274 AC, Beyond the Wall
The cave smelled of moisture, blood, and tension. The ground was trampled, the air heavy, and the torch light trembled on the walls, as if it itself was afraid to look.
I entered without a word.
Patches was already there.
He sat opposite the bound Skagos.
"Are you sure that's everything?" — Patches asked, leaning slightly. His voice was soft like snow that covers a fresh grave. — "Because others said the same before. And then... when we compared their answers, it ended badly for them."
He fell silent for a moment. He looked the prisoner straight in the eyes. Neither anger nor compassion. Only the bottomless indifference of a predator who has already decided but still allows the victim to speak.
"You heard it yourself" — he added. — "They screamed loudly."
Skagos swallowed. He swept his gaze across the cave interior, as if looking for salvation in the stone.
Patches didn't move.
"So... are you sure?" — he repeated.
At that moment, my shadow fell on both of them.
Patches glanced sideways. The smile disappeared from his face — not out of fear, but as if he considered the scene was coming to an end and there was no need to play anymore.
"My lord" — he said with a hint of a bow. — "We're asking the last questions. Our friend is just wondering if he remembers everything correctly."
Skagos quickly started nodding in confirmation.
Patches, satisfied with the prisoner, continued:
"You see, how willing to cooperate. It's a pity that some were not so willing to cooperate earlier."
Skagos twitched, as if he didn't know whether it was a joke or a threat.
Patches didn't care about him.
"We learned that they came here for their traditional hunting of the wildlings."
He paused for a moment, looking at how it sounds when spoken out loud.
"They entered the caves for their dragonglass equipment, which they use for hunting." — he added with reluctant precision. — "He says that since they managed to burn Hardhome, they maintain its status as a cursed place. For the wildlings, it's a dead land. But for them... it's a hunting ground. They hunt people here. And no one returns to tell what really happened."
Skagos didn't deny it.
He just stared ahead, as if trying not to see his own words.
The silence lasted a few more seconds. Then I breathed quietly through my nose and spoke calmly, but without a shadow of doubt:
"Alright. Since there are no more secrets here, it's time to focus on the real purpose of this expedition."
"We'll deliver the prisoners to NorthHeal" — I said coldly. — "Let them contribute to the development of the North."
I turned to Howland, who had just entered the cave.
"Prepare everything for departure. Weapons, supplies, patrol reports. We leave in an hour. I don't want to stay here longer than necessary."
Howland nodded and disappeared without a word.
Six months passed.
The wildlings we encountered were not one people. They were not united by a common goal or any chosen king. They had no council, no alliances, not even maps. They had chieftains. Men with names I didn't know — and didn't need to know. It was enough that they knew who I was.
We would come. Surround the settlement. I would challenge the chieftain to stand against me in a duel — and each of them would accept the challenge. Not because they wanted to. But because they had to. Because refusing would be blasphemy. Because they feared the wrath of the old gods more than death by my hand.
And each of them lost.
But they were not the real problem.
The real threat were the cannibals.
We failed to find their main camp. We didn't know where they came from, where they slept, where they disappeared after an attack. They left no traces of campfires, built no palisades, gathered no supplies — as if they were not a people, but a shadow of something that was just waiting to fully awaken.
And then the birds appeared.
Not single. Not wild. And certainly not random.
The ravens did not behave like ravens. They did not flock to carrion. They did not screech. They did not flee when a person approached with a torch. They watched.
They hung in the air, as if waiting for a signal, as if someone held an invisible leash and was just deciding when to let go.
And then they moved.
Always the same.
First the ravens. Then them.
They were not difficult to defeat. They did not pose a real threat to well-prepared people. But still — each such attack got under the skin. Not through strength, not through loss... but through repetitiveness. Through that rhythmic, inhuman precision with which they repeated. As if someone, somewhere, was testing our reactions.
Fenrir grew quickly. Too quickly for an ordinary wolf. When he appeared by my side half a year ago — he was just a puppy, a small creature with fur so light that it almost merged with the snow. Now he was already the size of an adult German shepherd, and everything indicated that this was just the beginning.
He was not afraid of people. He was not afraid of fire. He was not afraid of fighting. But the ravens... the ravens irritated him. He watched them in silence, growled before they even appeared in the sky. He would raise his head and look up long before the first shadow moved over the camp — as if he not only sensed their presence but knew it. As if he remembered.
And now he sat by the ship's bow, motionless like a statue, unmoved by wind, by waves, by the bustle of people.
On other galleys, people were finishing preparations. Checking ropes, fastenings, supplies. Gathering for a journey that was to take them far from these lands — and perhaps even further than they could imagine. Their movements were confident, calm, as if half a year in this cursed land had etched in them a discipline they had not known before.
I looked at the officers. One nodded, then another, then a third — without words, without orders. It was enough. They knew what to do.
"We're sailing" — I said quietly, almost in a whisper, but loud enough for the horn to carry this order further.