north of the wall
— AS THEY PRESSED ON TOWARDS THE ROCKY SPIRE, THEY WERE HIT WITH ANOTHER STORM.
Through the wind-whipped snow, a large figure became visible in the distance, forcing them to stop to ensure they were in no immediate danger.
"A bear," The Hound realised. "Big fucker."
Nymeria frowned, a feeling of discomfort crawling up her spine. Then it turned towards them, and ice set into the pit of her stomach.
"Do bears have blue eyes??" Gendry asked.
It was a rhetorical question. They all knew that blue eyes meant just one thing: we're fucked.
It began charging towards them, and their guide, who was a fair distance ahead, began running back to the group. Not fast enough, though.
Another bear hurtled out of seemingly nowhere from the left suddenly, snatching the man in his jaws, and then they were both just gone, the screams subsiding frighteningly quickly.
The group followed after them as quickly as they could, but there was nothing to be found but an abandoned spear and a couple pools of blood that darkened quickly as they began to freeze.
They formed a defensive circle, drawing weapons, but Nymeria knew it wouldn't do them much good. She and Wren had broken the Boltons' infantry line of many more men than they had here, and that was just one, not even fully-grown grizzly bear.
Snow bears were even larger, with a reputation for being especially nasty and vicious, even when they weren't part of the Army of the Dead. The snow, too, made it difficult to see more than a few feet in front of them, as if it were actively working against them.
With a sudden and deafening roar, one of the bears appeared from the blizzard, tearing into one of the wildlings, who screamed.
Jon rushed at it with Longclaw, but the blade barely nicked a creature this size, and he was quickly thrown away. Nymeria ran to his side, grateful to find that despite being a bit dazed, he was alright. Grabbing his hand, she hauled him back to his feet.
A short distance away, Beric and Thoros came at the monster with flaming swords, but they only seemed to irritate it, even as the bulk of its body caught flame. Soon enough, two more wildling scouts were dead on the ground while the bear turned its eyes on the Hound, who seemed paralysed by the sigh of the flames. When Thoros attempted to aid, large teeth dug deep into his torso, eliciting an agonised cry before he was tossed to the side like a rag doll.
With a shout, Nymeria snatched an abandoned dragonglass spear and leapt forward, twisting in midair to crack the dull end over the creature's head, gaining its attention and spinning swiftly away. She remained in the snow on one knee as it turned to her, muscles tense, spearpoint levelled.
"Come and get me," she ground out.
Massive paws charged over soft snow and she waited, unmoving... then at the last minute, she rushed forward two steps with a roar, pushing with all her strength. Everyone was silent as death as she stood there before the beast, obsidian jutting violently up through the roof of its mouth and the top of its skull.
As it crumpled, the blue light leaving its eyes, she took a step back, spear sliding from the frozen flesh as it lowered.
The group was silent as Jon approached her. As he reached towards her, she took hold of his arm, neither of them really sure who was reassuring who.
It didn't take long for their attention to turn to where Beric knelt by his fire priest, Thoros. When they moved closer, the unfortunate truth was obvious; he was dead.
"We'll have to burn him." Beric's voice was not necessarily sad, more resigned and regretful, as though he knew this day would not be forever postponed, but he'd hoped it might not come just yet.
While he used the last of the priest's drink to do the job, Jon, Nymeria and Tormund returned to the bear's prints, silently coming to the conclusion that they would have to follow them back to the source if they wanted what they came for.
The tracks brought them up one of the mountain's lower slopes and towards a frozen ravine where the snowfall had significantly lessened.
The sound of clanking armour and heavy footsteps below made them stop in their tracks. Staying low and as quiet as they could, they each peered over the edge to find a small group of the dead marching in single file behind a singular Walker, heading south.
"Where's the rest of them?" Jon muttered.
"If we wait long enough," Tormund warned quietly. "We'll find out."
°
The White Walker leading the small train of dead men stopped short in the middle of the ravine when he spotted the thin column of smoke just ahead. It appeared to emit from a small fire in their path – completely abandoned, but the walker seemed to know that it shouldn't be here. There should have been no one left alive to build fires this far north.
