Nerd In the North 6-14

A silver stag hung high over the Frostfangs, the full moon pale against a dark sky thick with endless stars. 

This high up as the world rushed by, wind carried knives of ice that could kill a man; chill enough to chew through wool and boiled leather both. 

Even so, it stopped at skin and scales.

A roar carried far and wide across the frozen ground, the sheer force of it sending a shudder through his body where he sat high upon a scaled ridge. There was no fear in Jon’s heart as primal joy passed through his mind enough to force a smile; his mount simply revelling in the sheer thrill of the waking world once more.

It was a heady feeling, freedom; and to fly was the greatest freedom of all.

The massive dragon roared again, its body a void carved out of night as its marred black flesh absorbed the moonlight. Jon rode without reins, without a saddle forged of anything but his own desperate grip and strong legs upon Shade’s neck. Shade. 

A simple name — almost pleasant — Jon had given to the nightmare that he had found sleeping in the deep dark, though his dreams whispered a far older, far crueler name. His head shook the thought away, the word escaping him in his waking moments. Not now…

He cast purple eyes down where he knew Ghost raced even if he couldn’t see the white fur against the frost, the direwolf somehow keeping pace with the shadow of the dragon’s flight. Yet, Ghost was not his only companion in his travels. A few leagues back, the riding column cut a ragged line through the snowdrift — Tormund, Val, Ygritte, and a dozen Hornfoot men pulled shaggy garrons through thick snow.

Jon breathed in thin air, tasting powdered ice and pine on his tongue.

Then he tasted something else.

A low drag pulled against the fire in his blood, ice surging for superiority in his own chest as his heartbeat kicked hard against his ribs. A gasp tore from his lips and a thick plume of his own breath, colder than cold, nearly blinded his vision. They’ve returned!

He did not need to shout a warning as the screaming started first.

Jon twisted, black cloak snapping against dragonhide, and Shade turned with him; another roar filling the night sky. Snow erupted into the air, frost shattering outward in thick jagged slabs as monsters hauled themselves free to ravage the realms of men again.

Cold-tusks. The size of them made it obvious even at a distance still, their size and color leaving no room for doubt. Four of them, maybe five, stood tall at near twice a man’s height if they stood straight, with muscle packed tight under pale blue skin. A wildling rider fell from his horse screaming as a massive, blue-grey hand caught his garron mid-stride, horse’s spine splitting with a sound like a felled oak. The beast didn’t even slow in its lurching gait, swinging its other club arm in a wide, backhanded arc. The rider flew, a ragged bundle of blood and bone, shriek cutting short the instant he struck the ground.

The remaining horses panicked, half the Hornfoot riders thrown into deep snow as their mounts reared.

The weight of his mind slammed hard against Jon’s mount, no command needed as the spike of his pulse was enough. Shade answered with a violent snap of vast black wings, the world tilting all of a sudden. Sky and snow spun and twisted into a blur of white and black as the dragon dropped like a falling mountain, a bank becoming a dive all in the same breath.

Jon leaned forward, his left hand gripping a jagged ridge as a word he barely understood ripped free from his marrow.

“Dracarys!“

Shade’s chest swelled, the dragon’s jaw opening wide as it pulled power from Jon as much as its own heart.

The night sky erupted in a torrent of searing white — no different than a snow-blind — as heat burst forth aimed at the leading beast. Blue flesh and white bone charred black in the span of a single heartbeat, an explosion of steam hurling the nearest wildlings flat into the snow.

Shade spun, wings catching the updraft of his own fire as Jon’s grip remained tight, scales biting into his bare palms. Neck snapping sideways, another gout of white flame from the dragon’s maw caught another cold-tusk mid-charge. 

The monster only had a moment to roar in pain before it joined its brother as a black mark against white snow. Shade swung low again with another roar, barely avoiding a cliff face, and Jon looked down again.

Almost unbidden, a curse slipped free.

Even with half the cold-tusks rendered to ash and bone, and the other three being set upon by the Free Folk, the snow was still moving at a distance. A half-breath later, scores of wights, their flesh blue-black and frozen dry, shambled their way up from the buried ravines and swarmed toward the thrown riders.

A white blur met their path.

Ghost, tall as a destrier and nearly as broad, hit the front line of the dead as jaws clamped shut on a rotted chest, tearing it free from waist and spine in a spray of frozen flesh.

Jon did not think as his right hand reached over his shoulder, fingers closing around the cold, leather-wrapped grip of Dark Sister. The Valyrian steel cleared the scabbard as he stepped off the dragon.

Wind tore at his cloak and hair both, trying to rip him backward as the snow rushed up to meet him. A wight lunged from the drift the second his feet hit the ground, half its face missing and empty eye socket alight with blue hate.

