A Clash of Kings (79 page)

A rippling wake spread out behind as they swung back toward the shore. “You speak of men and onions,” Davos said to Melisandre. “What of women? Is it not the same for them? Are you good or evil, my lady?”

That made her chuckle. “Oh, good. I am a knight of sorts myself, sweet ser. A champion of light and life.”

“Yet you mean to kill a man tonight,” he said. “As you killed Maester Cressen.”

“Your maester poisoned himself. He meant to poison me, but I was protected by a greater power and he was not.”

“And Renly Baratheon? Who was it who killed him?”

Her head turned. Beneath the shadow of the cowl, her eyes burned like pale red candle flames. “Not I.”

“Liar.” Davos was certain now.

Melisandre laughed again. “You are lost in darkness and confusion, Ser Davos.”

“And a good thing.” Davos gestured at the distant lights flickering along the walls of Storm’s End. “Feel how cold the wind is? The guards will huddle close to those torches. A little warmth, a little light, they’re a comfort 1on a night like this. Yet that will blind them, so they will not see us pass.”
I hope
. “The god of darkness protects us now, my lady. Even you.”

The flames of her eyes seemed to burn a little brighter at that. “Speak not that name, ser. Lest you draw his black eye upon us. He protects no man, I promise you. He is the enemy of all that lives. It is the torches that hide us, you have said so yourself. Fire. The bright gift of the Lord of Light.”

“Have it your way.”

“His way, rather.”

The wind was shifting, Davos could feel it, see it in the way the black canvas rippled. He reached for the halyards. “Help me bring in the sail. I’ll row us the rest of the way.”

Together they tied off the sail as the boat rocked beneath them. As Davos unshipped the oars and slid them into the choppy black water, he said, “Who rowed you to Renly?”

“There was no need,” she said. “He was unprotected. But here . . . this Storm’s End is an old place. There are spells woven into the stones. Dark walls that no shadow can pass—ancient, forgotten, yet still in place.”

“Shadow?” Davos felt his flesh prickling. “A shadow is a thing of darkness.”

“You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows.”

Frowning, Davos hushed her then. They were coming close to shore once more, and voices carried across the water. He rowed, the faint sound of his oars lost in the rhythm of the waves. The seaward side of Storm’s End perched upon a pale white cliff, the chalky stone sloping up steeply to half again the height of the massive curtain wall. A mouth yawned in the cliff, and it was that Davos steered for, as he had sixteen years before. The tunnel opened on a cavern under the castle, where the storm lords of old had built their landing.

The passage was navigable only during high tide, and was never less than treacherous, but his smuggler’s skills had not deserted him. Davos threaded their way deftly between the jagged rocks until the cave mouth loomed up before them. He let the waves carry them inside. They crashed around him, slamming the boat this way and that and soaking them to the skin. A half-seen finger of rock came rushing up out of the gloom, snarling foam, and Davos barely kept them off it with an oar.

Then they were past, engulfed in darkness, and the waters smoothed.

The little boat slowed and swirled. The sound of their breathing echoed until it seemed to surround them. Davos had not expected the blackness. The last time, torches had burned all along the tunnel, and the eyes of starving men had peered down through the murder holes in the ceiling. The portcullis was somewhere ahead, he knew. Davos used the oars to slow them, and they drifted against it almost gently.

“This is as far as we go, unless you have a man inside to lift the gate for us.” His whispers scurried across the lapping water like a line of mice on soft pink feet.

“Have we passed within the walls?”

“Yes. Beneath. But we can go no farther. The portcullis goes all the way to the bottom. And the bars are too closely spaced for even a child to squeeze through.”

There was no answer but a soft rustling. And then a light bloomed amidst the darknes1s.

Davos raised a hand to shield his eyes, and his breath caught in his throat. Melisandre had thrown back her cowl and shrugged out of the smothering robe. Beneath, she was naked, and huge with child. Swollen breasts hung heavy against her chest, and her belly bulged as if near to bursting. “
Gods preserve us,
” he whispered, and heard her answering laugh, deep and throaty. Her eyes were hot coals, and the sweat that dappled her skin seemed to glow with a light of its own. Melisandre
shone
.

