𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐎𝐘

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛᴇᴇɴ

𝟚

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The wind was blowing briskly when he left. By morning, frost would cover the ground, and the tent ropes would be stiff and frozen. A few fingers of spiced wine sloshed in the bottom of the kettle. Torsten fed fresh wood to the fire and put the kettle over the flames to reheat. He flexed his fingers as he waited, squeezing and spreading until the hand tingled. The first watch had taken up their stations around the perimeter of the camp. Torches flickered all along the ringwall. The night was moonless, but a thousand stars shone overhead. A sound rose out of the darkness, faint and distant, but unmistakable, the howling of wolves. Their voices rose and fell, a chilly song, and lonely. It made the hairs raise along the back of his neck. Across the fire, a pair of red eyes regarded him from the shadows. The light of the flames made them glow. "Ghost." Torsten breathed nudging Jon.

"So you came inside after all, eh?" The white wolf often hunted all night, neither had expected to see him again till daybreak. "Was the hunting so bad? Here. To me, Ghost." The direwolf circled the fire, sniffing Jon, sniffing Torsten, sniffing the wild, never still. It did not seem as if he were after meat right now. "When the dead came walking, Ghost knew. He woke me, warned me." Jon said alarmed, both bastard boys rose to their feet.

"Do you think something's out there?" Torsten asked.

"Ghost, do you have a scent?" Jon asked, Dywen said he smelled cold. The direwolf loped off, stopped, looked back.

"I think he wants us to follow." Torsten mumbled. Pulling up the hood of his cloak, Torsten and Jon walked away from the tents, away from the warmth of their fire, past the lines of shaggy little garrons. One of the horses whickered nervously when Ghost padded by. Jon soothed him with a word, and paused to stoke his muzzle. Torsten could hear the wind whistling through the cracks in the rocks as they neared the ringwall. A voice called out a challenge. Torsten stepped into the torchlight, shielding Jon behind him.

"We need to fetch water for the Lord Commander." Torsten quickly said.

"Go on, then." The guard said. "Be quick about it." Huddled beneath his black cloak, with his hood drawn up against the wind, the man never even looked to see if they had a bucket.
Torsten and Jon slipped sideways between two sharpened stakes while Ghost slid beneath them. A torch had been thrust down into a crevice, its flames flying pale orange banners when the gusts came. Torsten snatched it up as he squeezed through the gap between the stones. Ghost went racing down the hill. Both bastard boys followed more slowly. Torsten had the torch thrust out before him as he made his descent. The camp sounds faded behind him. The night was black, the slope steep, stony and uneven. A moment's inattention would be a sure way to break an ankle, or his neck.
The stones stood beneath him, warriors armoured in snow and dirt, deployed in their silent ranks awaiting the command to storm the hill. Black, they seemed. Faintly, he heard the sound of water flowing over rocks. Ghost vanished, they struggled after him, listening to the wind snap and howl. They found Ghost lapping from the stream.

"Ghost." Jon called. "To me. Now." When the direwolf raised his head, his eyes glowed red and baleful, and water streamed down from his jaws like slaver. There was something fierce and terrible about him in that instant. And then he was off, bounding past Jon and Torsten, racing through the snow. "Ghost. No, stay." Jon shouted, but the wolf paid no heed. The lean white shape was swallowed by the dark, and they had only two choices. To climb the hill again, or to follow.
They decided to follow. Holding the torch out low so they could see the rocks that threatened to rip them with every step, Torsten led the way. Every few feet Jon called for Ghost, but the night wind was swirling among the trees and it drank the words. "Should we turn back?" Jon suggested, they were about to turn back when they glimpsed a flash of white. "There." Jon pointed. They jogged after him, cursing under their breaths.
A quarter way around the Fist, they chased the wolf before they lost him again. Finally, they stopped to catch their breath.

"This is madness." Torsten gasped, hunched over with one hand against a knee.

"I'm sorry." Jon grunted. Beyond the torchlight, the dark pressed close. A soft scrabbling noise made them turn. Jon moved first, towards the sound. Stepping carefully amongst boulders and snow. Ghost appeared again. The direwolf was digging furiously, kicking up dirt. "What have you found?" Torsten lowered the torch, revealing a rounded mound of soft earth.

"A grave?" Torsten questioned, he knelt, jammed the torch into the ground beside him. The soil was loose. Torsten looked over his shoulder to Jon, who slowly fell to his knees beside him. Jon pulled it out by the fistful. There were no stones. Whatever was there had been put there recently. Two feet down, his fingers touched cloth. Torsten had been expecting a corpse, fearing a corpse, but this was something else. Jon pushed against the fabric and felt small, hard shapes beneath, unyielding.
Ghost backed off and sat on his haunches, watching. Torsten brushed the loose soil away to reveal a rounded bundle perhaps two feet across. He jammed his fingers down around the edges, helping Jon work it loose. When they pulled it free, whatever was inside shifted and clinked. "Treasure?" Torsten asked more confused than ever.

"Doesn't feel like coins." Jon pointed out. "Doesn't sound like metal either." A length of frayed rope bound the bundle together. Jon unsheathed his dagger and cut it, groped for the edges of the cloth, and pulled. The bundle turned, and its contents spilled out onto the ground, glittering dark and bright. They saw a dozen knives, leaf shaped spear heads, numerous arrowheads. Torsten picked up a dagger blade, feather light and shiny black, hiltless. Torchlight ran along its edge, a thin orange line that spoke of razor sharpness.

"Dragonglass, what the Maesters call obsidian." Torsten whispered, hardly believing what he's seeing. Had Ghost uncovered some ancient cache of the children of the forest, buried here for thousands of years? The Fist of the First Men was an old place.
Beneath the dragonglass was an old warhorn, made from an aurochs horn and banded in bronze. Torsten shook the dirt from inside it, and a stream of arrowheads fell out. He let them fall, and pulled up a corner of the cloth the weapons had been wrapped in, rubbing it between his fingers. "Good wool, thick, a double weave, damp but not rotted." Torsten observed.

"Couldn't have been here long." Jon agreed. Torsten seized a handful and pulled it close to the torch. Not dark. Black. Even before Jon stood and shook it out, Torsten knew what he had, the black cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch.

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