A Storm of Swords

"We left him." Grenn sounded miserable. "I shook him and screamed at him, even slapped his face. Giant tried to drag him to his feet, but he was too heavy. Remember in training how he'd curl up on the ground and lie there whimpering? At Craster's he wouldn't even whimper. Dirk and Ollo were tearing up the walls looking for food, Garth and Garth were fighting, some of the others were raping Craster's wives. Dolorous Edd figured Dirk's bunch would kill all the loyal men to keep us from telling what they'd done, and they had us two to one. We left Sam with the Old Bear. He wouldn't move, Jon."

You were his brother, he almost said. How could you leave him amongst wildlings and murderers?

"He might still be alive," said Pyp. "He might surprise us all and come riding up tomorrow."

"With Mance Rayder's head, aye." Grenn was trying to sound cheerful, Jon could tell. "Sam the Slayer!"

Jon tried to sit again. It was as much a mistake as the first time. He cried out, cursing.

"Grenn, go wake Maester Aemon," said Pyp. "Tell him Jon needs more milk of the poppy."

Yes, Jon thought. "No," he said. "The Magnar…"

"We know," said Pyp. "The sentries on the Wall have been told to keep one eye on the south, and Donal Noye dispatched some men to

Weatherback Ridge to watch the kingsroad. Maester Aemon's sent birds to Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower too."

Maester Aemon shuffled to the bedside, one hand on Grenn's shoulder. "Jon, be gentle with yourself. It is good that you have woken, but you must give yourself time to heal. We drowned the wound with boiling wine, and closed you up with a poultice of nettle, mustard seed and moldy bread, but unless you rest. . . "

"I can't." Jon fought through the pain to sit. "Mance will be here soon … thousands of men, giants, mammoths … has word been sent to Winterfell? To the king?" Sweat dripped off his brow. He closed his eyes a moment.

Grenn gave Pyp a strange look. "He doesn't know."

"Jon," said Maester Aemon, "much and more happened while you were away, and little of it good. Balon Greyjoy has crowned himself again and sent his longships against the north. Kings sprout like weeds at every hand and we have sent appeals to all of them, yet none will come. They have more pressing uses for their swords, and we are far off and forgotten. And Winterfell … Jon, be strong … Winterfell is no more…"

"No more?" Jon stared at Aemon's white eyes and wrinkled face. "My brothers are at Winterfell. Bran and Rickon. . ."

The maester touched his brow. "I am so very sorry, Jon. Your brothers died at the command of Theon Greyjoy, after he took Winterfell in his father's name. When your father's bannermen threatened to retake it, he put the castle to the torch."

"Your brothers were avenged," Grenn said. "Bolton's son killed all the ironmen, and it's said he's flaying Theon Greyjoy inch by inch for what he did."

"I'm sorry, Jon." Pyp squeezed his shoulder. "We are all."

Jon had never liked Theon Greyjoy, but he had been their father's ward. Another spasm of pain twisted up his leg, and the next he knew he was flat on his back again. "There's some mistake," he insisted. "At Queenscrown I saw a direwolf, a grey direwolf … grey.. . it knew me." If Bran was dead, could some part of him live on in his wolf, as Orell lived within his eagle?

"Drink this." Grenn held a cup to his lips. Jon drank. His head was full of wolves and eagles, the sound of his brothers' laughter. The faces above him began to blur and fade. They can't be dead. Theon would never do that. And Winterfell … grey granite, oak andiron, crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their thrones … how could Winterfell be gone?

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father's face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins

till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn't, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night's Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red.

Catelyn

They heard the Green Fork before they saw it, an endless susurrus, like the growl of some great beast. The river was a boiling torrent, half again as wide as it had been last year, when Robb had divided his army here and vowed to take a Frey to bride as the price of his crossing. He needed Lord Walder and his bridge then, and he needs them even more now. Catelyn's heart was full of misgivings as she watched the murky green waters swirl past. There is no way we will ford this, nor swim across, and it could be a moon's turn before these waters fall again.