Panting, she squatted and spread her legs. Blood ran down her thighs, black as ink. Her cry might have been agony or ecstasy or both. And Davos saw the crown of the child’s head push its way out of her. Two arms wriggled free, grasping, black fingers coiling around Melisandre’s straining thighs, pushing, until the whole of the shadow slid out into the world and rose taller than Davos, tall as the tunnel, towering above the boat. He had only an instant to look at it before it was gone, twisting between the bars of the portcullis and racing across the surface of the water, but that instant was long enough.

He knew that shadow. As he knew the man who’d cast it.

Chapter Forty Three
Jon

The call came drifting through the black of night. Jon pushed himself onto an elbow, his hand reaching for Longclaw by force of habit as the camp began to stir.
The horn that wakes the sleepers
, he thought.

The long low note lingered at the edge of hearing. The sentries at the ringwall stood still in their footsteps, breath frosting and heads turned toward the west. As the sound of the horn faded, even the wind ceased to blow. Men rolled from their blankets and reached for spears and swordbelts, moving quietly, listening. A horse whickered and was hushed. For a heartbeat it seemed as if the whole forest were holding its breath. The brothers of the Night’s Watch waited for a second blast, praying they should not hear it, fearing that they would.

When the silence had stretched unbearably long and the men knew at last that the horn would not wind again, they grinned at one another sheepishly, as if to deny that they had been anxious. Jon Snow fed a few sticks to the fire, buckled on his swordbelt, pulled on his boots, shook the dirt and dew from the cloak, and fastened it around his shoulders. The flames blazed up beside him, welcome heat beating against his face as he dressed. He could hear the Lord Commander moving inside the tent. After a moment Mormont lifted the flap. “One blast?” On his shoulder, his raven sat fluffed and silent, looking miserable.

“One, my lord,” Jon agreed. “Brothers returning.”

Mormont moved to the fire. “The Halfhand. And past time.” He had grown more restive every day they waited; much longer and he would have been fit to whelp cubs. “See that there’s hot food for the men and fodder for the horses. I’ll see Qhorin at once.”

“I’ll bring him, my lord.” The men from the ShadowTower had been expected days ago. When they had not appeared, the brothers had begun to wonder. Jon had heard gloomy mutterings around the cookfire, and not just from Dolorous Edd. Ser Ottyn Wythers was for retreating to Castle Black as soon as possible. Ser Mallador Locke would strike for the ShadowTower, hoping to pick up Qhorin’s trail and learn what had befallen him. And Thoren Smallwood wanted to push on into the mountains. “Mance Rayder know1s he must battle the Watch,” Thoren had declared, “but he will never look for us so far north. If we ride up the Milkwater, we can take him unawares and cut his host to ribbons before he knows we are on him.”

“The numbers would be greatly against us,” Ser Ottyn had objected. “Craster said he was gathering a great host. Many thousands. Without Qhorin, we are only two hundred.”

“Send two hundred wolves against ten thousand sheep, ser, and see what happens,” said Smallwood confidently.

“There are goats among these sheep, Thoren,” warned Jarman Buckwell. “Aye, and maybe a few lions. Rattleshirt, Harma the Dogshead, Alfyn Crowkiller . . . ”

“I know them as well as you do, Buckwell,” Thoren Smallwood snapped back. “And I mean to have their heads, every one. These are
wildlings
. No soldiers. A few hundred heroes, drunk most like, amidst a great horde of women, children, and thralls. We will sweep over them and send them howling back to their hovels.”

They had argued for many hours, and reached no agreement. The Old Bear was too stubborn to retreat, but neither would he rush headlong up the Milkwater, seeking battle. In the end, nothing had been decided but to wait a few more days for the men from the Shadow Tower, and talk again if they did not appear.

And now they had, which meant that the decision could be delayed no longer. Jon was glad of that much, at least. If they must battle Mance Rayder, let it be soon.

He found Dolorous Edd at the fire, complaining about how difficult it was for him to sleep when people insisted on blowing horns in the woods. Jon gave him something new to complain about. Together they woke Hake, who received the Lord Commander’s orders with a stream of curses, but got up all the same and soon had a dozen brothers cutting roots for a soup.

Sam came puffing up as Jon crossed the camp. Under the black hood his face was as pale and round as the moon. “I heard the horn. Has your uncle come back?”

