𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒, game of thrones

Chapter Six

This time the clink and scrape were followed by a slithering and the soft swift patter of skinfeet on stone. The wind brought the faintest whiff of a man-smell she did not know. Stranger. Danger. Death.
She ran toward the sound, her brothers racing beside her. The stone dens rose before them, walls slick and wet. She bared her teeth, but the man-rock took no notice. A gate loomed up, a black iron snake coiled tight about bar and post. When she crashed against it, the gate shuddered and the snake clanked and slithered and held. Through the bars he could look down the long stone burrow that ran between the walls to the stony field beyond, but there was no way through. She could force her muzzle between the bars, but no more. Many a time her brothers had tried to crack the black bones of the gate between her teeth, but they would not break. They had tried to dig under, but there were great flat stones beneath, half-covered by earth and blown leaves.

Snarling, she paced back and forth in front of the gate, then threw herself at it once more. It moved a little and slammed her back. Locked, something whispered. Chained. The voice she did not hear, the scent without a smell. The other ways were closed as well. Where doors opened in the walls of man-rock, the wood was thick and strong. There was no way out.

There is, the whisper came, and it seemed as if she could see the shadow of a great tree covered in needles, slanting up out of the black earth to ten times the height of a man. Yet when she looked about, it was not there. The other side of the godswood, the sentinel, hurry, hurry . . .
Through the gloom of night came a muffled shout, cut short.

Swiftly, swiftly, she whirled and bounded back into the trees, wet leaves rustling beneath her paws, branches whipping at him as she rushed past. She could hear her brothers following close. They plunged under the heart tree and around the cold pool, through the blackberry bushes, under a tangle of oaks and ash and hawthorn scrub, to the far side of the wood . . . and there it was, the shadow she'd glimpsed without seeing, the slanting tree pointing at the rooftops. Sentinel, came the thought.
 
Growling, she sniffed around the base of the tree, lifted a leg and marked it with a stream of urine. A low branch brushed his face, and she snapped at it, twisting and pulling until the wood cracked and tore. Her mouth was full of needles and the bitter taste of the sap. She shook his head and snarled.
Her brothers sat back on her haunches and lifted her voice in a ululating howl, her song black with mourning. The way was no way. They were not squirrels, nor the cubs of men, they could not wriggle up the trunks of trees, clinging with soft pink paws and clumsy feet. They were runners, hunters, prowlers.

Off across the night, beyond the stone that hemmed them close, the dogs woke and began to bark. One and then another and then all of them, a great clamor. They smelled it too; the scent of foes and fear.

A desperate fury filled her, hot as hunger. She sprang away from the wall loped off beneath the trees, the shadows of branch and leaf dappling her grey fur . . . and then she turned and raced back in a rush. Her feet flew kicking up wet leaves and pine needles, and for a little time she was a hunter and an antlered stag was fleeing before her and she could see it, smell it, and she ran full out in pursuit. The smell of fear made her heart thunder and slaver ran from his jaws, and she reached the falling tree in stride and threw herself up the trunk, claws scrabbling at the bark for purchase. Upward she bounded, up, two bounds, three, hardly slowing, until she was among the lower limbs. Branches tangled his feet and whipped at her eyes, grey-green needles scattered as he shouldered through them, snapping. She had to slow. Something snagged at her foot and she wrenched it free, snarling. The trunk narrowed under her, the slope steeper, almost straight up, and wet. The bark tore like skin when she tried to claw at it. She was a third of the way up, halfway, more, the roof was almost within reach . . . and then she put down a foot and felt it slip off the curve of wet wood, and suddenly she was sliding, stumbling. She yowled in fear and fury, falling, falling, and twisted around while the ground rushed up to break her . . .
 
