The oldest were men grown, seventeen and eighteen years from the day of their naming. One was past twenty. Most were younger, sixteen or less.
Branxy watched them from the balcony of Maesterxy Luwinxyxy’s turret, listening to them grunt and strain and curse as they swung their staves and wooden swords. The yard was alive to the clack of wood on wood, punctuated all too often by thwacks and yowls of pain when a blow struck leather or flesh. Ser Rodrikxy strode among the boys, face reddening beneath his white whiskers, muttering at them one and all. Branxy had never seen the old knight look so fierce. “No,” he kept saying. “No. No. No.”
“They don’t fight very well,” Branxy said dubiously. He scratched Summerxy idly behind the ears as the direwolf tore at a haunch of meat. Bonesxy crunched between his teeth.
“For a certainty,” Maesterxy Luwinxyxy agreed with a deep sigh. The maester was peering through his big Myrish lensxy tube, measuring shadows and noting the position of the comet that hung low in the morning sky. “Yet given time … Ser Rodrikxy has the truth of it, we need men to walk the walls. Your lord father took the cream of his guard to Kingxy’s Landingxy, and your brother took the rest, along with all the likely lads for leagues around. Many will not come back to us, and we must needs find the men to take their places.”
Branxy stared resentfully at the sweating boys below. “If I still had my legs, I could beat them all.” He remembered the last time he’d held a sword in his hand, when the king had come to Winterfellxy. It was only a wooden sword, yet he’d knocked Princexy Tommenxy down half a hundred times. “Ser Rodrikxy should teach me to use a poleaxe. If I had a poleaxe with a big long haft, Hodorxy could be my legs. We could be a knight together.”
“I think that … unlikely,” Maesterxy Luwinxyxy said. “Branxy, when a man fights, his arms and legs and thoughts must be as one.”
Below in the yard, Ser Rodrikxy was yelling. “You fight like a goose. He pecks you and you peck him harder. Parry! Block the blow. Goose fighting will not suffice. If those were real swords, the first peck would take your arm off!” One of the other boys laughed, and the old knight rounded on him. “You laugh. You. Now that is gall. You fight like a hedgehog …”
“There was a knight once who couldn’t see,” Branxy said stubbornly, as Ser Rodrikxy went on below. “Old Nanxy told me about him. He had a long staff with blades at both ends and he could spin it in his hands and chop two men at once.”
“Symeonxy Star-Eyesxy,” Luwinxy said as he marked numbers in a book. “When he lost his eyes, he put star sapphires in the empty sockets, or so the singers claim. Branxy, that is only a story, like the tales of Florianxy the Foolxyxy. A fable from the Age of Heroesxy.” The maester tsked. “You must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart.”
The mention of dreams reminded him. “I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Fatherxy was there, and we talked. He was sad.”
“And why was that?” Luwinxy peered through his tube.
“It was something to do about Jon, I think.” The dream had been deeply disturbing, more so than any of the other crow dreams. “Hodorxy won’t go down into the crypts.”
The maester had only been half listening, Branxy could tell. He lifted his eye from the tube, blinking. “Hodorxy won’t …?”
“Go down into the crypts. When I woke, I told him to take me down, to see if Fatherxy was truly there. At first he didn’t know what I was saying, but I got him to the steps by telling him to go here and go there, only then he wouldn’t go down. He just stood on the top step and said ‘Hodorxy,’ like he was scared of the dark, but I had a torch. It made me so mad I almost gave him a swat in the head, like Old Nanxy is always doing.” He saw the way the maester was frowning and hurriedly added, “I didn’t, though.”
“Good. Hodorxy is a man, not a mule to be beaten.”
“In the dream I flew down with the crow, but I can’t do that when I’m awake,” Branxy explained.
“Why would you want to go down to the crypts?”
“I told you. To look for Fatherxy.”
The maester tugged at the chain around his neck, as he often did when he was uncomfortable. “Branxy, sweet child, one day Lordxy Eddardxy will sit below in stone, beside his father and his father’s father and all the Starks back to the old Kings in the Northxyxy … but that will not be for many years, gods be good. Your father is a prisoner of the queen in Kingxy’s Landingxy. You will not find him in the crypts.”
