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Game of Thrones: Archer's Ordinary Life
Game of Thrones: Dragon Knight of Harrenhal
Game of Thrones: Archer's Ordinary Life
Game of Thrones: BLOODTHIRSTY BASTARD
Game of Thrones: House of Black Dragon
"Faster! Faster!" the lead rider screamed without looking back. The frantic thunder of hooves hammered the barren plain, announcing that the rest of the bandits were right behind him.
Bran was lashed to the saddle with rough ropes, a foul-smelling rag stuffed in his mouth. All he could do was pray silently to his father's and mother's gods.
What could a cripple possibly do?
Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik Cassel had both promised him everything would be all right.
He and Rickon would be escorted south by the most loyal men and delivered safely to White Harbor. Lord Manderly would protect them… but now every promise had turned to ash.
"No one's chasing us! Hear that, Alyn?" a bandit shouted from behind. "We can stop and catch our breath!"
"You want to rest? Go rest in hell!" the bandit leader carrying Bran snarled. "When the direwolves and Manderly's men catch up, you'll have all the time in the world to breathe!"
"There's no one behind us! We lost them hours ago!"
"Stop! The horses can't take any more!"
"Keep running like this and the beasts will drop dead under us!"
Alyn spurred his horse forward for a few more frantic minutes before finally giving in to his men's pleas.
At his command the entire band skidded to a halt. Bran finally lifted his head and looked around.
They were in the middle of a desolate plain. Nothing but sparse, yellowed grass stretched in every direction—the same view you could find anywhere in the North. He had no idea where they were taking him.
"All right, you whining bitches," the leader growled as he swung down from his saddle. He didn't even bother untying Bran. "We rest here for a bit. We've still got hours of hard riding ahead, so get your asses moving when I say."
"Go fuck yourself," one of the bandits muttered wearily. "You're carrying one cripple and it's easy for you. My horse is about to snap the reins."
Bran's heart sank like a stone.
Meera was in their hands too?
What about Rickon?
What about Jojen?
He twisted his neck desperately but couldn't see any sign of his companions.
"While we're stopped, tie that swamp girl tighter," Alyn ordered coldly. "If we lose the prize I'll skin you myself."
Amid the tired whinnying of the horses, a hesitant voice spoke up. "You might be dreaming of a reward and a castle, but let's be honest—we botched this job. Instead of giving orders here, you should be thinking about what you're going to tell the boss."
"What's your problem now, Rotten Mouth?" Alyn snapped.
"The lord told us to bring both little wolves. You've only got one. We only did half the job and you're still strutting around like an Umber savage who just raped a farmer's daughter." The mocking voice came out of the darkness. "You stand there threatening to skin people—watch out you don't end up nailed to a cross yourself."
"All you ever do is run your mouth," Alyn's laugh was hollow, but he still tried to sound confident. "You're right—the little one got away. But to that fat lord he's just dead weight. Once we deliver the real Stark heir, what good is the small one? If he tries to seat a child as lord, his own people will abandon him! That's usurpation! All we have to do is bring this cripple and the two monsters from the swamp to the lord and we'll be rich. Everyone hear that? We might even get a proper bath at the end of this."
"I hope your words reach the lord's ears," the other man snorted and stopped arguing.
Whether they believed the leader's lies or were simply too exhausted to fight, the bandits fell silent.
Robb's death had made Bran weep until his throat was raw.
It had been agony over his own uselessness, helpless rage at fate, and a stabbing grief for his brother's loss.
All of Winterfell had mourned. But the new heir to the North couldn't even stand on his own two feet.
Everything around him reminded him of his dead father, his fallen brother, and the gods' cruelty toward House Stark.
He had never imagined that was only the beginning of the suffering.
The raven that brought word of Robb's death and the destruction of the northern army also carried worse news.
His mother had written to every loyal servant warning that Roose Bolton was marching on Winterfell. He meant to kill the young lord and set Rickon up as a puppet while he took the regency for himself.
At first Bran thought it was just another of Tywin Lannister's tricks meant to sow chaos in the North.
But soon people began disappearing outside the walls of Winterfell. Ser Rodrik's men searched everywhere and found no trace.
His mother decided at once that they must flee to White Harbor, but the plan had to be delayed when Rickon suddenly came down with a raging fever and took to his bed. A long journey across the North could easily kill the boy.
Bran had refused to leave without his little brother.
Then came more news: Last Hearth, Karhold, and the Dreadfort had all begun quietly gathering men. The shadow of war hung over the entire North.
The gods' malice did not stop there.
Another flock of ravens arrived at Winterfell carrying word of the ironborn invasion.
Wells Town, the Stony Shore, and Sea Dragon Point all reported longships raiding, burning, and killing without mercy.
A rider on a dying horse galloped into the castle with word that Deepwood Motte had fallen to the ironborn. The entire Glover family had been taken. The enemy was strengthening the walls day and night.
Maester Luwin declared this was no mere raid. The ironborn meant to hold the northern coast permanently.