“It’s only the men from the Shadow Tower.” It was growing harder to cling to the hope of Benjen Stark’s safe return. The cloak he had found beneath the Fist could well have belonged to his uncle or one of his men, even the Old Bear admitted as much, though why they would have buried it there, wrapped around the cache of dragonglass, no one could say. “Sam, I have to go.”

At the ringwall, he found the guards sliding spikes from the half-frozen earth to make an opening. It was not long until the first of the brothers from the Shadow Tower began wending their way up the slope. All in leather and fur they were, with here and there a bit of steel or bronze; heavy beards covered hard lean faces, and made them look as shaggy as their garrons. Jon was surprised to see some of them were riding two to a horse. When he looked more closely, it was plain that many of them were wounded.
There has been trouble on the way
.

Jon knew Qhorin Halfhand the instant he saw him, though they had never met. The big ranger was half a legend in the Watch; a man of slow words and swift action, tall and straight as a spear, long-limbed and solemn. Unlike his men, he was clean-shaven. His hair fell from beneath his helm in a heavy braid touched with hoarfrost, and the blacks he wore were so faded they might have been greys. Only thumb and forefinger remained on the hand that held the reins; the other fingers had been sheared off catching a wildling’s axe that would otherwise have split his skull. It was told that he had thrust his maimed fist into the face of the axe1man so the blood spurted into his eyes, and slew him while he was blind. Since that day, the wildlings beyond the Wall had known no foe more implacable.

Jon hailed him. “Lord Commander Mormont would see you at once. I’ll show you to his tent.”

Qhorin swung down from his saddle. “My men are hungry, and our horses require tending.”

“They’ll all be seen to.”

The ranger gave his horse into the care of one of his men and followed. “You are Jon Snow. You have your father’s look.”

“Did you know him, my lord?”

“I am no lordling. Only a brother of the Night’s Watch. I knew Lord Eddard, yes. And his father before him.”

Jon had to hurry his steps to keep up with Qhorin’s long strides. “Lord Rickard died before I was born.”

“He was a friend to the Watch.” Qhorin glanced behind. “It is said that a direwolf runs with you.”

“Ghost should be back by dawn. He hunts at night.”

They found Dolorous Edd frying a rasher of bacon and boiling a dozen eggs in a kettle over the Old Bear’s cookfire. Mormont sat in his wood-and-leather camp chair. “I had begun to fear for you. Did you meet with trouble?”

“We met with Alfyn Crowkiller. Mance had sent him to scout along the Wall, and we chanced on him returning.” Qhorin removed his helm. “Alfyn will trouble the realm no longer, but some of his company escaped us. We hunted down as many as we could, but it may be that a few will win back to the mountains.”

“And the cost?”

“Four brothers dead. A dozen wounded. A third as many as the foe. And we took captives. One died quickly from his wounds, but the other lived long enough to be questioned.”

“Best talk of this inside. Jon will fetch you a horn of ale. Or would you prefer hot spiced wine?”

“Boiled water will suffice. An egg and a bite of bacon.”

“As you wish.” Mormont lifted the flap of the tent and Qhorin Halfhand stooped and stepped through.

Edd stood over the kettle swishing the eggs about with a spoon. “I envy those eggs,” he said. “I could do with a bit of boiling about now. If the kettle were larger, I might jump in. Though I would sooner it were wine than water. There are worse ways to die than warm and drunk. I knew a brother drowned himself in wine once. It was a poor vintage, though, and his corpse did not improve it.”

“You
drank
the wine?”

“It’s an awful thing to find a brother dead. You’d have need of a drink as well, Lord Snow.” Edd stirred the kettle and added a pinch more nutmeg.

Restless, Jon squatted by the fire and poked at it with a stick. He could hear the Old Bear’s voice inside the tent, punctuated by the raven’s squawks and Qhorin Halfhand’s quieter tones, but he could not make out the words.
Alfyn Crowkiller dead, that’s good
. He was one of the bloodiest of the wildling raiders, taking his name from the black brothers he’d slain.
So why does Qhorin sound so grave, after such a victory?

Jon had hoped that the arrival of men from the Shadow Tower would lift the spirits in the camp. Only last night, he was coming back through the d1ark from a piss when he heard five or six men talking in low voices around the embers of a fire. When he heard Chett muttering that it was past time they turned back, Jon stopped to listen. “It’s an old man’s folly, this ranging,” he heard. “We’ll find nothing but our graves in them mountains.”