Arya IV

"Do, a deer, a female deer~"

She and Brad had made a game of practicing their Valyrian scales while they dug, turning the drill into a kind of work song. Always prepared, Ser had brought an engineer and enough spades for everyone. The ground they chose to plant their feet was called the Fist of the First Men, but they were too many. This ancient fort was really just a ring of rocks piled on top of a hill. Their host was over two thousand strong when they left the wall, and more were coming. There wasn't room for them all on the hill. So they dug.

They dug fighting positions called redoubts all around the hill, but especially around their only source of water. They reinforced these redoubts with logs packed with mud, and each one had a fire burning. A network of trenches spread out like a spider web, connecting every redoubt to the others and up the hill itself, where the officers could see everything for miles. If one position was imperiled, others could come to its aid with cover from the trenches.

A gentle rain had fallen the night before, making the earth soft and easy for a girl of eleven to drive a spade into all day. While she worked, Arya thought about that awful Craster and his wives. One of them wasn't much older than her and already with child. How she begged Arya to take her with them. It made her heart sick.

When Ser heard about what Craster did with his sons, his grey eyes went almost completely white, the way they sometimes got in battle, when the time for killing was upon them. "Alas, Arya, I've eaten his food, and the old man is protected by sacred guest right. But on the way back..."

They smiled together. Sometimes bad people needed killing, and riding with Ser was just the way to see it done.

She was only allowed to practice with Dark Sister, for that was the blade's name according to the Old Bear, with Ser Domeric. The black steel would notch any other man's sword, and only Ser was good enough to keep his guard with the blade flying fast at him. And it was fast! Arya felt like something of a dark sister herself when she wielded her new treasure. That was the truth of it, she realized: Sansa was the sister of light, and she the dark. The Dreadfort was her place now, not Winterfell, and if she married Brad Frey, she'd ask Ser for a holdfast sworn to him directly, but that was a matter that could wait years. For now, they must prepare. Wildlings, wights, Others, it made no matter; Arya Stark was ready for them all.

When Qhorin Halfhand came up from the Shadow Tower, there was a council with the officers and lords, a council Arya was allowed to sit in on.

"I say we send Mance an emissary," Ser suggested. The black brothers balked, and even her Father frowned.

The Old Bear, though, studied him intently. "To what end? Mance Rayder means to take his host over the wall. It is my purpose to stop him."

"He's stopped," Ser replied. "There are ten thousand men on the wall, repairing the old castles and digging in. We stand athwart his path in any case. The only way south from the Frostfangs is following the Milkwater River, and here we are. If he came at us with all his power, he'd be repulsed with heavy losses. You said he was no fool."

"He's not," said Jarmen Buckwell, another officer of the watch.

"Then he'll talk terms. I want to know everything he knows about the dead, the wights. The Others too, if he's seen them." Ser Domeric turned to Arya, making her gulp. She didn't especially like speaking in front of so many old men, but she'd do it if commanded. "Tell everyone what the girl told you, the daughter of Craster."

So she did. Arya spoke of how the Others' eyes were blue with hate, how their armor shimmered in the moonlight, and how they left no tracks upon the snow. Craster left his infant sons to them as offerings. They came only in the white night, when the snow was thick and heavy.

Lord Bolton, that is, Ser's father, did not flinch, but others among her father's bannermen shivered. "Only in the snow," he said simply.

"Right! I noticed that too!" Ser said excitedly. "I had hoped they'd attack us by now, but it's been warm and dry. There was just that one night of rain, and not a lot at that."

"Too warm," the Old Bear said. "The maesters say autumn is upon us. I have seen more winters than I care to in these parts, and the change of the seasons should not feel like this. There are queer powers at work. How is it, I ask you, that a slip of a girl found the sword of Brynden Rivers buried in lake mud?" He looked at the black dragon pommel of the sword she wore, looked in a way that made Arya especially uncomfortable, like he was looking at something queer, something unnatural.

"The gods brought us hence, of course," Ser stated with the kind of absolute certainty that always set Arya at ease. "They send Arya her dreams, and they sent her a wolf, and all Lord Stark's children. I would've liked another wolf," he complained. He and her father had argued about bringing Robb more than once, even summoning the younger ones from Riverrun, Bran at least. Ser said he'd not be averse to a third squire, but Father refused him outright. "Now they've sent a sword. My lords, you all know me. They name me hero, but might be my purpose was to prepare the true hero. With Dark Sister in her hands, Arya will be a match for most men before long. With her wolf and her sword, she's better. Every night I watch the wolf. Nymeria will know when the Others come for us."

His words made Arya feel terribly proud, like she had to train even harder to be equal to them. Even Father seemed to look at her in a new light.