Bear Island had gone silent. The Barrowlands sent no word. And the first traitors finally bared their fangs.
Four days ago, the armies of Bolton, Karstark, and the Umbers—led by Ramsay Snow—had appeared outside Winterfell's gates.
The bastard had declared publicly that his father was the rightful regent for Lord Brandon and ordered Ser Rodrik Cassel to open the gates so the young lord could be placed under "loyal protection."
When the gates stayed shut, only the presence of the other lords had stopped the bastard from ordering an immediate assault.
After all, a proper regent could not begin his rule by slaughtering northerners.
But Winterfell could not be held.
Ser Rodrik had scraped together barely five hundred men. Bolton's host numbered in the thousands.
The castle would fall. It was only a matter of time.
Rickon's fever finally broke, but House Stark could no longer stay in Winterfell.
Flight was the only option.
The castellan and the maester had devised a careful plan. Using the secret tunnels left by the ancient Kings of Winter, they would slip past Bolton's army and reach the castle of House Cerwyn.
There the loyal Cley Cerwyn could give them fresh horses. After that they might still reach White Harbor.
Two days ago Bran, Rickon, the Reed siblings, the direwolves, and twenty of Ser Rodrik's finest men had set out on the road to freedom.
The tunnels had let them avoid the enemy's eyes, but Bolton's men had still found their trail.
There were only a dozen of them, but they struck under cover of darkness.
They did not kill all the guards. They simply seized their prize and rode hard, leaving their comrades to be torn apart by direwolves and cut down by Rickon's men.
The bandit leader named Alyn had claimed the reward he wanted: Bran Stark himself, heir to the North.
"Stop wasting time!" Alyn swung back into the saddle and barked orders. "There might be men at Cerwyn's castle, and we've got two vicious direwolves on our tail. You all saw how they tore our people apart. I don't want to meet them again. What's waiting for us ahead is the lord's gold—more gold than you can count!"
"Aren't we supposed to hand him over to Ramsay?" one bandit asked, confused.
"Give him to that twisted bastard? Who hasn't heard the stories of what he does to people? I've seen it! Better to serve the real lord!" Alyn drove his spurs hard. The horse screamed and bolted. "Move!"
The mad ride began again. The endless northern wild stretched on forever beneath a light dusting of snow. The ropes cut into Bran until his whole body throbbed and his head felt ready to split.
Then Alyn suddenly slowed. In front of them stood the first lone tree Bran had seen in hours.
"Where the hell are you going?" the bandits behind him cried out in fear. "Into the woods? At night? Are you mad?"
"Only by cutting through this forest can we slip past Cerwyn's castle and the watchtowers and save three or four hours!" Alyn shouted with ugly pride. "There are already men inside the castle, but I don't want to hand the prize over to strangers whose loyalties I don't know. I grew up near here. I know every path. Follow me!"
His men had no choice.
The most valuable prize was in Alyn's hands. None of them dared show up empty-handed before Lord Bolton.
Curses flew, but no one broke ranks.
Once inside the forest the horses could only walk. Narrow trails wound between huge, twisted trees whose branches wove together overhead, blotting out the sky. Even a trot was impossible.
The direwolves could appear at any moment. Alyn could not have failed to understand the danger.
One of the bandits rode closer, his voice shaking. "You're not the only one who grew up here, Alyn. You're leading us through the Wolf King's Wood! Walking this path at night—you've lost your mind!"
The Wolf King?
Bran remembered the old nurse's stories at once.
This forest had once been the hunting ground of one of his Stark ancestors—a King of Winter who could turn into a giant wolf and devour every living thing in the woods. The place where he fed was marked by a great fishbeam tree deep in the forest. Every trail eventually led there.
Bran had begged his father and brother countless times to take him to see it, but they had always refused with excuses—"It's just a story" or "We don't have time."
Now he wondered if they had simply been afraid.
But what was the ending of the story?
Bran could not remember.
What good could old legends do him now?
"Rotten Mouth, are you scared?" Alyn mocked, trying to sound light. "Maybe it's time you grew a spine."
"Come talk to me about spines after you've killed a ghost!"
"Let me ask you another way." Alyn's voice turned cold. "Who scares you more—Lord Bolton, his bastard son, or these old stumps? Think about the lord's gold and you won't be scared of anything."
No one answered.
Strangely, even the horses seemed to have gone mute. They moved forward in perfect silence.
The bandits' laughter and cursing vanished as if it had never existed. Not just the men—the entire forest had fallen into a dead hush.
No birds sang. No beasts moved. Even the wolf howls that were constant in northern woods had disappeared completely.
Bran had once thought the sound of wolves closing in on the open plain was the most terrifying thing imaginable.
Now he understood. Far worse than any nightmare was a forest that had died.
In the Wolf King's domain, darkness was everywhere.
Bark and night had become one. You could not tell where one ended and the other began. Starlight and moonlight were completely shut out. Only a biting wind howled through the branches, freezing the soul itself.
The silence was suffocating.
Just as Bran thought the dead quiet would drive him mad, the bandits stepped into a clearing.
