Late at night, the Twins felt less like a fortress and more like a tomb. High atop the western tower, a single raven took flight, its wings whispering against the starlight. It soared through the cool night air, a black lightning bolt cutting through the clouds as it tracked the King's Road. Through the bird's eyes, shining like cut black diamonds the world below was a tapestry of silver-grey fields and the occasional flickers of village fires.
A hundred kilometers away, Eddard sat in a cold stone chamber, his eyes closed. His consciousness was stretched thin, anchored to the rhythmic beat of the raven's wings. He felt the biting chill of the high-altitude wind and the razor-sharp clarity of the bird's vision. To his left, he saw the distant glow of a massive camp, the cooking fires of an army that moved with a professional, terrifying silence.
Tarly, Eddard thought, the name a cold weight in his mind.
A sharp pang of mental exhaustion flared behind his eyes. The connection flickered. The raven let out a confused croak, and Eddard felt the pull of his physical body.
"My Lord?"
Eddard's eyes snapped open. The dim candlelight of the tower solar felt blindingly bright for a moment. He took a jagged breath, his soul settling back into his own skin. Across the table, Scholar Bennett watched him with wide, watery eyes, his hands trembling as he clutched a heavy tome.
Bennett had seen the transition. He had seen the way Lord Eddard's pupils had rolled back, leaving only the whites, and the way his breathing had slowed to a near-stop. To a man of the Citadel, such things were the stuff of nightmares and forgotten legends.
"Blackfeather should be back in half an hour," Eddard rasped, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears. "It flies fast when the wind is at its back."
Bennett's silver necklace clinked as he leaned forward. He had read Wallis's Hardhome: Three Years Among Wildlings, and he knew the tales of "Forest Witches" and skinchangers. But seeing it performed by a Lord of the North, a man who had just dismantled House Frey in a single night was something entirely different.
"My Lord, Blackfeather is indeed the finest bird in the rookery," Bennett whispered, his voice full of a hesitant, reverent curiosity. "It is my honor to serve you. Captain Dita Calandre has been pacing outside the door for some time. Shall I let her in?"
"Yes," Eddard said, rubbing his temples. "Thank you, Scholar. You've done enough tonight. Get some rest."
Bennett bowed low, his expression a mix of terror and academic hunger. He clearly wanted to ask about the magic, to know what it felt like to touch the mind of a beast but the cold authority in Eddard's gaze kept his tongue still. He shuffled out of the room, leaving Eddard to the silence of the tower.
Dita Calandre entered a moment later. Her face was grim, her leather armor dusted with the grime of the road.
"How many?" Eddard asked, not wasting time with pleasantries.
"Not many," Dita replied, her voice heavy with fatigue. "I visited a dozen villages today, My Lord. I flew the sunburst and the wolf, but the response was... hollow. We managed to recruit two hundred men, mostly those who have nothing left to lose. The young and strong? They've hidden in the woods or fled toward Riverrun. They've seen enough of the 'Running Wolf' and the 'Lion' to last them a lifetime."
Eddard leaned back, a trace of helplessness flashing across his face. He understood. To the commoners, a lord was just a man who took their sons and gave them back in pieces. Even the promise of five gold dragons, a king's ransom to a peasant couldn't outweigh the terror of the Tarly host.
"Two hundred is better than zero," Eddard said. "We'll arm them from the Frey stores. Put them on the walls with the veterans. Even a frightened man can drop a stone or pull a trigger."
"And the envoys?" Dita asked. "The ones we sent to Seagard?"
Eddard's expression darkened. He had sent McKen and four of his best riders to request aid from Lord Jason Mallister. By all rights, a raven should have returned by now. The distance between the Twins and Seagard was barely a hundred miles, a morning's flight for a bird and a hard day's ride for a man with spare horses.
"Nothing," Dita said. "No word from Seagard. No sign of McKen."
Eddard felt a prickle of unease. McKen was a veteran; he didn't get lost, and he didn't dally. If the Mallisters had refused, they would have sent a polite letter of denial. Silence was much more dangerous.
"Get some rest, Dita," Eddard commanded. "We'll send scouts at first light if there's still no word. We have a siege to prepare for."