Then, from the rocks all around, the group of the living rushed them, blades raised with battle cries. They were pretty even as numbers went, and while Jon took on the leader, Nymeria found herself faced with a crow whose skull had been bashed in, swinging a large axe that wasn't the easiest to combat with her daggers.
He was quicker than one would expect of a dead guy, and he fought with brutal force that had her dodging and dancing around him, trying to get in close enough to stab him without getting sliced in half. Finally, she spun around him, slashing quickly at his wrist enough that it could no longer support the axe's weight, leaving it hanging limp at a very uncomfortable angle. From behind, she kicked out hard, and the wight went sprawling, breaking in half on the rocks, rendered useless despite its still-gnashing teeth.
A short distance away, Jorah struggled to breath, his dragonglass dagger knocked to the ground with a wight's hand attempting to crush his windpipe. Black spots were appearing in his vision, and then suddenly he could breathe again, his lungs sucking in as much air as they could as quickly as they could. The monster fell apart in front of his eyes, a Valyrian Steel dagger protruding from its ribs, stabbed through the back.
He held Nymeria's eyes for a beat before they widened, fixed on the wight rushing at her from behind. She whirled, daggers raised... and it fell to pieces before it ever reached her.
Looking around, she realised Jon had killed the leader, apparently rendering the others completely useless. There wasn't much time to catch their breath though.
As if by some stroke of luck, one wight had been left alive. It whirled around, snarling and snapping as they surrounded it. It kept on spinning this way and that before finally charging for a gap in the circle.
Didn't really work out in the thing's favour when Tormund simply punched it to the ground with ease. On their own, these things were actually kind of pathetic. A few others tackled it, and that's when it opened its jaws letting out a long, echoing, ear-piercing screech that only cut short when the Hound clamped a hand harshly over its mouth.
Jon and Nymeria were the first to pick up on the low rumbling that grew slowly louder as the seconds passed – a sound like a hurricane, or an avalanche. They turned to the opening of the ravine, eyes settling on the quickly-approaching thick clouds that looked all too familiar.
Hardhome.
"Fuck," she hissed.
"We need to move."
"We need to get a raven to Daenerys."
Nodding, Jon turned to Gendry. He was the smallest besides Nymeria. That made him lighter and faster.
Only a few words were exchanged before he passed his hammer off to Tormund and took off running south while the others fled straight down the ravine. All of them together stood no chance at escaping the dead, but if Gendry got away, maybe they could survive long enough for the dragons to help. Or at the very least, someone else would have to be sent to catch a dead man to show Cersei.
The closer the thundering got, however, the less hopeful Nymeria felt. It was beginning to sound less like a storm and more like thousands of feet and hooves and the death rattles of thousands of lungs that should never have moved again.
"Come on! Run!"
"Come on!"
The rocks opened up around them in a wide circle. None of them thought to question it until too late, when the ground began to crack beneath their feet, making them all skid to a stop. They'd stumbled onto a frozen lake, but the lake didn't appear to be interested in staying completely frozen much longer.
Then the roaring grew louder again. Turning, they saw with horror that the ravine had flooded with dead soldiers, all rushing straight towards them. It was the army or the lake, and at least the lake had a small island in the middle.
"Go!"
They ran as fast as they could, their undead prisoner screeching and snarling all the way, but there was nothing they could do to stop the horde from fanning out all around the lake, encircling them and trapping them at the centre.
Their only saving grace came when they'd reached the island, and one of the wildlings who'd fallen a pace or so behind was tackled harshly by three wights at once. The ice shattered beneath the weight, and as others tried to charge forward, the broken ice spread all around them, forming an impassable ring for the army that could not swim.
They all stopped, not that that was much better. They stood eerily still and eerily quiet, the only sound being the whistling winds and the rasp of decaying windpipes. Somehow they were more terrifying like this. More eerie.
But all the living could do as they shivered on their lonely little island and the dead stared them down was pray that maybe, just maybe, Gendry would make it and that Daenerys would reach them in time.
