A/N: I wonder what comes :o Hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a comment if you did! :)
If you want to read 5 to 10 chapters ahead,patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FullHorizon
----------------------------------------------------
Year 300 AC
Hardhome, Beyond the Wall
The wall of corpses crashed into Jon's flank like a frozen avalanche. Bone and sinew scraped against his scales, a thousand dead hands clawing for purchase. He swept his tail in a vicious arc, sending bodies cartwheeling through the air, but more surged forward to take their place.
Too many. Far too many.
"Get to the ships!" He bellowed the words, but what emerged was a roar that shook ice from the cliffs. The Free Folk nearest him stumbled, hands pressed to their ears.
A child—couldn't have been more than six namedays—tripped in the snow. The dead were on her in heartbeats, skeletal fingers reaching. Jon's massive head snapped down, jaws closing around three wights at once. Ancient bones crumbled between his teeth, tasting of frozen earth and something worse. He spat them out, using his snout to nudge the girl toward her mother, making her trip again.
"They're cuttin' us off from the water!" Val's voice, sharp with urgency. She'd formed a defensive line with what fighters they had, but Jon could see it wouldn't hold. Not against this.
The temperature kept dropping. His breath came out in great gouts of steam that froze instantly, falling as snow. The scales along his spine rippled with discomfort—cold seeping through in a way that should have been impossible. His inner fire flickered like a candle in a gale.
The shield that guards the realms of men. The words mocked him. What good was a shield against an ocean?
More Free Folk fell. An old woman went down beneath a pile of corpses, her screams cutting off abruptly. A man tried to carry two children at once, slipped, and the dead were on them before Jon could move. The ships seemed impossibly far away, the space between packed with lurching bodies.
I need to clear a path.
The thought came with a surge of heat in his chest—not the careful warmth he'd been maintaining, but something volcanic. It built behind his breastbone, climbing his throat in waves that made his whole body glow from within. He'd resisted this, feared what it meant to embrace this part of himself, but—
A mother shielded her infant with her own body as wights closed in.
Enough.
Jon reared back, wings spread wide, and let the fire come.
What erupted from his maw wasn't the orange-red he'd expected. Yellow-white flame, bright as the heart of a star and fierce as summer lightning, screamed from his throat in a torrent that turned night to day. The heat was beyond description—sand turned to glass where it touched, ice not melting but simply ceasing to exist. The first ranks of wights didn't burn; they were unmade, reduced to nothingness in an instant.
The yellow-white fire carved a corridor through the dead, a hundred feet wide and twice as long. But more than that—where it passed, the very air changed. The bone-deep cold retreated, pushed back by warmth that felt almost alive. Snow that had been falling sideways in the gale drifted down gently. For a few precious moments, the blizzard itself recoiled.
"Seven bloody hells," someone whispered.
Jon's legs trembled. The fire had taken something from him, drawn on reserves he didn't know he had. His vision swam, the world tilting dangerously.
"Through the gap!" Val didn't waste the opportunity. "Move yer arses!"
Free Folk poured through the corridor he'd created, racing for the ships. But already the cold was returning, pressing in like a living thing. And from the heights, their riders were coming.
The ice spiders descended the cliff face in perfect silence, their movements a horrible poetry of too many legs moving in impossible synchronization. Up close, Jon could see their bodies weren't truly ice but something worse—a substance that seemed to exist between states, neither solid nor liquid, refracting light in ways that hurt to perceive.
The Others rode with casual grace, as if descending a vertical wall of ice in a blizzard was a pleasant afternoon's ride. One raised its blade—that impossible weapon of frozen starlight—and the temperature plummeted further. Jon's recent flame-path began to freeze over, trapping fleeing Free Folk in ice that formed faster than they could run.
No.
The first ice spider reached him before Jon could recover his balance. Eight crystalline legs, each thick as a man's torso, drove into the frozen shore with sounds like breaking glass. Its rider—one of the Others—raised that impossible blade of frozen starlight.
Jon's chest heaved, trying to summon fire that wouldn't come. The well was dry, scraped hollow by that white inferno. His throat burned with phantom heat, but nothing emerged save wisps of steam.
