𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐎𝐘

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ

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The courtyard rang to the song of swords. Under black wool, boiled leather and mail, sweat trickled down from Torsten's icy chest as he pressed an attack. Pypar stumbled backward, defending himself clumsily. When he raised his sword, Torsten went underneath it with a sweeping blow to the back of his kneecaps which sent him staggering.
Jon and Grenn stood to the left of them where Jon swept aside his blade and slammed a mailed forearm into Grenn's chest. Grenn lost his footing and sat down hard in the snow. Jon knocked his sword from his fingers with a slash to his wrist that brought a cry of pain. "Enough!" Ser Alliser Thorne had a voice with an edge of Valyrin steel.

"The bastard broke my wrist." Grenn cradled his hand.

"The bastard hamstrung you, opened your empty skull, and cut off your hand. Or would have, if these blades had an edge. It's fortunate for you that the Watch needs stableboys as well as rangers." Ser Alliser gestured at Jeren and Toad. "Get the Aurochs on his feet. Lord Snow here, grew up in a castle spitting down on the likes of you. Do you think Ned Stark's bastard bleeds like the rest of us?" Alliser mocked.
Jon hated the name, a mockery that Ser Alliser had hung on him the first day he came to practice. The boys had picked up on it and now he heard it everywhere. Grenn's down cut was sloppy and was answered with an overhand that knocked him square in the nose. Grenn held tightly onto his own sword as blood seeped through the gaps of his fingers. Blood gushed from where Jon had hit.
Jon let the breath he was holding out, as the other boys were pulling Grenn to his feet once again. The frosty morning air felt good against his face. Jon leaned on his sword, drew a deep breath, and allowed himself a moment to savour the victory. "That is a longsword, not an old man's cane." Ser Alliser said sharply. His eyes then moved to Torsten who'd taken a seat against the wooden benches. "Are your legs hurting, bastard?" Torsten quickly stood and shook his head, all while Jon slid the longsword back into its scabbard.

"No." He replied. Thorne strode towards him, crisp black leathers whispering faintly as he moved. He was a compact man of fifty years, spare and hard, with grey in his black hair and eyes like chips of onyx.

"The truth, now." He commanded.

"I'm tired." Torsten admitted and Jon felt the same way. Torsten's arms burned from the weight of the longsword, and he was starting to feel his bruises now that the fight was done.

"What you are is weak." He snarled and Torsten knew better than to reply. "Well, Lord Snow. It appears you're the least useless person here." Ser Alliser announced. "Go clean yourselves up. There's only so much I can stomach in a day." With his words said, Ser Alliser left first.
Torsten carried his hunched aching body towards the armoury. Jon followed in step with the younger, the two often walked together away from the others. There were almost twenty in the group, yet not one the two could call a friend. Most of the boys were three years Torsten's senior.
Inside the armoury Torsten hung his sword and scabbard from a hook in the stone wall, ignoring the others around him. Methodically, he began to strip off his leather and sweat soaked woollens. Chunks of coal burned in iron braziers at either end of the long room, yet Torsten saw Jon shivering.

"You'll get used to it." Torsten offered Jon a smile. "In a few years you'll forget what it's like to be warm." The creaky door continued to sweep open as more recruits filtered through. The wariness dawned on him suddenly, as he put on the roughspun blacks that were their everyday wear. He sat back down on the bench, his fingers fumbling with the fastening on his cloak.

"You broke my nose, bastard boy." Torsten lifted his eyes at the sullen voice. Grenn loomed over Jon, thick of neck and red of face, with three of his friends behind him. Todder, a short ugly boy with an unpleasant voice, they all called him Toad. The other two Torsten had forgotten their names, they'd arrived with Jon. He hardly ever spoke to them, if he could help it. They were brutes and bullies, without a thimble of honour between them.
Jon stood up.

"It's an improvement." Grenn was eighteen, same as Jon but stood a head taller. All four of them were bigger than Torsten. The snarl that came from within Grenn brought Torsten to his feet, by Jon's side. One of them grabbed Jon's arm and twisted it behind his back.

"The little lordling has a mouth on him." He said. He had pig eyes, small and shiny. "Is that your mommy's mouth, bastard? What was she, some whore? Tell us her name. Maybe I had her a time or two." He laughed.

"You make us look bad." Toad complained grabbing a hold of Torsten.

"You looked bad before we ever met you." Torsten told him and Toad jerked his arm upward on him, hard. Pain lanced through him, but Torsten would not cry out.

"If I threw ye' over the Wall, I wonder how long it's take ye' to hit." Grenn asked.

"I wonder if they'd find ye' before the wolves did." Toad chuckled stepping closer. Jon twisted like an eel and slammed a heel down across the instep of the boy holding him. There was a sudden cry of pain, and he was free. He flew at Toad knocked him backward over a bench, Torsten was now free.
The old creaky wooden door swung open with the breeze nipping at their skins, diverting them from their fight.

"What'cha lookin' at half man?" Grenn grunted, his movements halting. Tyrion Lannister wore a rather unpleasant look as he stood in the doorway of the armoury.

"I'm looking at you. Yes. You've got an interesting face, ah very distinctive faces. All of you." Tyrion suppressed a smile that stretched thinly over his lips.

"What you care about our faces?" One of the boys snapped, his fist held Jon's collar in a balled fist.

"It's just... I think they'd look marvellous decorating spikes in Kings Landing. Perhaps I'll write to my sister, the Queen about it." The half man finished. Toad sat on the floor, gingerly feeling the back of his head. His fingers came away bloody. Torsten sat heavily on the long wooden bench as the others went back to cleaning their swords.

"Everybody knew what this place was and no one told me, no one but you. My father knew and he left me to rot at the Wall all the same." No one had told him the Night's Watch would be like this. Torsten had mocked him, and Jon soon found out the young boy was right. The dwarf however had given him the truth on the road north, but by then it had been too late.

"Yes and Grenn's father left him too." Tyrion informed Jon. Torsten's eyes spared Grenn a look, the boy still had blood stained over his face. The brute had finally fallen silent as he watched Tyrion and Jon carefully. "Outside the Thorne house when he was three. Pypar was caught stealing a wheel of cheese, his little sister hadn't eaten in three days. He was given a choice his right hand or the Wall... I've been asking the Lord Commander about them, fascinating stories really."

"They hate me because I'm better than they are." Jon seethed through gritted teeth, the disbelief washed over him while anger settled in the pit of his stomach.

"Lucky thing none of them are trained by master arms like your Ser Rodrick. I don't imagine any of them have ever held a real sword before they came here." Tyrion said. Torsten's hands fiddled with the longsword he was cleaning as he listened to the imp's words. "And Torsten Snow. Born beyond the Wall. Was left here before he could even walk." Torsten stared sullenly at the smoke rising from the brazier.
By the time Torsten left the armoury, it was almost midday. The sun had broken through the clouds. The Blacks timbered keeps and stone towers looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow, beneath the vast wall of ice. The ancient stronghold of the black brother's was no true castle at all. Lacking walls, it could not be defended, not from the south, or east, or west. But it was only north that concerned the Night's Watch, and to the north loomed the Wall.
Almost seven hundred feet high it stood, three times the height of the tallest tower in the stronghold it sheltered. The gaunt outlines of huge catapults and monstrous wooden cranes stood sentry up there, like the skeletons of great birds, and among them walked men in black as small as ants.

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