274 AC, Beyond the Wall
After forty minutes of walking through the snow, between frozen streams and tree stumps, the camp began to appear.
At first, only smoke. Sparse, almost transparent. Then the outlines of tents. Simple constructions of branches and skins, set up irregularly, as if no one planned to stay here for long.
We stopped at a safe distance and waited.
After receiving a signal from the Warg birds, we slowly began to approach the camp.
When we almost closed the ring around the camp, they noticed us.
Chaos broke out in their camp. They quickly reached for weapons and began to take fighting positions.
I raised my hand and stopped my people.
We didn't move. We waited for their leader to understand that we were everywhere.
After a moment, a man came out from the crowd of wild ones.
He wasn't in a hurry, didn't look scared, but he also didn't exude a sense of superiority — he was simply ready, calm, confident in a way that didn't need words or gestures.
He was tall, with a thick beard and a distinct scar running through his right eye, and a bird sat on his shoulder. Not a raven. Not an owl. Something else.
Why, looking at him, do I have the impression that I'm seeing Odin from the MCU?
He looked at us with his one good eye and asked,
"What do you southern people want from us?"
I took a few steps forward.
"I assume you are the leader of this tribe," I said calmly.
He didn't respond immediately; for a moment, he just looked at me carefully, as if trying to assess not only my words but what was behind them. He measured the people behind my back. He sensed the tension. He counted how many would die before his name was spoken.
"I am," he finally said, nodding, and then, after a short pause, he added with a voice that no longer had any hesitation: "And now speak, southerner. Why are you here?"
I looked him straight in the eye.
"I came to conquer your tribe," I answered, as calmly as if talking about the weather.
And then, almost immediately after those words, he burst out laughing — loud, long, uninhibited, as if he had just heard the best joke that had been circulating between campfires for the last three winters; and it wasn't a laugh full of irony or mockery, but a pure, sincere reaction of a person who heard something so absurd that he had to laugh.
And then everything cut off suddenly, literally in one second, as if someone had cut that laughter with a blade — and silence fell in the air, in which even the wind seemed to suspend its movement.
His face hardened. His eye narrowed. His voice became as cold as the wind between ruins.
"We do not kneel," he said firmly, looking me straight in the eyes. "If you do not leave, even if we die, we will at least take some of you with us."
While he was saying these words, calmly, without a tremor in his voice, as if he had already made peace with death, I reached for the spear. Not abruptly. Not theatrically. Without anger or haste. Simply, as if it were part of the conversation. A movement as natural as reaching for a cup during dinner.
I swung.
The spear cut through the air with a hiss that immediately silenced all whispers. It stuck into the snow just before his foot, the tip stopping maybe three inches from his fingers. The runes on the shaft glowed with a weak light, as if something of the old gods had just awakened.
He looked down. He didn't move back. He didn't even take half a step back. But his people... their eyes instantly widened. Laughter and chatter froze.
I took a step forward. I looked him straight in the eyes.
"Do not tell me you do not kneel," I said firmly. "What do people in your tribe do? They kneel before you. Before tradition. Before fear."
I swept my hand through the air, pointing at the spear.
"Now I, Brandon Stark, challenge you. Let this spear of the First Men, made of Weirwood, be the eyes of the gods during our duel."
After my words, there was silence, and only the sound of rustling leaves and crow cawing could be heard.
The leader was no longer looking at me. He directed his gaze toward the spear.
He slowly approached. He stopped right next to it.
Then he raised his head and said:
"So be it. I, Harl One-Eye, accept the challenge."
His voice was quiet, but it carried throughout the entire camp.
I signaled to my people.
I moved forward, straight through the snow.
I took Leviathan in my hand.
The axe lay on my back, as if it had been waiting for this moment. When I grabbed it, I felt its familiar weight.
I took a few more steps. Enough to stand opposite Harl. Maybe thirty feet between us.
We didn't speak. We just looked each other in the eyes.
In one moment, I raised Leviathan and threw it in front of me. Straight at his head.
Harl reacted instantly. He tilted his head, and the blade flew right past, whistling like an angry spirit.
He saw that I no longer had a weapon. And immediately he moved. He ran straight at me, reducing the distance with each step.
And me?
I calmly extended my hand. The axe turned back in the air. And with a bang, it hit Harl in the back of the head. He fell like a log. Face down in the snow.
And then... silence fell.
Not an ordinary one. One that seeps into the lungs.
As if even the wind held its breath.
Without waiting for anyone to understand what had happened, I spoke.
"The gods watched and saw how I stood before Harl, without deceit, without escape, and how I struck down your leader — here, before everyone."
I took a step forward.
"Now you have a choice."
I paused, looking them in the eyes.
"Surrender... or be cursed by the gods."
For a few heartbeats, no one moved.
And then the first of them dropped his weapon to the ground. The second did the same.
And suddenly it started to avalanche.
Axes, spears, bows. One after another, they fell on the snow.
I turned to my people.
"You see?" I said calmly. "It's that simple."
I smiled slightly.