[169] The Longest Night Approaches

Chapter 169: The Longest Night Approaches

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[Few Years Later | Year 304 AC]

The Dragon has been reigning for a couple of years now. The realm had stabilized. And yet, in the distant North, snow fell like ash across the land, the flakes a memory of a dead summer.

Robb Stark stood atop Winterfell's ancient battlements, his breath misting in the frigid air as he watched the horizon birth an army. They came through the white curtain of winter like wraiths given substance, thousands upon thousands of fur-clad figures moving in loose formation across the frozen fields.

The wildlings, the Free Folk, the terror beyond the Wall made flesh and given purpose.

His bannermen shifted nervously behind him. Lord Umber's hand hadn't left his sword hilt in the past hour, knuckles white beneath worn leather gloves. Even the Greatjon, who'd laugh in the face of southern knights and their pretty armor, looked uneasy at the sight of so many savages approaching their gates.

"Should we sound the horns, Your Grace?" Maester Luwin asked, his chain clinking softly in the wind. Luwin seemed to have lost his usual warmth in the last few years. Then again, warmth seemed a distant memory these days, both literal and figurative.

"No." Robb's voice carried the weight of kingship, a burden he'd never wanted but couldn't escape. "Look closer. At their head."

Through the swirling snow, a figure in black emerged from the mass of wildlings. He rode tall in his saddle, the dark wool of the Night's Watch stark against the white landscape. Even from this distance, even after years apart, Robb knew those shoulders.

That particular way of sitting a horse that spoke of someone who'd learned to ride before he could properly walk.

"Jon," he muttered, and the name carried on the wind like a prayer answered.

The tension among his men shifted but didn't dissipate. A bastard brother was one thing. A bastard brother leading an army of wildlings to their gates was quite another.

"Your Grace," Lord Glover stepped forward, his scarred face grim beneath his steel cap. "That's ten thousand savages at least. Maybe more. We should–"

"We should go meet my brother," Robb cut him off, already moving toward the stairs. "Bring twenty of our best riders. And Glover? They're not savages anymore. They're… well, let’s see what they are."

Robb would have never uttered those words if it weren’t for Jon. His followers, however, doubted that wisdom.

The ride out from Winterfell's gates felt like swimming against a tide of history. Northern knights in steel and mail facing down warriors dressed in bones and hide, two worlds that had been enemies since the first men raised the Wall. The snow crunched beneath their horses' hooves, their steps like small thunders in the full silence.

When they were close enough to see faces clearly, both parties stopped.

Jon Snow sat his black destrier like a man who'd seen the end of the world and lived to warn of it. His face, always serious even as a boy, now carried lines that spoke of impossible choices and pyrrhic victories. The wildlings behind him weren't the rabble Robb had expected. They stood in something approaching formation, their eyes hard but disciplined.

Then Jon's mouth quirked, that ghost of a smile Robb remembered from childhood snowball fights and stolen lemon cakes.

"You got fat," Jon called out, and the absurdity of it, the sheer normalcy of brotherly insult in this moment of tension, shattered something in Robb's chest.

He barked out a laugh that turned into something almost like a sob. "You got uglier, bastard."

They spurred their horses forward simultaneously, meeting in the space between armies. The embrace was fierce, desperate, two boys who'd become kings clutching at the last piece of their childhood. Robb could feel Jon trembling, though whether from cold or emotion he couldn't tell.

"I thought you were dead," Robb whispered into his brother's shoulder. "When we heard about the mutiny, about what happened at Craster's..."

"Takes more than a few knives to kill a Snow," Jon replied, pulling back to look at him properly. "Though it was close. Too close."

Around them, the tension began to ease. Wildlings and northmen still eyed each other with centuries of suspicion, but their leaders' reunion had given them permission to lower hands from weapons, to see enemies as potential allies.

"Your Grace," Jon said louder, formal now for the sake of their audiences. "I bring dire news from the Wall. News that cannot wait."

Robb nodded, slipping back into his king's mask. "Then let's get you inside. All of you." He raised his voice to carry. "The Free Folk are guests of Winterfell! Any man who breaks the guest right will answer to me personally!"

The march back to the castle was surreal.

Wildlings entering Winterfell not as invaders but as refugees. Some of his bannermen would rage, Robb knew. But they hadn't seen what Jon's eyes held, that terrible certainty that made every other concern seem petty.

****

The great hall of Winterfell had seen many historic moments, but few as strange as this.

Jon Snow sat at the high table where once only trueborn Starks had claim, a cup of ale steaming between his hands. They'd cleared the hall of all but the most trusted, leaving just the two brothers and the weight of unspoken catastrophe.

"You look older," Robb said, studying his brother's face in the firelight. "Like father did, after Robert's Rebellion."

