[South of the Wall, midday.]
In a village south of the Wall, ringed only by a river deep enough for a rowboat, about forty people lived — hard folk, with no kings or noble lands. They were chiefly fishermen, though they grew what the climate allowed: roots, turnips, and small, stone‑hard potatoes. They kept a few hens, three goats and an old dog, and the houses were wooden huts they had raised with their own hands, thatched roofs blackened by soot.
The village had no name; it was simply "the village" to those who lived there, and it likely did not appear on any map.
Olly, a boy of around ten, helped his father mend the fishing nets and aided his mother in skinning rabbits when they were lucky enough to catch one. His life was peaceful — he had never seen a real sword nor killed anything larger than a rat.
That morning had begun like any other: a gray sky over the settlement, the air smelling of wood smoke and salt fish, while Olly helped his father check the nets by the frozen stream and his mother gathered roots in the nearby wood. Neighbors repaired a fallen fence, the elders sat around the fire telling stories to the children, and the old dog dozed by the main hut, occasionally twitching an ear.
It was a normal day, with no alarms.
Until the wildlings came.
They burst through the palisade like a wave, screaming like madmen, faces scored with scars. A red‑haired woman fired from a hilltop, arrow after arrow, never missing, and behind her a towering red‑bearded man cleaved the villagers with his axe as if they were straw. The people tried to fight with kitchen knives, pitchforks, whatever they had at hand, but it was useless: one by one they fell.
Olly saw his mother run toward him, call his name, before a spear drove through her back, and his father tried to shield him but was felled by an axe blow that split him from the shoulder. The boy crawled among the corpses, hands shaking, and hid beneath a broken cart.
Everything was over in minutes.
Smoke from the fires began to rise and the screams dwindled as the wildlings gathered scraps; some were already biting into raw flesh. Then a hand seized his ankle and dragged him from his hiding place.
The man was tall and muscular, his face marked with scars. His teeth were sharpened, filed on purpose, and he smelled of blood.
—Do you know the way to the Black Castle? —he asked.
Olly nodded, unable to speak.
—Are those your parents? —the wildling pointed to the bodies by the ashes, and when the boy squeezed his eyes shut, the man gripped his jaw roughly.
—Open them —he ordered, licking his lips with disgust— I'll eat them. Do you hear me? I'll devour your mother and your father, dead as they are. Go and tell the crows at the Black Castle.
He let him go abruptly; it was plain they wanted him as a messenger. But just as Olly prepared to run, a new sound distracted him: hooves. Slow at first, as if from very far off, then clearer and closer.
Five figures on horseback halted at the village edge. They wore black leather and some plated armor, capes snapping in the wind, their faces pale. The wildling clicked his tongue.
—Crows? —he said excitedly, as if luck had smiled on him.
The newcomers bore red cloaks that moved with the breeze, dark fitted armor, and each sheathed a sword at his waist. Their horses were large, dark coated, with bright eyes.
None of the riders spoke or made a gesture; they dismounted in silence and halted in a straight line.
The first, in the center, was Edward, who slid from his horse with grace and no hurry. His ink‑black hair fell loose over his shoulders, he wore a red cloak, and his eyes took in everything with quiet calm. The others dismounted silently: Ser Vayrek, shorter and thin, face hooded, with long, fine fingers and a pair of vials at his belt beside knives as thin as needles, moving with soft, nearly noiseless steps.
Then Brask, tall and pale as marble, bore a halberd wrapped in black cloth which he unwrapped with care as if it were a sacred relic.
The fourth, Aelia, was a fair‑haired woman with her hair braided back; her armor shone more than the others', as if freshly polished; she moved with regal bearing, though her eyes were cold and she barely glanced at the village bodies.
Last came Anna, the youngest, thin as a rod with reddish hair, barefoot on the snow, smiling with an excited, almost childlike expression, as if on an outing.
The wildlings watched them silently, still stunned by the sudden arrival. Some raised their weapons, others exchanged looks, awaiting orders. The newcomers showed no haste and walked among the steaming corpses as one strolls through a garden.
