Trials and Tribulations of the Oathkeeper

Chapter 79: The Wildling and the Dragon

―Beyond the Wall―

The Haunted Forest...

Donned in all black, Jon Snow stood as the south gate was steadily raised upwards. Trekking through the tramped snow beyond the Wall, he examined the corpses of dead wildlings scattered across the area – cut down with arrows, smashed with rocks. The bastard of the North examined one corpse in particular, Dongo the Doomed, a fallen giant with a scorpion bolt protruding through him as ravens had gathered to feed on his flesh. 

Jon stopped moving, looking back over his left shoulder where the Night's Watch's scythe smashed bodies of the wildlings who tried to climb the Wall now lie in a pile of broken bones and twisted limbs. He looks forward to his right, where Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg's flaming bull mammoth stomped a swath through the wildling army's ranks in its panicked final moments, leaving piles of crushed wildlings. Removing his sight from the battered frozen no-man's-land, Jon continues the longest walk of his life into the Haunted Forest beyond the Wall towards his destination: Mance Rayder's camp. A sprawling jumble of tents and cookfires and latrine pits were seen in the trees, children and goats wandered about freely, sheep bleating amongst the trees as wild horses were pegged up to dry. Jon knew there were multiple men, women and animals numbering in the tens of thousands; despite losing the entire southern assault force of 4,000 during the first wave, the wildling army still remained strong. And he remembered not to sneak up on wildlings in the woods: men in front of him had been waiting for him, watching his movements cautiously with weapons in hand as more emerged from the trees behind him. Recognizing his was surrounded on all sides and by himself, Jon raised his hands above his head. They lost friends and family to the Night's Watch and wanted to tear Jon to pieces, but none were permitted to lay a hand on him so long as he remains under a banner of truce.

The King-Beyond-the-Wall Mance Rayder finally emerges from his tent, not surprised by Jon's presence again; word of his arrival evidently preceded him. "You're wearing a black cloak again," he observed.

Jon nods. "They sent me to negotiate with you."

Mance opens the flap of his tent and motions him inside. Jon follows with six of the chieftains keeping a close eye on him. He knows they don't trust him, not after what happened. Mance sits on the nearest stool facing the tent entrance with Jon sitting opposite to him. "This wasn't the first time my trusting nature got the better of me. You know, I really was hoping your loyalty to us was real, Jon Snow. Believe me, I really did."

"Qhorin Halfhand ordered me to join your army and bring back whatever information I could to Castle Black. I was loyal... to him. And to my Night's Watch vows."

"All of them?"

Jon lowered his eyes.

"Ygritte wasn't enough to turn you? Were you enough to turn her?"

"She put three arrows in me when I escaped."

"Did you see her again at Castle Black?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"She... Ygritte's dead," Jon replied mournfully.

"Was it at your hands?" Mance pressed.

"No." Jon reflected back during the Battle of Castle Black; how Olly shot an arrow that pierce Ygritte's heart. Olly was a young boy, but Jon didn't want to mention that at all. 

Mance somehow must've detected this and leaned forward. "I suppose that's for the best then. She really did love you, that Ygritte, even if you did indeed wrong her the way you did," he remarked. "You really caught us off-guard for a moment, you know?"