It was a revolting thing.
Pale, dead-white skin. Pitch-black fingers. Twitching nonstop inside a glass jar.
"What the hell is that!" someone blurted.
"A dead man's hand," Ser Alliser Thorne said, his voice as sharp as his face. "We found two rangers who'd been missing for ages—outside the Wall, stone-cold dead. When we dragged the bodies back, they got up and walked."
"Got up?" a voice repeated, stunned.
"Both of them," Alliser nodded. "Dead men rose. They came out of the storeroom and killed three of our brothers. We chopped their heads off, but one still yanked out Ser Jeremy's dagger and jammed it in his belly. The other tried to murder the Lord Commander. We stopped it in time."
Before he finished, the hand slammed against the inside of the jar and started clawing like mad. Nails scraped glass with a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. Everyone in the hall felt their skin crawl.
Someone in the corner puked. A noblewoman spewed roast peacock and cream soup down her dress and slumped sideways, looking miserable.
A bold knight stepped closer, stared, and pointed. "It's still moving!"
Alliser gave him a cold, sick little smile. "It never stopped. Some evil power dragged it back from death."
"So how do you kill something that's already dead?" the knight asked.
"Fire," Alliser said. "Lord Blackfish burned the one outside. The bastard—"
He muttered, then corrected himself. "Lord Snow burned the other. Set the whole Commander's Tower on fire doing it. His wolf bit the hand off first. The Lord Commander sent me to show you people."
Robb frowned. "That cut looks like it was made with a sword."
"The man's full of shit. If he wasn't wearing black and on official business, I wouldn't have brought him."
Alliser had sailed from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, planning to head straight for King's Landing. Stannis's fleet blocked Blackwater Bay, so he turned back to Gulltown in the Vale, rode out the Bloody Gate, and ran straight into Robb's army. He'd been tagging along ever since.
"Did Lord Commander Mormont send a raven?" Joffrey asked.
"Of course he did!" Alliser snapped. "Maester Aemon sent his best birds before I left."
Joffrey hadn't received any letter.
He knew the wights were coming—he remembered the rough timing—but the exact day had been fuzzy. He turned to the Hand.
"Your Grace, this is a hell of a lot bigger than ironborn pirates," Eddard said, looking genuinely innocent and sad. "Why would I hide it?"
Joffrey looked at Pycelle.
The Grand Maester was already sweating. "Your Grace, I swear no raven reached me! Ravens are strong, but hawks and falcons hunt them. Not every message makes it through."
Joffrey accepted the excuse. In wartime both sides shot ravens on sight. Even in friendly skies, some bored archer probably saw a bird, loosed an arrow, and had dinner. The letter on its leg went straight into the fire.
A warm, soft hand settled on the back of Joffrey's. He turned it over, closed his fingers around it, and felt the steady little pulse underneath.
Every Northerner in the hall knew what it meant.
Wights. White Walkers.
Winter is coming.
Beneath the Wall, on the ice, a thousand years ago, the Night's King—the thirteenth Lord Commander—fell for a woman with skin white as the moon and cold as ice. He brought her to the Nightfort, made her his queen, and ruled thirteen years until the King of the North and the King-Beyond-the-Wall destroyed him.
Old Nan's story called the Night's King Brandon Stark—probably just to scare Bran. Joffrey had heard it in Winterfell. Maester Harmune's book never mentioned his name, only the "Liberator," another Brandon Stark.
Joffrey's own memory of the show version had the Children of the Forest creating him as a weapon against the First Men. That was the showrunners' story, not his. He still didn't know exactly who the Night's King was or what he wanted.
One thing was certain: the thing was his enemy, and humanity's enemy.
He'd sent the Wall a little food and a few criminals before, but it was never enough. He'd always told himself he'd finish unifying the Seven Kingdoms first, then march north with a real army and end it for good.
Now he remembered Davos Seaworth's words.
"Winning the throne to save the realm is backwards. You save the realm, and that wins you the throne."
The threat beyond the Wall touched every single person alive.
"By order of the Small Council," Joffrey stood. "I, Joffrey Baratheon the First, call on every man, woman, and child in Westeros to give the Wall their full support. We stop killing each other right now and face the real enemy together. The Night's Watch has guarded the realm for thousands of years. We will not take their sacrifice for granted any longer."
The hall buzzed. Some faces lit up with real fire. Others whispered, eyeing the hand still twitching in the jar with open suspicion. They figured it was a prop Joffrey had staged for political theater.
At least in the Small Council that was the split. Eddard genuinely wanted to save the Wall. Others immediately saw how they could use it—invoke the Others to brand every rebel an enemy of mankind and force the lords to kneel.
The result was obvious.
The ravens Joffrey sent never got answers.
Stannis ignored them completely. Renly's reply was the same breezy nonsense as always.
"Your Grace the Queen," he wrote, "perhaps since I defeated your father and took so many prisoners you now think you can pull some little trick to trick me into a truce?"
Joffrey finished reading and sighed.
Yeah.
The outside threat was urgent. But if they couldn't end the civil war, how the hell were they supposed to fight it?