***

A week later, it'd gotten a bit colder, and the ground was now too firm to dig so easily. Fortunate for them, the earthworks were complete. Rangers ranged further afield, and Ser got his way. Lord Rickard Karstark volunteered to ride up the Milkwater, flying a peace banner. They would have words with the King-beyond-the-Wall, and maybe answers.

Arya was accompanying Ser Domeric while he was planning out fields of fire for their fire arrows, making sure all was staged and ready. It could snow any night now, he'd said. He was greatly alarmed when Nymeria darted off, but the sun was shining. They only come at night, Arya remembered.

They followed the wolf down the steep hill, past the web of redoubts, and into the wood itself. Foresters had managed to clear most of the trees near their fortifications, both for fuel and sight lines, but the haunted forest was still there, as dark as ever. Nymeria slowed her pace for their sakes and turned back every so often to make sure they were following. Eventually, they found a patch of upturned earth where the wolf had been digging.

Beneath the moist, freshly dug soil, they were able to retrieve a cloth bundle. Within was an old warhorn that wouldn't sound, a goodly number of black glass blades, and hundreds of tiny arrowheads. Ser studied them closely.

"The gods again," he said in awe. "I don't know what these are, Arya, or their purpose, but we can make daggers out of these blades, and fix the longer ones to pikestaves. We'll keep them close, just in case."

"Even the broken horn?" she asked. It was pretty dirty and looked old.

"Sometimes the importance of a thing reveals itself in time. Just keep listening to your wolf and recording your dreams. The time will come."

***

The time came! Ser Domeric had the whole host on alert as soon as the first snowflake fell. Fires burned high and bright. Men fixed oilcloth rags to arrows and stuck them in the ground. They had torches and hammers and maces out when the first horn blew. Nymeria was snarling and slavering.

Harooooooooooo!

At first they dared to hope it was Karstark coming back, but luck was not with them. It was a black, moonless night, and stars had disappeared beyond heavy clouds. The only lights came from fire pit and torch.

Harooooooooooo! Two blasts, foes at least! It was possible Mance Rayder had taken Karstark's head and was marching on them, but shouldn't the scouts along the Milkwater have spotted his approach? The wildlings were tens of thousands.

Harooooooooooo! Three for Others!

"They're here!" Ser Domeric said stoutly. He called for his armor, not the ringmail, but the full red harness, the steel wrought in the shape of a flayed man, the red demon. Arya and Brad raced to buckle him into his plate. Snow was falling, and it was already getting colder. Arya's hands trembled as she worried at a stiff fastening. Eventually she got it tight. "This is what we came to do."

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The redoubts below were islands of fire, with here and there little flocks of fireflies taking wing. Fire arrows, she knew. From their high place, it was hard to see.

Everyone who rode with Ser Domeric, Al and Elia, Jack and Obara, Brad and Arya, and many a Dreadfort man beside, held aloft a burning torch in one hand and a blunt weapon in the other. The way was steep, with ankle-deep drifts, and the ringmail hauberk she wore was so cold she dared not touch it with bare skin.

As they got closer, they saw the horde, dead men with blue eyes and black hands skittering like ants in the gaps between the redoubts. Men were shouting and thrusting up torches as the wights tried to climb over the side of their fighting positions.

The lights in one of the little blocks at the base of the hill went out entirely, and the cries from its defenders were instantly silenced. Other nodes in their outer defenses seemed sorely pressed. "Remember, smash and burn," Ser said as he led them further down.

Every man they passed seemed to take heart when the light of the fire caught in Ser Domeric's red armor. Arya liked it too. If she could see him, she was safe. They waded down a path leading to the outermost ring. Arya noticed the redoubt that had fallen was already taken back, with a high oil fire burning, letting her see the skittering wights better than she liked.

As ever, Ser Domeric was first. He smashed a grasping arm peeking over the edge of a log with his warhammer, making the dead thing withdraw. Soon, they were all smashing and burning. Wights piled on wights, climbing over their fellows, trying to get at the living beyond. Arya brained one with her mace and ran the torch over the monster on the backswing. It didn't require much to catch at all. As soon as flames licked the cold hands, the body went up like it was covered in oil. The smell was beyond terrible, not rotten exactly, but cold and dead.

For a time, she was lost. All she could see was black bodies in flames. There were men, good, reliable men, on either side of her, and now and again fire arrows flew overhead. She had a scare when a giant snowbear with half its face rotted off reared up out of the sea of wights like a kraken from the deep come to pull them under, but Ser Domeric was on it right away. He dodged a swipe of its paws and answered with hammer blows too fast to see. When he jammed his torch in its mouth, the thing collapsed in final death.

They held. They held for a long time. Ser led them up the hill to fight for a time in the southern redoubts, which were in a checkerboard pattern to support one another. "They're not just mindless monsters," he said over the screams and sounds of fire consuming corpses. "They're trying to hit our water source from both sides, come on!"