“He was there last night. I talked to him.”
“Stubborn boy,” the maester sighed, setting his book aside. “Would you like to go see?”
“I can’t. Hodorxy won’t go, and the steps are too narrow and twisty for Dancerxy.”
“I believe I can solve that difficulty.”
In place of Hodorxy, the wildling woman Oshaxy was summoned. She was tall and tough and uncomplaining, willing to go wherever she was commanded. “I lived my life beyond the Wallxy, a hole in the ground won’t fret me none, m’lords,” she said.
“Summerxy, come,” Branxy called as she lifted him in wiry-strong arms. The direwolf left his bone and followed as Oshaxy carried Branxy across the yard and down the spiral steps to the cold vault under the earth. Maesterxy Luwinxyxy went ahead with a torch. Branxy did not even mind—too badly—that she carried him in her arms and not on her back. Ser Rodrikxy had ordered Oshaxy’s chain struck off, since she had served faithfully and well since she had been at Winterfellxy. She still wore the heavy iron shackles around her ankles—a sign that she was not yet wholly trusted—but they did not hinder her sure strides down the steps.
Branxy could not recall the last time he had been in the crypts. It had been before, for certain. When he was little, he used to play down here with Robbxy and Jon and his sisters.
He wished they were here now; the vault might not have seemed so dark and scary. Summerxy stalked out in the echoing gloom, then stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the chill dead air. He bared his teeth and crept backward, eyes glowing golden in the light of the maester’s torch. Even Oshaxy, hard as old iron, seemed uncomfortable. “Grim folk, by the look of them,” she said as she eyed the long row of granite Starks on their stone thrones.
“They were the Kings of Winterxy,” Branxy whispered. Somehow it felt wrong to talk too loudly in this place.
Oshaxy smiled. “Winter’s got no king. If you’d seen it, you’d know that, summer boy.”
“They were the Kings in the Northxyxy for thousands of years,” Maesterxy Luwinxyxy said, lifting the torch high so the light shone on the stone faces. Some were hairy and bearded, shaggy men fierce as the wolves that crouched by their feet. Othersxy were shaved clean, their features gaunt and sharp-edged as the iron longswords across their laps. “Hard men for a hard time. Come.” He strode briskly down the vault, past the procession of stone pillars and the endless carved figures. A tongue of flame trailed back from the upraised torch as he went.
The vault was cavernous, longer than Winterfellxy itself, and Jon had told him once that there were other levels underneath, vaults even deeper and darker where the older kings were buried. It would not do to lose the light. Summerxy refused to move from the steps, even when Oshaxy followed the torch, Branxy in her arms.
“Do you recall your history, Branxy?” the maester said as they walked. “Tell Oshaxy who they were and what they did, if you can.”
He looked at the passing faces and the tales came back to him. The maester had told him the stories, and Old Nan had made them come alive. “That one is Jon Starkxyxy. When the sea raiders landed in the east, he drove them out and built the castle at White Harborxyxy. His son was Rickard Starkxyxy, not my father’s father but another Rickard, he took the Neckxy away from the Marsh Kingxyxy and married his daughter. Theonxy Starkxyxy’s the real thin one with the long hair and the skinny beard. They called him the ‘Hungry Wolfxy,’ because he was always at war. That’s a Brandon, the tall one with the dreamy face, he was Brandon the Shipwrightxy, because he loved the sea. His tomb is empty. He tried to sail west across the Sunset Seaxy and was never seen again. His son was Brandon the Burnerxy, because he put the torch to all his father’s ships in grief. There’s Rodrikxy Starkxyxy, who won Bear Islandxy in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts. And that’s Torrhen Starkxyxy, the Kingxy Who Knelt. He was the last Kingxy in the Northxyxy and the first Lordxy of Winterfellxyxy, after he yielded to Aegonxy the Conquerorxy. Oh, there, he’s Cregan Starkxyxy. He fought with Princexy Aemonxyxy once, and the Dragonknightxy said he’d never faced a finer swordsman.” They were almost at the end now, and Branxy felt a sadness creeping over him. “And there’s my grandfather, Lordxy Rickard, who was beheaded by Mad Kingxyxy Aerysxy. His daughter Lyannaxy and his son Brandon are in the tombs beside him. Not me, another Brandon, my father’s brother. They’re not supposed to have statues, that’s only for the lords and the kings, but my father loved them so much he had them done.”