No fire. Fine. I still have claws.
The Other's blade descended in a perfect arc. Jon twisted, feeling the weapon's passage freeze the air beside his neck. His massive claw swept up, catching the ice spider's thorax. Frozen flesh shattered like cheap pottery, legs spasming as the creature died. Its rider tumbled forward, right into Jon's waiting grasp.
He closed his claws.
The Other didn't scream. It simply... ceased. Where Jon's talons met, the creature burst like overfilled wineskin, its form dissolving into glittering powder that the wind scattered instantly. The sword fell, hitting stone with a sound like winter's own laughter before vanishing into mist.
Too easy. That was too—
Movement. The other three had spread wide, their spiders scaling the cliff walls, moving to flank him. They'd watched their companion die, learned from it. These weren't mindless beasts.
"Get to the bloody ships!" Jon roared at the Free Folk still gawking. His voice emerged as thunder, shaking icicles from the cliffs. "Now!"
Val grabbed a frozen child, hauling him toward the water. "You heard him! Move yer arses or I'll feed you to the dead meself!"
The second Other came from above, its spider dropping from the cliff face in eerie silence. Jon reared up on his hind legs, wings spread for balance, catching the creature mid-fall. His jaws snapped shut on spider and rider both, frozen ichor flooding his mouth with a taste like copper and starlight. He bit down harder, feeling the Other's form collapse between his teeth.
But the third was already moving. While Jon dealt with its fellow, it had circled behind, and now its blade sang through the air toward his exposed flank. Jon spun, but in this massive form, he moved like a ship changing course—powerful but slow. The blade's tip scored along his scales, and—
Pain.
Real pain, not the distant sensation of claws on armor. The Other's weapon had found a gap between scales, slicing into his hind led. Purple blood, hot as forge-fire, splattered the snow, steaming and hissing.
Jon's roar shook the cliffs. Rocks tumbled down, crushing wights beneath tons of stone. His tail whipped around with desperate fury, catching the Other before it could dance away. The impact sent it flying into the cliff face with enough force to embed it three feet deep in solid rock. When Jon wrenched his tail free, only glittering fragments remained.
The last Other had used the distraction wisely. Jon felt rather than saw it—a presence above and behind, its spider scaling his own back, using his blind spot. Claws designed to grip glaciers found purchase between his scales, and the Other raised its blade high.
Like a man killing a dragon. The thought came with bitter irony. How many songs are sung of such heroes?
Jon threw himself backward.
His full weight—tons of scale and muscle and fire made flesh—crashed down on the beach. The ice spider's death-scream was a sound like shattering cathedral windows. But its rider was nimble, rolling free at the last instant, blade still in hand.
They faced each other on the frozen shore. Jon bleeding blood from his wing, breathing in gasps that emerged as steam. The Other standing with inhuman grace, its armor unmarred by their battle, those blue-star eyes showing something that might have been... respect?
It came at him low and fast, using its smaller size like a dagger against a sword, the ground freezing with every step. Jon's claw swept down—missed. His bite snapped on empty air. The Other flowed like water, like wind, always where his attacks weren't.
The blade found another gap, this time where his foreleg met his chest. Deeper than before. Jon felt it pierce through scale and flesh, felt the terrible cold of it spreading inward like poison. His left foreleg went numb.
I'm going to lose.
The Other danced back, preparing for another strike. Around them, the battle had slowed. Wights stood motionless, watching their master's duel. Even the Free Folk had paused in their flight, transfixed by the sight of dragon and demon locked in mortal combat.
Think. You're not just a beast. Think like a man who happens to be a dragon.
The Other came again, blade singing its winter song. Jon didn't try to catch it this time. Instead, he fell.
All his weight, collapsing onto his wounded foreleg, letting himself topple sideways. The Other's blade, aimed for his throat, met only air. And as Jon fell, his uninjured wing swept around like a closing door.
The wing's edge caught the Other across the midsection. For an instant, those blue-star eyes widened—the first emotion Jon had seen in them. Then the ancient creature split in half, dissolving into crystal dust before the pieces hit the ground.