As his subordinate left, Eddard stripped off his surcoat and collapsed onto the bed. He was exhausted, spiritually and physically. The weight of the Twins, the gold, and the lives of five hundred men felt like a mountain on his chest. He closed his eyes, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep, unaware that miles away, his missing envoy was currently staring into the face of a ghost.
McKen's world was a blur of darkness and pain.
He had lived for forty years, survived the Whispering Wood, and walked away from a hundred skirmishes, but he had never felt as useless as he did at this moment. He remembered the country road, the sudden snap of the tripwires, and the terrifying speed with which he had been swarmed.
He woke up slumped over the back of a horse, his wrists bound with hemp rope that bit into his skin. His head throbbed with the dull rhythm of a sword hilt's impact.
"Who are you people?" McKen grumbled, his voice muffled by the hood over his head.
"House Karstark soldier," a voice replied, smooth, yet dangerous. "If you don't want your mouth gagged, keep it low."
"Friends," McKen spat, "you ambushed a royal envoy. If you wanted us dead, we'd be in a ditch. There's a reason you're hauling us through the brush. What is it?"
The voice didn't answer. Instead, there was a low murmur of conversation around him, voices that didn't sound like soldiers, but didn't sound like bandits either. They spoke with the cadence of men who had seen the worst of the world and decided to fight back.
Finally, the group stopped. Someone yanked the hood from McKen's head, and he blinked against the sudden glare of a bonfire.
He was in a dense forest, the trees so tall and thick they formed a living wall against the moonlight. A dozen people stood around the clearing, their faces illuminated by the dancing orange flames. They were a ragged lot, some in boiled leather, others in rusted bits of plate but they held their weapons with the casual grace of killers.
"Money? Or your life?" McKen roared, trying to hide his fear behind a veteran's bluster. "Whatever it is, be quick about it. I have a mission for the King!"
"Please be quiet, soldier," a man in a ragged red robe said, stepping into the light. His face was haggard, his grey hair a tangled mess. "We mean no harm to you or your men. We just need your help finding someone."
"Help?" McKen sneered. "I don't help bandits who snatch men off the road."
"We've killed more bandits than you've seen dead men, Northman," a red-haired boy snapped. He was slender, with freckles and a longbow taller than himself. Anguy the Archer. He watched McKen with a look of extreme displeasure.
"Then who are you bastards?" Theodore, another of Eddard's riders, yelled from his own bonds.
A man with a pointed nose and sparse hair began to pluck a seven-stringed lyre, his voice rising in a mocking song. "We are the holy brothers, the knights of the empty mountains, the rangers who act on behalf of heaven. We are the Brotherhood Without Banners, striking fear into bandits and making the lords wet their beds..."
"Enough with the music!" McKen barked. "Who are you looking for?"
A man stood up from the fire. He was a hollowed-out version of a noble. One eye was missing, replaced by a mass of scarred tissue. A patch of his golden-red hair was gone, revealing a deep indentation in his skull where an axe or a mace had once landed. He wore a dented iron breastplate over rags.
Beric Dondarrion.
"There are rumors in the countryside," Beric said, his voice sounding like it was being pulled from a deep well. "They say a young Karstark lord killed Gregor Clegane in the shallow waters of the Red Fork. They say he did it with a single stroke of an axe."
Beric leaned forward, his one good eye fixed on McKen. "The Mountain burned these lands. He murdered the innocent and called it duty. If your master truly killed that beast, I need to look him in the eye and see if he is a man or a miracle."
McKen stared at him, then let out a bark of incredulous laughter. "You kidnapped us for a story? Go to the Twins and ask for an audience like a normal person! We're about to be besieged by Tarly, you lunatics!"
"Neither the Wolf nor the Lion are good people," Anguy said, checking the fletching on an arrow. "They let their men plunder the smallfolk. We've shot a dozen 'Flayed Men' this week alone. We don't walk into the fortresses of lords."
"So," Thoros of Myr said with a jovial, terrifying smile, "we hope you brave warriors will help us arrange a meeting. We want to see this 'Wizard of Karstark' for ourselves."
"May the Others take every one of you," McKen cursed, his heart sinking. He was trapped in a forest with a pack of zealots, and the only man who could save him was currently warging into ravens a hundred miles away.