“The maid’s a fair one,” Oshaxy said.
“Robertxy was betrothed to marry her, but Princexy Rhaegarxy carried her off and raped her,” Branxy explained. “Robertxy fought a war to win her back. He killed Rhaegarxy on the Tridentxy with his hammer, but Lyannaxy died and he never got her back at all.”
“A sad tale,” said Oshaxy, “but those empty holes are sadder.”
“Lordxy Eddardxy’s tomb, for when his time comes,” Maesterxy Luwinxyxy said. “Is this where you saw your father in your dream, Branxy?”
“Yes.” The memory made him shiver. He looked around the vault uneasily, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. Had he heard a noise? Was there someone here?
Maesterxy Luwinxyxy stepped toward the open sepulchre, torch in hand. “As you see, he’s not here. Nor will he be, for many a year. Dreamsxy are only dreams, child.” He thrust his arm into the blackness inside the tomb, as into the mouth of some great beast. “Do you see? It’s quite empt—”
The darkness sprang at him, snarling.
Branxy saw eyes like green fire, a flash of teeth, fur as black as the pit around them. Maesterxy Luwinxyxy yelled and threw up his hands. The torch went flying from his fingers, caromed off the stone face of Brandon Starkxyxy, and tumbled to the statue’s feet, the flames licking up his legs. In the drunken shifting torchlight, they saw Luwinxy struggling with the direwolf, beating at his muzzle with one hand while the jaws closed on the other.
And Summerxy came, shooting from the dimness behind them, a leaping shadow. He slammed into Shaggydogxy and knocked him back, and the two direwolves rolled over and over in a tangle of grey and black fur, snapping and biting at each other, while Maesterxy Luwinxyxy struggled to his knees, his arm torn and bloody. Oshaxy propped Branxy up against Lordxy Rickard’s stone wolf as she hurried to assist the maester. In the light of the guttering torch, shadow wolves twenty feet tall fought on the wall and roof.
“Shaggy,” a small voice called. When Branxy looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Fatherxy’s tomb. With one final snap at Summerxy’s face, Shaggydogxy broke off and bounded to Rickonxy’s side. “You let my father be,” Rickonxy warned Luwinxy. “You let him be.”
“Rickonxy,” Branxy said softly. “Fatherxy’s not here.”
“Yes he is. I saw him.” Tears glistened on Rickonxy’s face. “I saw him last night.”
“In your dream …?”
Rickonxy nodded. “You leave him. You leave him be. He’s coming home now, like he promised. He’s coming home.”
Branxy had never seen Maesterxy Luwinxyxy look so uncertain before. Bloodxy dripped down his arm where Shaggydogxy had shredded the wool of his sleeve and the flesh beneath. “Oshaxy, the torch,” he said, biting through his pain, and she snatched it up before it went out. Soot stains blackened both legs of his uncle’s likeness. “That … that beast,” Luwinxy went on, “is supposed to be chained up in the kennels.”
Rickonxy patted Shaggydogxy’s muzzle, damp with blood. “I let him loose. He doesn’t like chains.” He licked at his fingers.
“Rickonxy,” Branxy said, “would you like to come with me?”
“No. I like it here.”
“It’s dark here. And cold.”
“I’m not afraid. I have to wait for Fatherxy.”
“You can wait with me,” Branxy said. “We’ll wait together, you and me and our wolves.” Both of the direwolves were licking wounds now, and would bear close watching.
“Branxy,” the maester said firmly, “I know you mean well, but Shaggydogxy is too wild to run loose. I’m the third man he’s savaged. Give him the freedom of the castle and it’s only a question of time before he kills someone. The truth is hard, but the wolf has to be chained, or …” He hesitated.
… or killed, Branxy thought, but what he said was, “He was not made for chains. We will wait in your tower, all of us.”
“That is quite impossible,” Maesterxy Luwinxyxy said.