Jon lay gasping on the frozen shore, purple blood pooling beneath him. His whole body shook with exhaustion, every breath a struggle. But he was alive. And the Others were—
Half the wights collapsed. Like puppets with cut strings, they tumbled to the ground, finally granted the peace of true death. But only half.
Why are they all not all…
Jon forced himself upright, ignoring the scream of his wounds. The remaining wights stood motionless, no longer attacking but not fleeing either. They watched him with empty sockets, waiting.
Four Others. Four thousand wights, maybe more. But only half fell when I killed their masters.
The arithmetic was simple and terrible. There were more Others. Somewhere in this frozen hell, more of those creatures commanded the dead. And these remaining wights...
They began to retreat. Not a rout, not fleeing in terror. They walked backward into the storm, maintaining their formations, empty eyes never leaving Jon. A tactical withdrawal.
"Seven bloody hells," someone whispered behind him.
Jon turned—too fast. His wounded foreleg buckled, nearly sending him crashing down again. Val stood there, axe in hand, staring at the retreating dead.
"They're leaving," she said. "Why are they leaving?"
Because their real master isn't here. Jon didn't voice the thought. His throat was raw, and when he tried to speak, only a rattling growl emerged.
"Jon?" Val stepped closer, and he saw something in her eyes he'd never expected from a spearwife—concern. "Yer bleedin' something terrible."
Purple blood had turned the snow around him into violet slush. Each breath sent fresh rivulets down his scales. The Other's blade had done more than cut flesh; he could feel the cold of it spreading through his body, fighting his inner fire.
Toregg appeared at Val's shoulder, his scarred face grim. "Ships are loaded. But we got only half who were here. Rest..." He gestured at the corpse-strewn beach.
Jon tried to stand, managed it on three legs. His left foreleg dragged useless, but slowly coming back to activity.
But I'm not done yet.
He looked toward the ships, then back at the storm where the wights had vanished. Somewhere out there, more Others waited. Commanded. Planned.
This was just a test, he realized with cold certainty. They wanted to see what I could do. And now they know.
----------------------------------------------------
Grenn's boots slipped on blood-slick ice as another wight lurched at him. He brought his dragonglass spear up, catching the corpse through its rotted chest. The thing collapsed into old bones and frozen meat, but three more shambled forward to take its place.
"Should've stayed on the bloody ship," Pyp wheezed beside him, voice pitched high with terror. His own spear shook in his grip. "But no, had to follow you, didn't I? 'Can't let Grenn die alone,' I said. Fool that I am."
"Less talking, more stabbing!" Grenn drove his spear through another wight's skull. The crack of bone made his teeth ache.
He'd made his choice when he saw the old woman struggling up the gangplank, wheezing with each step. The woman had survived seventy winters beyond the Wall—deserved to see one more. Grenn had hauled her aboard and taken her place on the shore before anyone could stop him.
"Get on the ship," Grenn had told the stunned elder. "Jon needs fighters here, not on them ships."
Pyp had groaned when he saw what Grenn was doing, but jumped down anyway. "Seven hells, you thick-headed—" A wight's blackened fingers clawed at his face. Pyp shrieked and stabbed wildly until it fell.
Grenn's knees buckled. The black mountain of scales and wings where Jon should've stood, his mind kept sliding off it like wet ice.
Yellow-white flame erupted.
Sand screamed. Not melted—screamed—each grain shrieking as it died, birthing glass that sang funeral songs. The heat punched through his furs, through skin, through bone. His nose gushed blood, copper flooding his mouth. The air tasted wrong, like he'd licked lightning, like the space between heartbeats when you're drowning.
"Seven fucking hells," Pyp choked beside him. "That's—that's—"
"Jon." The word scraped out of Grenn's throat. But it wasn't, couldn't be. Jon shared his porridge, Jon missed the straw dummy a third of the time, Jon—
The flames carved reality apart. Where it passed, the world forgot how to be. Wights didn't burn, they simply stopped, unmade between one blink and the next.
Grenn's brain kept showing him the lad from the practice yard, helping their little group of recruits keep their blunt swords held straight and he kept trying to paste that face over the thing breathing annihilation. His stomach heaved. Blood ran down his chin, mixing with tears he hadn't known were falling.