In the center of the clearing nothing grew. Only a single enormous fishbeam tree stood there.
Thick and twisted, its branches heavy with leaves, it blotted out the entire sky. It looked ancient enough to have stood since the Dawn Age.
In the darkness Bran could not make out the patterns on its bark, but he felt a thousand eyes watching him from the shadows.
Alyn noticed nothing.
"There's your stump," he said with a harsh, false laugh. "Well, Rotten Mouth? Still afraid of old Stark stories?"
The men forced out weak laughter—loud but hollow, the same nervous sound they had made as boys when their mothers caught them in mischief.
In this sacred place the laughter felt like blasphemy, completely at odds with the fear that had gripped them all the way here.
Bran suddenly realized they had stopped.
For a full minute the entire band stood motionless, every eye fixed on the white fishbeam tree as if they had been nailed in place.
Alyn had been the one who insisted on taking the shortcut. Now he had halted for no reason.
Then the first scream tore through the dead silence.
Bran could see nothing, but he heard everything.
Agonized wails and terrified shrieks exploded in the darkness. He had no idea what was happening.
"Dirty ghost cut his own throat!" Rotten Mouth screamed in panic. "Run! Get out of here!"
"What—" Alyn's words died as if an invisible hand had sealed his mouth.
From behind him came inhuman roars, shrieks, and bestial grunts. The terrible sounds swallowed everything.
Alyn did not run. He did not give orders. He simply froze where he stood.
He swung down from the saddle and dropped Bran onto the riderless horse. The moment he turned toward his men, one of the bandits lunged at him.
The leader never even got his sword clear. One eye was torn out in an instant. Then a blade stabbed into him again and again. Blood sprayed in hot arcs.
Alyn was dead before he hit the ground.
"Die, you dog!" the killer roared like a beast, stabbing the corpse over and over. "I was supposed to be second-in-command! Me!"
His words quickly turned into meaningless howls. He had lost every trace of humanity.
Worse still, the rest of the bandits had also gone mad. They turned on one another with swords and knives.
"Go back to the grave, you wight!"
"Kill him!"
The dull thud of steel meeting flesh, the sharp ring of blades, and desperate screams filled the clearing.
A minute later the last dying wail cut off. Silence returned.
Bran was completely stunned.
Why had Bolton's men started killing each other?
Why had they stopped in this clearing?
Why had the horses stood perfectly still while no one ran or fought back?
A thousand questions exploded in his mind. His head throbbed as if it would split.
Then a pair of gentle but strong hands carefully cut the ropes binding him and lifted his limp body.
"Bran, are you hurt?" Meera's voice asked as she laid him on a warm fur cloak.
"No, Meera," Bran answered weakly. "They… they started killing each other."
"And they're all dead now." The girl from the swamps looked around at the bodies and spoke softly. "Some killed themselves. Some killed each other."
"Who saved us? Where's Jojen?" Bran asked urgently. His greatest fear was for the Reed siblings.
"Jojen's collecting their weapons," Meera said quietly. "He and I were untied before they went mad and started killing each other. Bran—did you hear that?"
A sudden, violent headache struck. An unseen force pulled at Bran, forcing him to slowly lift his head and look at the ancient fishbeam tree.
In the next instant he was flying.
He flew so high and so far that the pain in his limbs, the exhaustion, and the confusion all vanished. Only perfect freedom remained.
He saw Winterfell ringed in lights, the burning northern coast, the sunrise rising in the east, castles, towns, and people—every face sharp and clear.
Flying beside him was the Three-Eyed Raven.
"Did you help us?" Bran asked softly.
"Making killers kill is no great feat," the raven's voice was rough and low. "Child, this is only the beginning of my miracles."
"Beginning? This is already incredible magic!"
"For the ignorant, perhaps," the raven said slowly, its third eye fixed on Bran. "The power I command is far greater… I can kill. I can give life. I can destroy. I can heal."
"It can help my family!" Bran could barely breathe. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind—heal his legs, drive out the ironborn, punish the Boltons, take revenge on the Lannisters, save his mother and sister. "Help the North! Help me!"
"It can. And it will," the raven nodded. "But only if you are ready to learn my arts. My magic."
"I'm ready!" Bran answered without hesitation.
"I can feel your hunger," the raven said with satisfaction. "But you must prove you are worthy of my teaching."
"How?"
"The southern road is already blocked," the raven said calmly. "Your family's friends are far away. Cerwyn's castle has been taken by Bolton's men. If you go there alone you will be captured or killed."
"I can find Rickon! With the knights we can still reach White Harbor!" Bran argued desperately.
"They have already left the main road and hidden in the forest. Your brother is too far from my power. I cannot guide you to him, nor can I lead you south." The raven paused. "But there is another path."
"What path?"
The Three-Eyed Raven did not answer. Instead it spread its wings and flew forward at impossible speed.
Bran's spirit raced after it—over Winterfell, over Last Hearth, over the frozen Wall, and deep into the vast, ancient, untouched forests of the far north.