Oshaxy grinned. “The boy’s the lordling here, as I recall.” She handed Luwinxy back his torch and scooped Branxy up into her arms again. “The maester’s tower it is.”
His brother nodded. “If Shaggy comes too,” he said, running after Oshaxy and Branxy, and there was nothing Maesterxy Luwinxyxy could do but follow, keeping a wary eye on the wolves.
Maesterxy Luwinxyxy’s turret was so cluttered that it seemed to Branxy a wonder that he ever found anything. Tottering piles of books covered tables and chairs, rows of stoppered jars lined the shelves, candle stubs and puddles of dried wax dotted the furniture, the bronze Myrish lensxy tube sat on a tripod by the terrace door, star charts hung from the walls, shadow maps lay scattered among the rushes, papers, quills, and pots of inks were everywhere, and all of it was spotted with droppings from the ravens in the rafters. Their strident quorks drifted down from above as Oshaxy washed and cleaned and bandaged the maester’s wounds, under Luwinxy’s terse instruction. “This is folly,” the small grey man said while she dabbed at the wolf bites with a stinging ointment. “I agree that it is odd that both you boys dreamed the same dream, yet when you stop to consider it, it’s only natural. You miss your lord father, and you know that he is a captive. Fearxy can fever a man’s mind and give him queer thoughts. Rickonxy is too young to comprehend—”
“I’m four now,” Rickonxy said. He was peeking through the lens tube at the gargoyles on the First Keepxyxy. The direwolves sat on opposite sides of the large round room, licking their wounds and gnawing on bones.
“—too young, and—ooh, seven hells, that burns, no, don’t stop, more. Too young, as I say, but you, Branxy, you’re old enough to know that dreams are only dreams.”
“Some are, some aren’t.” Oshaxy poured pale red firemilk into a long gash. Luwinxy gasped. “The children of the forest could tell you a thing or two about dreaming.”
Tears were streaming down the maester’s face, yet he shook his head doggedly. “The children … live only in dreams. Now. Dead and gone. Enough, that’s enough. Now the bandages. Pads and then wrap, and make it tight, I’ll be bleeding.”
“Old Nanxy says the children knew the songs of the trees, that they could fly like birds and swim like fish and talk to the animals,” Branxy said. “She says that they made music so beautiful that it made you cry like a little baby just to hear it.”
“And all this they did with magic,” Maesterxy Luwinxyxy said, distracted. “I wish they were here now. A spell would heal my arm less painfully, and they could talk to Shaggy dog and tell him not to bite.” He gave the big black wolf an angry glance out of the corner of his eye. “Take a lesson, Branxy. The man who trusts in spells is dueling with a glass sword. As the children did. Here, let me show you something.” He stood abruptly, crossed the room, and returned with a green jar in his good hand. “Have a look at these,” he said as he pulled the stopper and shook out a handful of shiny black arrowheads.
Branxy picked one up. “It’s made of glass.” Curious, Rickonxy drifted closer to peer over the table.
“Dragonglassxy,” Oshaxy named it as she sat down beside Luwinxy, bandagings in hand.
“Obsidianxy,” Maesterxy Luwinxyxy insisted, holding out his wounded arm. “Forged in the fires of the gods, far below the earth. The children of the forest hunted with that, thousands of years ago. The children worked no metal. In place of mail, they wore long shirts of woven leaves and bound their legs in bark, so they seemed to melt into the wood. In place of swords, they carried blades of obsidian.”
“And still do.” Oshaxy placed soft pads over the bites on the maester’s forearm and bound them tight with long strips of linen.
Branxy held the arrowhead up close. The black glass was slick and shiny. He thought it beautiful. “Can I keep one?”
“As you wish,” the maester said.
“I want one too,” Rickonxy said. “I want four. I’m four.”
Luwinxy made him count them out. “Careful, they’re still sharp. Don’t cut yourself.”
“Tell me about the children,” Branxy said. It was important.
“What do you wish to know?”
“Everything.”
Maesterxy Luwinxyxy tugged at his chain collar where it chafed against his neck. “They were people of the Dawnxy Agexy, the very first, before kings and kingdoms,” he said. “In those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dornexy. There were no men at all. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdomsxy.