Edward raised an eyebrow.
—Curious. Wildlings this far south of the Wall —he said in a calm, deep, clear voice, as if none of it affected him in the least— Lord Vlad was right; the region is more unstable than they supposed.
Brask nodded.
—They must have crossed before the last thaw; perhaps they even have camps farther south.
—And this? —Aelia asked, pointing to the bodies with a thoughtful motion —Should we intervene? This is a slaughter.
—They already have —interjected Ser Vayrek, sniffing the air— At least forty.
—So many for so little —murmured Anna with a childish pout, her eyes suddenly fixed on a line of burned bodies— And they're still lingering here? How slow.
They spoke as if the wildlings didn't exist, as if they weren't surrounded by men and women armed with axes and spears.
The murmurs among the wildlings grew louder; one shouted something in their tongue and another stepped forward, offended by the disdain, raising his bow and firing.
The arrow cut through the air, aimed straight for Edward's face, and he caught it with one hand without flinching, not even blinking; he held the projectile between his fingers, examined it calmly, and then let it drop to the ground.
The wildlings froze, as if unable to comprehend what had just happened.
—Enough —he said without changing his tone— Keep the redhead and the big one alive, plus a couple more. Vlad wants to offer gestures of good faith to his King-Beyond-the-Wall.
—And the boy? —asked Anna with a strange smile, pointing toward the village entrance, where Olly stood frozen as if waiting for something.
—Vlad made it clear, you know he doesn't like feeding on children —responded Edward, frowning.
Anna, visibly disappointed, made a subtle gesture, while Olly collapsed into the snow, falling into an instant sleep.
Then Edward drew his sword.
—Let's begin.
The first scream did not come from the newcomers, but from one of the wildlings who charged with his axe raised, trying to take the initiative, but he had barely taken three steps when something tore him through the air; his body split in two without anyone seeing the blow.
Chaos erupted immediately. One of the wildlings rose and vanished into the fog, as if dissolving into the air, and the snow creaked under the feet of those trying to retreat, unsure where to run. The village was no longer the same: the mist had fallen suddenly, thick and dense, and despite it being midday, nothing could be seen beyond a few steps.
A figure ran past, so fast it was just a shadow; another wildling fell with his throat open, then another and another. It was a massacre.
Brask was the first to raise his weapon, and the halberd spun as if an extension of his arm, decapitating one, impaling another, snapping bones like twigs. The most terrifying thing was that he laughed: with every strike, his smile widened and his eyes seemed to burn with a sickly light.
When one of the wildlings tried to strike him with a club, Brask simply vanished, dissolving into a dark cloud that dispersed and reappeared behind his enemy, sinking his teeth into the neck.
Anna danced among the bodies as if the snow were warm, her bare feet leaving no tracks, as if she didn't touch the ground. She moved among the living, brushing the cheek of a woman with one hand, almost tenderly, before tearing her face apart with claws long as blades, her laughter sharp and childlike; she leapt on another, biting his neck and drinking there and then, eyes closed as if savoring sweet wine.
Blood stained her chin and dress, but she seemed not to care, murmuring a childish lullaby as she did it.
Ser Vayrek slid across the ground; his body blurred, translucent at times, as if caught between this world and another. One of the wildlings threw a spear at him, swearing he had pierced him, but when he blinked, the knight was gone, and a second later he felt the metallic chill of a blade pierce his chest from within; Vayrek withdrew his knife without even looking at the man he had just opened.
A dozen wildlings tried to gather together to resist, forming a pathetic line. Aelia flew over them, literally: her figure rose with the wind, red cloak like extended wings, eyes glowing.
She fell like an arrow, sword extended, piercing one and then spinning gracefully as if dancing among the bodies; each strike was clean, precise, beautiful, but her victims died with expressions of absolute terror. Aelia did not feed, did not laugh, nor seemed to enjoy it; she was cold and clinical.
Edward walked through the slaughter, and wherever he passed, the wildlings' weapons broke, and their torches went out; the wildlings felt cold for no reason. One lunged at him with a knife, and Edward simply looked at him: the man froze, not from fear but because he could not move, his muscles refusing to obey, and Edward placed a hand on his chest, pushing him with such force that the body flew into a hut, exploding into pieces.