Jon's laugh held no humor. "I've seen things that would make Robert's Rebellion look like a harvest festival." He took a long pull of ale, gathering himself. "The Wall is going to fall, Robb."

The words hung in the air like a blade waiting to drop.

"Fall how? If you’re leading the Wildlings, then Mance Rayder can’t possibly–"

"Not fall to the wildlings. Fall to magic. To them." Jon's knuckles whitened around his cup. "The Night King brought it down with power older than the Wall itself. The entire structure, seven hundred feet of ice and ancient spells, will crumble like sand. Soon."

Robb felt his world tilt. The Wall was eternal, as much a part of the world as the sun rising in the east. "The dead… The White Walkers. They're real."

"Real and marching south." Jon's voice carried the weight of witnessed horror. "Every wildling village they passed through joined their ranks. The same will happen to North soon… Every man, woman, and child who falls will rise again with blue eyes and no mercy. I've watched them tear apart seasoned rangers like they were made of parchment."

"How many?"

"More than we can count. More than we can fight." Jon met his eyes directly. "Hundreds of thousands, maybe more by now. They took most of the Gift before we could evacuate. They don't tire, don't eat, don't feel cold. They just march, and march, and march."

Robb's mind raced through defensive positions, troop movements, supply lines, all the mathematics of war he'd learned through blood and failure. But every equation came up the same: insufficient.

"How do we fight them?"

"Fire works, if you have enough of it. Dragonglass shatters them like they're made of ice. Valyrian steel, if you can get close enough without being overwhelmed." Jon pulled something from his cloak, setting it on the table. An obsidian dagger, its edge sharp enough to split shadow. "I brought what we could carry, but it's not enough. Not nearly enough."

"The Dragon King," Robb said, the name tasting like salvation and damnation both. "He knew. That’s why he sent the obsidian daggers to the Night’s Watch. Yet it wasn’t enough to stop them. In that case, his dragons, his fire..."

"Yes. That's our only real hope." Jon's expression was grim. "I've never met Viserys Targaryen, but the stories that reach even beyond the Wall paint him as something between a god and a monster. If anyone can face the Night King..."

The Dragon King and The Night King.

"He's both," Robb said quietly. "God and monster. I've seen him transform a frightened girl into a queen with a few words, and burn a man alive for speaking out of turn. He rules through fear and fascination in equal measure."

"Then let's hope his fascination with power extends to saving the realm that feeds it." Jon stood, moving to the window where snow continued to fall. "We have a week, maybe less. The dead don't stop for storms or darkness. How fast can you get word to King's Landing?"

"Ravens fly within the hour. But Jon..." Robb joined him at the window, looking out at the courtyard where wildlings and northmen uneasily shared space. "Are you certain? About all of this?"

Jon turned to him, and in his dark eyes Robb saw the truth of it. The end of everything, marching south on frozen feet.

"I held the Wall for as long as I could. Fought them at every turn. Lost more good men than I can count." His voice broke slightly. "I wouldn't have abandoned my post for anything less than the actual end of the world."

Robb gripped his brother's shoulder, feeling the tremor there. "Then we face it together. The pack survives."

"The pack survives," Jon echoed, but his eyes said what his mouth wouldn't.

If any of us survive at all.

****

Morning light crept through silk curtains like a thief, painting gold across a tangle of limbs and scattered clothing that told stories of the night's excesses.

I stretched, feeling the pleasant ache of well-used muscles and the particular satisfaction that came from a night spent in the company of beautiful women. The bed, a monstrosity that could comfortable hold eight, currently held five.

Margaery's rose-scented hair spilled across my chest. Arianne curved against my side like a cat, her breath warm on my shoulder. Yara sprawled with characteristic abandon, one leg thrown over Kinvara, who somehow managed to look serene even in sleep. And at the foot of the bed, because she insisted she didn't deserve the honor of sleeping beside me directly, Lady Clegane dozed with her head on my calf.

Life, I thought with deep satisfaction, is good when you're the Dragon King.

The scent hit me then, cutting through perfume and sex and morning air.

Wrong. Ancient. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.

I slowly turned my head toward the window. My mana-infused senses, sharper than any bloodhound's, detected something that shouldn't be in the direction of the Wall.

Death. But not the ordinary death of battle or age. This was Death with intent, with hunger, with purpose.

I sat up carefully, not wanting to wake my queens and lovers. Margaery murmured something about trade agreements in her sleep. Arianne's hand sought the warmth I'd left behind. But my attention focused entirely on that impossible scent carried on the wind.

So, I thought, a smile playing at my lips that would have terrified anyone who saw it. The final game now begins.

The Night King was coming. And despite the horror of it, despite the death that would follow, I felt something I hadn't experienced in the last few years.

Anticipation.

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