Arya fought there too. She lost her mace and drew dark sister. It was as the tales said: when she cut off a dead man's arm, it tried to throttle her. They had fresh torches staged, and she managed to replace hers three times when black hands wrenched it from her grip.

Their battle was always small, with just the fighting position and the wights trying to take it filling her vision. She knew their fight was one of many, but it was easy to forget. Now and then, Ser Domeric would look up, checking for lights going out in other fighting positions. For the most part, they held.

In the early morning, he withdrew them to the high hill for rest and water, mayhaps a bite to eat. When Arya reached the Old Bear's tent, she realized she was covered in black blood. How did that even happen?

"The first line is holding," Ser Domeric reported. "Not a one of them has made it to the second line of defense. Dawn is a few short hours away."

Mormont nodded. "They only come at night, you said."

Father worried over the black blood, but Arya was fine, truly. Ser's evil conditioning made sure she could fight for hours. She was always careful to withdraw her arm before a wight could grab it. In fact, the pressure lessened to the point that they could relieve other positions so the men could rest a bit. Was this victory? Nymeria's fur was stiff with frozen blood and smelt of smoke. They locked eyes, and she knew.

"Ser!" Arya spoke up. "There's a gap in the enemy's attack! Nymeria knows the way. The Others are still out there. It's like the wights are their levies, and they're the lords."

"Then we mount up and attack," he responded confidently. Father misliked that very much, but Nymeria knew! That meant Arya knew! They saddled shaggy garons, and formed up with Ser Domeric at the head.

Down they rode, Ser Domeric's men and some of the reserve, down snowy trenches and over dead men, into the black treeline. Nymeria led the way. The deeper in the woods they got, the colder and queerer she felt. Arya saw a shimmer and a spray of blood. A pale blade cut straight through horse and rider both. She didn't have time to look for who it was.

Domeric brought his warhammer down on the crown of the Other's head, but the hammerhead shattered. The thing laughed an awful laugh, raspy and harsh like an out-of-tune instrument. It killed the horse beneath her ser, and he only just managed to jump clear.

But quick as lightning, Domeric was up with his red sword in his hand. They traded blows so fast she could hardly follow. The Other's pale blade was thin as parchment and seemed almost weightless, but it could cut and kill. The press of trees was too close to fight ahorse, so their men dismounted, finding other Others closing in. One marked her, and she met his pale blade with Dark Sister.

They were as beautiful and terrible as her dream, almost like she imagined Targaryens would be, not like men at all, though in that shape. With every move, the armor shifted, becoming of a color with white snow and brown bark, allowing her to almost see through the Other. They stepped lightly on the snow, leaving no prints.

She heard the clang of steel on ice, and saw Brad was crossing blades with another. He seemed to be driving it back when his own blade shattered just like Ser Domeric's hammer. It laughed an evil laugh, and Brad leapt backwards, only just avoiding the pale blade.

Arya was too far away to help and had her own problems. Even with Dark Sister, the Other was faster than her, and fresh. It tried her sorely, and she was tired from the battle besides. The thing might've done for her if the sound of ice cracking hadn't stayed the demon's sword arm.

There! Ser Domeric had killed the one he'd been fighting! The red sword bit deep, and the beautiful being had an ugly look on its face as it melted into mist. The sight of the death of one of their fellows terrified the other Others, and soon they were fleeing Ser's wrath.

Arya heard the sound of ice cracking again, which was the death rattle, and Brad was on his feet. He had the glass dagger in his hand, and Nymeria surged forward, biting down on another Other's wrist, holding it in place. She watched, transfixed, as Brad dashed forward madly and drove his black blade into the creature's heart.

Ice cracking. Death. She knew! The dragon glass could kill them! Her wolf found them weapons! Valyrian steel would serve, but for the rest, dragon glass would have to do.

The arrogance of the Other opposite her disappeared, and Arya pressed forward with renewed determination. It was almost like Dark Sister had a mind of its own. Amazingly, a shallow cut that grazed its thigh was enough. The glass cracked, and it dissolved like the rest. With every one that died, she noticed it got warmer. Mayhaps the Others didn't wait for the cold. Rather, they brought the cold with them. Yes, that made sense!

With one last crack of ice, the cold, queer feeling went away. Arya didn't know who did it. They were alone in the woods again. Even the snow beneath their boots seemed to be melting already, or mayhaps that slush was what the Others left behind when they fell.

Arya wanted to jump for joy, to run and tell her father what she did, but she noticed nobody else was cheering. Brad was all right, thank goodness, but Ser Domeric was kneeling over a dead man. When she got close, Arya saw it was Lord Roose, Ser's father.