he wiped the blade, sheathed it, and handed Longclaw back to Lynn without a word, still playing the prisoner.
Lynn didn't care about the details. He looked at the girl still sitting on the horse.
"You're Gilly, right? Go warm up in the tent and tell us everything you know about the pale cold gods."
"No," Gilly said. "I'm waiting for Sam."
"Who's Sam?" Lynn asked.
"He's the crow who tends the ravens. A knight-crow, sort of. I had a son. My mother said his cold-god brothers would come for him. She told Sam to take me away."
Gilly hugged the baby tighter.
"Sam's too fat. His horse couldn't run fast, so he fell behind."
The moment Jon heard Sam was still alive he wanted a horse to go look for him. Mance agreed—on Qhorin's word.
Gilly refused to leave the cold until Sam arrived, so she told them what little she knew about the cold gods while she waited. Most of it came from her mother and Craster's other wives.
Craster would take any newborn son into the woods the same night he was born. Blue-eyed white cold gods would come and carry the baby away.
Once, one of the wives couldn't bear it and followed. She saw the cold god who took her son wearing a green stone pendant—the exact one she had tied around the baby's neck five years earlier.
So the wives believed the Others were their own grown sons. That made them "brothers" to the new infant in Gilly's arms.
The story had a certain horrible logic, but it didn't help them fight the Others.
Lynn traded a look with Mance and Qhorin. None of them knew what to say.
Night was falling. Mance ordered the clansmen to cut extra firewood and keep the bonfires blazing to keep the wights away. He was worried the Others might still want Gilly's baby.
Lynn took Weeping Blood and went around helping light the fires. It saved the wildlings the hassle of striking flint in the wind and reminded them again how useful the dragon was.
A lot of them still hadn't seen the little dragon breathe real fire and half-suspected it was just some weird-looking beast. Hatchling dragons didn't exactly inspire terror. Most people feared them because of the old stories. Anyone who had never heard the legends might have mistaken Weeping Blood for a giant bat.
Still, the dragon was growing fast. In less than two months he had gone from lamb-sized to the size of a full-grown hunting hound. The brutal cold probably forced him to burn more energy, the same way wild animals pack on fat before winter.
By full dark Jon finally returned with a bedraggled Samwell Tarly.
The fat crow's horse had died under him somewhere in the haunted forest. Sam had nearly gotten lost himself.
But the bloody mutiny had toughened him up a little—at least he didn't piss himself in front of the King-Beyond-the-Wall.