The ice spiders clicked across the frozen shore, each leg strike a sound like breaking bones. Grenn's teeth clenched. Big as hounds, but hounds didn't have legs that bent in three places, didn't leave frost-flowers blooming where they stepped. Their bellies dragged low, crystalline hairs catching moonlight, throwing it back in colors that shouldn't exist.
The Others rode them like lords on destriers. When their blades moved, Grenn's ears popped, pressure dropping like before a storm. The metal—was it even metal?—left trails of absolute cold, air crystallizing in their wake. One swept low and the sand beneath simply stopped. Not frozen, stopped, like time forgot to move there.
"The ships!" Val's voice cut through the chaos. The wildling woman fought like something possessed, her spear stabbing wights with brutal efficiency. "Get them clear o' the bloody shore!"
Grenn grabbed a fleeing mother and shoved her toward the last boat. "Go! Run!" Her child wailed in her arms, the sound lost in the din of battle.
Toregg appeared at his shoulder, face streaked with blood. "Too many dead fuckers, too fast. Where in the frozen fuck are they all crawlin' out from?"
"Don't know, don't care." Grenn spun his spear like a quarterstaff, sweeping legs from under a cluster of wights. "Just keep them off the boats!"
The beach had become a charnel ground. Bodies twisted in impossible angles, some still twitching as dragonglass ended their unnatural movement. The stench—gods, the stench was like nothing Grenn had smelled before. Frozen rot and old death and something else, something that made his balls want to crawl up inside him.
A child's scream pierced the air. Grenn turned to see a boy, couldn't be more than eight, cornered by two wights. Without thinking, he charged.
His spear took the first through the spine. The second turned, jaw hanging loose, and Grenn smashed its skull with the butt of his weapon. The boy stood frozen, eyes wide as moons.
"Ship! Now!" Grenn roared. The boy bolted.
"Last boat's loaded!" someone yelled. "Make sail! Make sail!"
The obsidian beast—that impossible thing wearing Jon's eyes—swayed where it stood, violet ichor dripping from its flank. Grenn's stomach churned at the carnage: an Other torn in half, crystalline guts scattered like broken glass across crimson-stained snow. Its spider twitched in death throes, legs curling inward like a fist. The dragon that was Jon lurched sideways, left foreleg dragging, scales split where that cursed blade had found flesh beneath.
"He's hurt," Pyp said, voice cracking.
The remaining wights suddenly stopped their advance. As one, they turned and walked backward into the storm, maintaining formation like proper soldiers. The sight made Grenn's skin crawl worse than their attack had.
"What in the seven hells..." Val lowered her axe, breathing hard.
They ran to where Jon made his stand, his massive form heaving with each breath. Purple blood pooled beneath him, steaming where it touched snow. Up close, Grenn could see the gashes—deep furrows where Other blades had found gaps in his scales.
"Jon?" The beautiful spearwife spoke with concern. "Yer bleedin' something terrible."
Grenn called up at the great head. "You... you alright?"
A rumbling sound that might have been a laugh. Or pain.
"'Course he's not alright, you daft—" Pyp's insult died as a roar split the air.
Not from Jon. This came from behind them, from the cliffs that rose above Hardhome. A sound that made Jon's dragon roar seem like a whisper. Deep and vast and wrong somehow, like winter given voice.
They all turned. Even Jon's great head swiveled toward the sound.
Another roar, closer now. The ground trembled. Chunks of ice calved from the cliffs, crashing down in white cascades.
"What..." Toregg's voice was very small.
Val's face had gone pale as bone. "The old stories. My grandmother's grandmother spoke of... but they're just tales. Just..."
The roar came again, and with it, something moved in the storm. A shadow against shadows, massive beyond comprehension.
"Head for the forest," Jon's voice rumbled, though his dragon mouth didn't move quite right around the words. "All of you. Now."
"We're not leaving you—" Grenn started.
"NOW!"
From the storm, something approached. Something that made the hairs on Grenn's neck stand straight up, made his bladder threaten to let go, made every instinct scream to flee.
"Jon," Pyp whispered. "What is that?"
Before Jon could answer, the storm parted like a curtain. And they saw.