The cold of the North rushed down his left arm, ice creeping down his palm with jagged rime that thickened the air around his fist. Down his right, the dragon woke with a fire no different in color than the snow. It roared like Shade, wrapping itself around the dark steel of Visenya’s blade without scorching the metal or his skin.

A wight lunged from the drift, a warrior with half its face missing and an empty eye socket glowing with pale blue hate.

The heel of his hand struck out and frost shot foward with it. “Ísbít!” 

The Old Tongue left him, words he knew in his heart, as pure cold erupted from his palm. Three jagged rime-born spikes tore through the wight’s rotted chest and straight through its back. The creature staggered and before its spine could fail, Dark Sister took its head in a trail of white dragonfire.

Three more of the dead rushed him, Jon moving to meet them. His left hand grabbed frozen and long-rusted mail and Jon spun with force, the frozen body a shield against the second wight’s axe. He stepped out of the spin, bringing his Valyrian steel around in a two-handed cleave.

The magical blade sheared through the second wight’s shoulder, plate armor parting like wet canvas as Shade roared, another blinding white beam of absolute death erasing a cold-tusk from the frozen world.

“Har!!” Through it all, laughter boomed as Tormund Giantsbane waded through the dead, a massive wooden club in one hand. “Come at me, ye frozen bastards!”

The red-beard caught a wight square in the chest with it, the dead thing flying backwards and knocking three more into a drift. “Break your teeth on me, aye!” Tormund roared like a beast, the man dragging air into his massive chest before swinging again.

To Tormund’s right, a woman with hair the color of wheat was a rush of fury, a wildborn tempest with dual axes flashing in the light of the moon. “Mind ye keep that fire aimed forward, Lord Crow!” Hooking, tearing, chopping, her hair whipped around her face as a wight gripped at the hem of her cloak. Val ripped the cloth free and buried one axe deep into its skull, the second tearing its head free from the body.

Fire in hand, Jon opened his mouth to speak, only for words to fail him as another lunged for Val from behind. 

Only to fall to the ground as a black-tipped arrow punched through its eye.

Far from the melee, death fell silent and perfect as the Red Death of the North planted herself in the snow with her bow drawn. Another arrow vanished into the dark, finding the blue eye of a wight. She drew again, sharp eyes scanning the killing field in the dark as rotted throat was pinned to a pine trunk. Between each shot, her gaze tracked back to Jon, blue-gray eyes meeting his purple as she grinned his way.

The ground shuddered and trembled as the last cold-tusk charged forward. Its shoulder was blackened and smoking, having surving Shade’s last pass. A walking avalanche at over fifty stone, its black eyes landed on Jon as it opened a massive tusked mouth as if to swallow him up from a distance.

A mass of white threw itself from a snowbank, a silent missile of muscle and fang. Ghost’s massive jaws locked onto the troll’s raised forearm, sheer weight and force dragging the limb downward. The icy monster bellowed, whipping its arm to shake the direwolf free even as Ghost tore deeper into half-burnt blue flesh.

Ghost nearly whined as the direwolf was thrown back, landing on all fours.

Jon made to rush forward before the cold-tusk could attack again, but a drain in his chest forced a pause from him. Cold pulled free from his gut, the warmth of Shade burning brighter all at once as Ghost’s mouth opened.

A white stream of ice and snow filled the air, a blizzard in miniature thick and impenetrable with all the force of a thunderclap for all of a heartbeat.

Violet eyes blinked past the snow and chill, one hand over his face as he took in the sight of the troll upright and unmoving. It was frozen solid in a block of ice, bigger and wider than the thing was itself, yet cracks already ran through it as it fought for freedom.

Jon didn’t hesitate as he rushed forward, boots crushing the snow as he leapt up. With a shout, he swung Dark Sister in a flat arc across his chest.

Valyrian steel passed through with little trouble, all the resistance of a stick through water as he finished the swing.

For a second, nothing happened. 

Then, the troll collapsed into a thousand pieces, chunks of frozen meat and hide shattering against the snow as silence rushed back into the gorge.

Jon stood in the center of the slaughter, breath pluming white as his chest heaved. A heavy, earth-shaking thud announced Shade’s landing on the snow as the dragon folded its massive wings, red eyes firmly on the dead trolls as it began to feast. 

Ghost trotted over, blood smearing his muzzle. 

Tormund leaned on his hammer, laughter still on his face as Val wiped her axe on a dead man’s furs and another set of footsteps crunched in the snow. A red head of hair stopped a short distance from Jon, ignoring the ash and the broken ice. 

Jon stared down at Ygritte as she smiled at him, her face fierce and bright as Shade’s fire. “Ye fight like a god, Jon Snow.”

Jon looked down at his hands again, the frost gone and smoke fading. “I’m not a god.” 

“No.” She stepped closer, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath against the bitter cold. “But ye’re not a crow either.”