The air was sharp and cold and full of fear. Even Visenya was afraid. The fur on her neck was bristling. Shadows stretched against the hillside, black and hungry. All the trees were bowed and twisted by the weight of ice they carried. Some hardly looked like trees at all. Buried from root to crown in frozen snow, they huddled on the hill like giants, monstrous and misshapen creatures hunched against the icy wind.
"They are here." The ranger drew his longsword.
"Where?" Meera's voice was hushed.
"Close. I don't know. Somewhere."
The raven shrieked again. "Hodor," whispered Hodor. He had his hands tucked up beneath his armpits. Icicles hung from the brown briar of his beard, and his mustache was a lump of frozen snot, glittering redly in the light of sunset.
"Those wolves are close as well," Bran warned them. "The ones that have been following us. Summer can smell them whenever we're downwind."
"Wolves are the least of our woes," said Coldhands. "We have to climb. It will be dark soon. You would do well to be inside before night comes. Your warmth will draw them." He glanced to the west, where the light of the setting sun could be seen dimly through the trees, like the glow of a distant fire.
"Is this the only way in?" asked Meera.
"The back door is three leagues north, down a sinkhole." That was all he had to say. Not even Hodor could climb down into a sinkhole with Bran heavy on his back, and Jojen could no more walk three leagues than run a thousand.
Meera eyed the hill above. "The way looks clear."
"Looks, " the ranger muttered darkly. "Can you feel the cold? There's something here. Where are they?"
"Inside the cave?" suggested Meera.
"The cave is warded. They cannot pass." The ranger used his sword to point. "You can see the entrance there. Halfway up, between the weirwoods, that cleft in the rock."
"I see it," said Bran. Ravens were flying in and out. Lyanna saw that.
Hodor shifted his weight. "Hodor."
"A fold in the rock, that's all I see," said Meera.
The ranger continued, "There's a passage there. Steep and twisty at first, a runnel through the rock. If you can reach it, you'll be safe."
"What about you?"
"The cave is warded."
Lyanna studied the cleft in the hillside. "It can't be more than a thousand yards from here to there."
The hill was steep and thickly wooded. The snow had stopped three days ago, but none of it had melted. Beneath the trees, the ground was blanketed in white, still pristine and unbroken. "No one's here," said Bran, bravely. "Look at the snow. There are no footprints."
"The white walkers go lightly on the snow," the ranger said. "You'll find no prints to mark their passage." A raven descended from above to settle on his shoulder. Only a dozen of the big black birds remained with them. The rest had vanished along the way; every dawn when they arose, there had been fewer of them. "It's not so far," he said. "A little climb, and we'll be safe. Maybe we can have a fire." All of them were cold and wet and hungry, except the ranger, and Jojen Reed was too weak to walk unaided that Lyanna and Meera had to carry him.
"You go." Meera Reed bent down beside her brother.
He was settled in the bole of an oak, eyes closed, shivering violently. What little of his face could be seen beneath his hood and scarf was as colorless as the surrounding snow, but breath still puffed faintly from his nostrils whenever he exhaled. Meera and Lyanna had been carrying him all day. Food and fire will set him right again, Lyanna tried to tell herself, though she wasn't sure it would, yet; she misses him, she misses his voice... "We can't fight and carry Jojen both, the climb's too steep," Meera was saying.
Lyanna began "Hodor, you take Bran up to that cave."
"Hodor." Hodor clapped his hands together.
"Jojen just needs to eat," Bran said, miserably. It had been twelve days since the elk had collapsed for the third and final time, since Coldhands had knelt beside it in the snowbank and murmured a blessing in some strange tongue as he slit its throat. Bran wept like a little girl when the bright blood came rushing out. Lyanna, Meera Reed and Coldhands butchered the brave beast who had carried them so far. As gaunt and starved as the elk had been, the steaks the ranger carved from him had sustained them for seven days, until they finished the last of them huddled over a fire in the ruins of an old hillfort.
"He needs to eat," Meera agreed, smoothing her brother's brow.
Lyanna said "We all do, but there's no food here. Go."
Coldhands took Hodor by the arm. "The light is fading. If they're not here now, they will be soon. Come."
Lyanna dropped on her knees in front of Jojen, "Jojen, we have to keep on moving, we're almost there, we just have to do a little climbing"
Jojen still had his eyes closed and his head lowered, when Lyanna touched his face, his face felt like touching an ice. Cold and hard. He did opened his eyes when she touched his cold cheek, he gave a weak smile at her, "Lyanna..." he said weakly and quietly. "...you're...so... warm and pretty...as usual"
Lyanna gave a weak smile, "Come on now, we're almost there, we'll be at someplace warm if we just climb a little" even though the cave looked about hundred yards away. She grabbed Jojen's one arm and Meera slid an arm beneath her brother to lift him to his feet. Lyanna clutched her sword in her other hand, jabbing the tines into the snow for a little more support and Meera did the same with her spear.