Some tried to flee into the forest, screaming, but they went no distance: a black wolf reached them among the trees, tearing them mercilessly, larger than a bear, eyes red as embers, Brask's gaze barely recognizable beneath the fur.
Others threw themselves to the ground, begging for their lives in languages they no longer understood, while Anna ignored them, Ser Vayrek silenced them, and Edward observed them as if they were already dead.
One of the last wildlings tried to hide under a cart, but all he could see was a figure, shrouded in mist, leaning toward him; he didn't see the face, only the eyes glowing in the shadows. He screamed, but no one else was alive to hear him.
And then, everything went silent.
The fog slowly dissipated, and the snow was stained red while smoke still rose from some huts. The five stood among the bodies: Anna licked the blood from her fingers, Brask rested the halberd on the ground, still dripping, Aelia wiped her blade with a serene expression, and Vayrek surveyed the remains, silently calculating. Edward simply lifted his gaze toward the survivors.
The only living ones huddled against a scorched wall: the red-haired woman trembled, hands bloody, clutching her broken bow, her voice hoarse from screaming. The giant red-haired man swayed with open, wet eyes, repeating meaningless words while blood splattered his beard. Two others breathed with difficulty, traumatized but alive, one with a wounded leg, the other still covered in ash, looking around as if he didn't recognize the world.
None of them understood what had happened, and they didn't know if they had dreamed, if the ice gods had descended, if it was a punishment or the end of times. Edward observed them for a moment and then pointed toward Aelia without raising his voice.
—Take care of them. Don't let them kill each other or escape.
—As you command —she replied coldly, sheathing her sword without looking at the prisoners.
Anna approached, playing with a blood-stained strand of hair, and reached out toward one of the survivors, eyes shining with curiosity.
—Can I play with one? Just a little… —her voice was sweet, childish.
—No, Anna —said Edward firmly, not even looking at her— These live.
—But… they're so ugly… —she murmured, pouting and spinning around with annoyance.
—Wake the boy —said Edward, ignoring her, his voice calm— He will come with us to the Black Castle.
No one responded. He ran a hand over his face, smearing it with a drop of blood that wasn't his, looked over the scattered bodies, the red snow, and the extinguished flames, and exhaled in exhaustion.
—We need to clean… clean this —he murmured— And then burn everything.
The cleaning began in silence, and no instructions were needed: Ser Vayrek focused on stacking the bodies with precision, as if arranging firewood, while Aelia gathered abandoned weapons and placed them beside the corpses. Anna whistled as she spread oil over the huts, spinning with graceful movements as if painting a mural, and Edward simply observed, as if all of this were an all-too-familiar routine.
When the last structure was doused, Brask threw a lit torch without ceremony, and the flames rose quickly, devouring roofs, walls, and bodies; the heat was intense, but none of them flinched, and the five simply stepped aside to avoid the smoke.
The prisoners were tied with ropes that Anna braided while whistling, as if weaving ribbons for a festival. The giant redhead didn't react when they bound him, eyes still fixed on the snow, and the red-haired woman sobbed without tears. The other two barely murmured, faces gray with fear. The scent of blood still hung in the air, but it wasn't just that keeping them in shock: it was the memory of screams, shadows, teeth, claws, and eyes that should not exist.
Anna stroked the red-haired woman's hair gently when she finished tying them.
—You're coming with us. Isn't it exciting?
Aelia tightened the knots mercilessly and led them toward the horses, already prepared, while Brask lifted the boy effortlessly and placed him in front of Edward as if he were just another pack.
As they departed, the village continued to burn, the flames consuming even the foundations; no house, roof, or corpse remained untouched.
They rode north, and no one spoke during the journey. The prisoners went in a line, tied together, some still barefoot, trembling and glancing nervously at the figures escorting them; no one tried to flee, and no one asked anything.
And among them, riding at the front, Edward looked toward the Wall, toward the Black Castle.