“They were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood. They lived in the depths of the wood, in caves and crannogs and secret tree towns. Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Their wise men were called greenseers, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods. How long the children reigned here or where they came from, no man can know.
“But some twelve thousand years ago, the First Menxy appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Armxy of Dornexyxyxy before it was broken. They came with bronze swords and great leathern shields, riding horses. No horse had ever been seen on this side of the narrow sea. No doubt the children were as frightened by the horses as the First Menxy were by the faces in the trees. As the First Menxy carved out holdfasts and farms, they cut down the faces and gave them to the fire. Horror-struck, the children went to war. The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door. The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children than men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze. Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Menxy met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Godsxy Eyexy.
“There they forged the Pactxy. The First Menxy were given the coastlands, the high plains and bright meadows, the mountains and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the children’s, and no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm. So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Facesxy.
“The Pactxy began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. In time, the First Menxy even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. The signing of the Pactxy ended the Dawnxy Agexy, and began the Age of Heroesxy.”
Branxy’s fist curled around the shiny black arrowhead. “But the children of the forest are all gone now, you said.”
“Here, they are,” said Oshaxy, as she bit off the end of the last bandage with her teeth. “Northxy of the Wallxy, things are different. That’s where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races.”
Maesterxy Luwinxyxy sighed. “Woman, by rights you ought to be dead or in chains. The Starks have treated you more gently than you deserve. It is unkind to repay them for their kindness by filling the boys’ heads with folly.”
“Tell me where they went,” Branxy said. “I want to know.”
“Me too,” Rickonxy echoed.
“Oh, very well,” Luwinxy muttered. “So long as the kingdoms of the First Menxy held sway, the Pactxy endured, all through the Age of Heroesxy and the Long Nightxy and the birth of the Seven Kingdomsxy, yet finally there came a time, many centuries later, when other peoples crossed the narrow sea.
“The Andalsxy were the first, a race of tall, fair-haired warriors who came with steel and fire and the seven-pointed star of the new gods painted on their chests. The wars lasted hundreds of years, but in the end the six southron kingdoms all fell before them. Only here, where the Kingxy in the Northxyxy threw back every army that tried to cross the Neckxy, did the rule of the First Menxy endure. The Andalsxy burnt out the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces, slaughtered the children where they found them, and everywhere proclaimed the triumph of the Seven over the old gods. So the children fled north—”
Summerxy began to howl.
Maesterxy Luwinxyxy broke off, startled. When Shaggydogxy bounded to his feet and added his voice to his brother’s, dread clutched at Branxy’s heart. “It’s coming,” he whispered, with the certainty of despair. He had known it since last night, he realized, since the crow had led him down into the crypts to say farewell. He had known it, but he had not believed. He had wanted Maesterxy Luwinxyxy to be right. The crow, he thought, the three-eyed crow …
The howling stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Summerxy padded across the tower floor to Shaggydogxy, and began to lick at a mat of bloody fur on the back of his brother’s neck. From the window came a flutter of wings.
A raven landed on the grey stone sill, opened its beak, and gave a harsh, raucous rattle of distress.
Rickonxy began to cry. His arrowheads fell from his hand one by one and clattered on the floor. Branxy pulled him close and hugged him.
Maesterxy Luwinxyxy stared at the black bird as if it were a scorpion with feathers. He rose, slow as a sleepwalker, and moved to the window. When he whistled, the raven hopped onto his bandaged forearm. There was dried blood on its wings. “A hawk,” Luwinxy murmured, “perhaps an owl. Poor thing, a wonder it got through.” He took the letter from its leg.
Branxy found himself shivering as the maester unrolled the paper. “What is it?” he said, holding his brother all the harder.
“You know what it is, boy,” Oshaxy said, not unkindly. She put her hand on his head.
Maesterxy Luwinxyxy looked up at them numbly, a small grey man with blood on the sleeve of his grey wool robe and tears in his bright grey eyes. “My lords,” he said to the sons, in a voice gone hoarse and shrunken, “we … we shall need to find a stonecarver who knew his likeness well …”