The hill grew steeper. Drifts of snow cracked under Lyanna's boots. Once a rock moved beneath her foot and she slid backwards, and almost went tumbling back down the hill. Every gust of wind filled the air with fine white powder that shone like glass in the last light of day. Ravens flapped around them. One flew ahead and vanished inside the cave. Only eighty yards now, Lyanna thought, that's not far at all.
Visenya who lead Lyanna, Meera and Jojen stopped suddenly, at the bottom of a steep stretch of unbroken white snow. The direwolf turned her head, sniffed the air, then snarled. Fur bristling, she began to back away. Even Summer did the same who was beside Bran and Hodor.
Something's wrong. Lyanna thought.
Sixty yards.
"A fire!" Bran shouted. Lyanna looked up. In the little cleft between the weirwood trees was a flickering glow, a ruddy light calling through the gathering gloom. "Look, someone-"
Hodor screamed. He twisted, stumbled, fell.
"BRAN!" Lyanna screamed.
Both Bran and Hodor fell sideways as the big stableboy spun violently around. Hodor was thrashing and rolling, crushing the crippled boy beneath him.
"Go!" Meera told Lyanna to check on them. Lyanna let go of Jojen's arm. It was hard to run on the thick and deep snow.
Then something reached out of the snow just between her and Bran. A hand, a skeleton hand, she stopped and startled. The dead man crawl up from the snow, standing up slowly.
"LYANNA!" Meera shouted behind her. When Lyanna turned around, she saw more dead men rising up. One, two, three, four...
Wights, Lyanna realized.
All around her, wights were rising from beneath the snow. Lyanna lost count. They surged up violently amidst sudden clouds of snow. Some wore black cloaks, some ragged skins, some nothing. All of them had pale flesh and black hands. Their eyes glowed like pale blue stars. Lyanna saw three of them descended on the ranger. Lyanna saw Coldhands slash one across the face. Bran was out of his basket. Lyanna couldn't get to Bran, or Meera and Jojen because there about four of them around her.
When her crippled brother's shout became a scream. "BRAN!" She screamed. That was when Lyanna drew her sword and knife. She charged toward the wight who was close, her sword in her one hand the other with a knife, the wight swung the sword at her, she hit it with her's then struck her knife into it's chest. It dropped it's sword and then Lyanna swung her's through the neck. She looked back, seeing Meera fighting off few, and Jojen, who was too weak to go on.
"Visenya!" Lyanna called, she pointed at Meera then the direwolf ran towards Meera and Jojen to help and protect them.
Lyanna fought off two dead men, she dodged their axe and sword. Pieced her sword through their back and abdominal. It did not do any damage. The last light had vanished from amongst the trees by then. Night had fallen. Coldhands was hacking and cutting at the circle of dead men that surrounded him. Summer was tearing at the one that he'd brought down, its face between his teeth. No one was paying any mind to each other. The wights did not die easily, chopping their heads off slowed them down, separate their body parts, but they were slow and clumsy. Hodor had been fighting off the wights, he does not know how to fight, she knew Bran may have entered his mind. Summer was protecting Bran. Just when four of dead men came charging towards Lyanna, she wouldn't take them down because there were too many, more kept coming, and Lyanna prepared to fight them.
All of sudden, a fire ball hit the middle wight, exploded, as the rest were thrown away by the explosion and so did Lyanna. She flew back, then rolled down the hill just for seconds. She nearly lost consciousness until Jojen shook her who had crawled to her.
Up above them, flaming figures were dancing in the snow.
Someone set the wights on fire. Visenya was snarling and snapping as she danced around the closest, a great ruin of a man wreathed in swirling flame.
The world moved dizzily around her. White trees, black sky, red flames, everything was whirling, shifting, spinning. She felt herself stumbling. She could hear Hodor screaming, "Hodor hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor." A cloud of ravens was pouring from the cave, and he saw a little girl with a torch in hand, darting this way and that. For a moment Lyanna thought it was his sister Arya ... madly, for she knew her little sister was a thousand leagues away, or dead. And yet there she was, whirling, a scrawny thing, ragged, wild, her hair atangle.
"Get up!" Jojen shook her, she did heard a high pitch noise in her ears for a minute that she barely heard Hodor screaming. "Now!"
She slowly got up as Jojen tried his hardest to help her up. Few more fire balls were thrown at the wights.
"Come with me!" the little girl demanded, "come with me, or die!"
"We have to try," Lyanna said, "Run"
Meera was still fighting one. Behind them, couple more came running, Lyanna pushed Jojen into running, she grabbed her sword as Meera finished off the last wight. Then they ran to the cave as the little continued to throw fire balls at the wights.
She could feel the wights chasing behind them, they seemed ran faster than they did, but she was getting closer and closer to the cave. Bran had been carried by Hodor into the cave. They followed the little girl into the cave, they still ran, when Lyanna looked back, she saw the wights exploded into hundred pieces as they ran into the cave. Coldhands was gone, the cave was warded against him...