And then Lyanna was back abed in her tower room, tangled in her blankets, her breath coming hard. "Visenya," she cried. "Visenya." Her shoulder seemed to ache, as if she had fallen on it, but she knew it was only the ghost of what the wolf was feeling. Jojen told it true. I am a beastling. Outside she could hear the faint barking of dogs. The sea has come. It's flowing over the walls, just as Jojen saw. She jumped out of her bed, putting on a tunic and trousers. They had taken the guard off her door. Ser Rodrik had needed every man of fighting age he could lay his hands on, so Winterfell had been left with only a token garrison.
 
The rest had left eight days past, six hundred men from Winterfell and the nearest holdfasts. Cley Cerwyn was bringing three hundred more to join them on the march, and Maester Luwin had sent ravens before them, summoning levies from White Harbor and the barrowlands and even the deep places inside the wolfswood. Torrhen's Square was under attack by some monstrous war chief named Dagmer Cleftjaw. Old Nan said he couldn't be killed, that once a foe had cut his head in two with an axe, but Dagmer was so fierce he'd just pushed the two halves back together and held them until they healed up. Could Dagmer have won? Torrhen's Square was many days from Winterfell, yet still . . .
 
Lyanna went to her window as she swung back the shutters. The yard was empty, and all the windows he could see were black. Winterfell slept. "Hodor!" she heard Bran calling from the top, Lyanna immediately left her chambers and went upstairs as she could still hear Bran calling out. "Hodor, come fast! Lyanna! Osha! Meera, Jojen, anyone!"

She pushed the door open and found Bran by his window, "Lyanna!" Bran looked relieved to see her, "what's going on? What's happening?!"

"I don't know, I think Winterfell is under attacked" She then lift up Bran, his arms holding tightly around her neck and her arms on his back and legs like carrying him like a baby. "Let's go get Rickon" she said.

But when the door crashed open behind them, the man who stepped through was no one Lyanna knew. He wore a leather jerkin sewn with overlapping iron disks, and carried a dirk in one hand and an axe strapped to his back. "What do you want?" Bran demanded. "This is my room. You get out of here."

Theon Greyjoy followed him into the bedchamber. "We're not here to harm you both."

"Theon?" Lyanna felt dizzy with relief. "Did Robb send you? Is he here too?"

"Robb's far away. He can't help you now."

"Help me?" She was confused. "Don't scare us, Theon."

"I'm Prince Theon now. We're both princes, Bran. Who would have dreamed it? But I've taken your castle, my prince, my princess"

"Winterfell?" Bran shook his head. "No, you couldn't."

"Leave us, Werlag." The man with the dirk withdrew. Theon seated himself on the bed. Lyanna did not want to sit, she still had Bran in her arms. "I sent four men over the walls with grappling claws and ropes, and they opened a postern gate for the rest of us. My men are dealing with yours even now. I promise you, Winterfell is mine."

Lyanna did not understand. "But you're Father's ward."

"And now you and your brothers are my wards. As soon as the fighting's done, my men will be bringing the rest of your people together in the Great Hall. You and I are going to speak to them. You'll tell them how you've yielded Winterfell to me, and command them to serve and obey their new lord as they did the old."

"I won't," said Lyanna. "We'll fight you and throw you out. I never yielded, you can't make me say I did."

"This is no game, Lyanna, so don't play the girl with me, I won't stand for it. The castle is mine, but these people are still yours. If the princess would keep them safe, she'd best do as she's told." He rose and went to the door. "You will come to the courtyard when you're done. Rickon is safe"
 
They were alone, Lyanna was confused, she didn't know what was happening, she felt betrayed, she grew up with Theon Greyjoy, he was like family to all Starks, never treated him as hostage but treat him like family.

"Lyanna, help me" Bran said sadly.

She helped him get dressed, but when the door next opened it was Maester Luwin, carrying a candle. "Bran, Lyanna" he said, "you . . . know what has happened? You have been told?" The skin was broken above his left eye, and blood ran down that side of his face.

Lyanna nodded while Bran said "Theon came. He said Winterfell was his now."