Ivar arrived at the far edge of the camp where a crowd had already gathered, voices overlapping in a low murmur that carried unease beneath it. Snow had been trampled flat beneath many boots, and a loose ring had formed around Haldor and the rest of the hunters who had just returned. Their cloaks were dusted white, their breaths heavy in the cold, and behind them stood a cluster of unfamiliar men and women, ragged, wary, and clutching what little they had left.
Haldor spotted him first and called out, a nervous smile plastered across his face. "Oi! Ivar!"
The murmuring shifted at once as heads turned. Space opened for him without being asked.
Ivar stepped forward, ignoring Haldor as his gaze swept over the scene. He counted quickly, more than three dozen strangers, thin with hunger, their eyes sharp with both suspicion and desperation. Some held crude weapons, while most clutched nothing more than the clothes on their backs. He quickly deduced that these were people who had likely lost their homes in the war between those two idiots.
But he had an even bigger idiot standing right here, one who had brought these people to him instead of focusing on hunting. His eyes finally settled on Haldor and said. "Explain."
Haldor gulped. He glanced back at the people he had brought, then returned his gaze to Ivar. He exhaled, forced a smile, and said, "We saw these folk while huntin', roamin' about an' askin' fer our haul. We gave 'em some, and then I thought, why not bring 'em to ye and have 'em join our band? Grow our numbers. We'll be facin' Jorund soon, and we'll need more men." He gestured toward them and added, "I asked if they'd fight the one who destroyed their homes and clans, and they said aye. So…"
He scratched his head when he finished, unsure whether the reason he had given would be enough for Ivar to accept them. The truth was, he simply couldn't let the opportunity pass. He had been uneasy ever since Ivar said they would have to face Jorund's men before heading beyond the Wall. Their numbers were too few to stand against warriors who could wipe out clans like the Howlers and the Frostbornes. Even with Alfyn's men added to their ranks, it still wasn't enough. So when he saw these people wandering, it struck him. Why not recruit from those who had survived the destruction of their clans? That was how he had ended up here, bringing them back. And now, he could only hope Ivar would accept them.
Ivar took a deep breath. He had just calmed his rising blood pressure, and now it was beginning to stir again. It was true that he had said they would have to face Jorund and his men before going beyond the Wall, but he had never meant they would have to meet them head-on. There were always other ways. Hell, he could even do it himself, slip into their camp and kill Jorund in his sleep, so long as he could find where the man was. Or just wait out Jorund's fight with Sylas and make a move after they were battered and tired from the fighting.
He rubbed his forehead, trying to steady his nerves. It seemed he would have to be far more specific in the future, lest his men continue taking matters into their own hands. Heck, even the matter of dealing with Jorund was supposed to remain a secret between themselves. He did not want Alfyn learning that they were the ones who killed the man, if they or he ever succeeded.
Freya stepped forward and stood just slightly behind Ivar, hands on her hips, then spoke loudly toward Haldor. "And how are we supposed t' feed them, huh? Haldor? We just told ye we're runnin' out o' food, an' now ye bring more mouths t' feed. Have ye gone mad?"
Haldor hung his head low while Ivar glanced at Freya beside him and Ylva not far away. It seemed the women were angrier than he was, and he couldn't blame them. He had tasked them with keeping inventory and ensuring the band had enough food each day, so they had every right to be upset.
Ivar thought for a moment, then looked back at Haldor and said, "Ye're goin' t' feed them out o' yer own portion every hunt, Haldor, until they can hunt on their own."
As if that alone would be enough. Still, Ivar intended to let Haldor deal with the consequences himself until the man learned not to make decisions this large without asking first, and not to blurt out things that were never meant to be spoken aloud.
Haldor was about to speak, but he stopped when he met Ivar's eyes. From that look alone, he knew that if he said anything foolish, Ivar would beat him senseless. So he swallowed his words and kept quiet.
Seeing that Haldor had nothing more to say, Ivar turned to Torren. "Why didn't ye stop him?"
Torren only shook his head and kept his mouth shut. He and Haldor had already agreed that Haldor would take the blame this time, and he would take it the next. He wasn't about to put himself in the path of Ivar's temper. They only wanted to increase their numbers before the clash with Jorund as they couldn't see themselves winning with their current strength.
Ivar sighed when it was clear Torren wouldn't speak. He glanced around at the hunters and noticed some were missing. "Where's Hilde and the rest?"
Haldor spoke up this time. "We split up t' bring back as much game as we could. She should be back soon."
Ivar nodded and was about to order them to set up camp for the newcomers themselves when Alfyn arrived, accompanied by Arvid, one of the Howlers they had rescued the day before.
"Ivar! What's this? Ye recruitin'?" Alfyn called out as he arrived, stopping the moment he noticed the newcomers.
Ivar gestured for Haldor to keep quiet before looking toward Alfyn and forcing a smile. "Nay. Ye want these people? They could be a great help t' ye in yer revenge against Jorund. What d'ye say?"
Alfyn immediately shook his head. "No. I've already too many mouths t' feed, and I still have that… what d'ye call it? 'Food credit' t' ye that I've got t' repay. So no. I only came here t' see what all this was about."
Truthfully, he would have liked to recruit these haggard men, women, and children if he had enough food to spare, but he didn't. So he could only look upon them with reluctance and pity.
Ivar sighed and gave a nod before turning toward Arvid, who stood beside Alfyn. "What about ye? Ye need people t' replenish yer numbers."
Arvid shook his head without saying a word.
Ivar had already noticed that the man rarely spoke, so he accepted the silent refusal and turned back toward Haldor. "Go. Help 'em set up their own camp. But make sure they don't block our way if we need t' leave in a hurry."
"Aye." Haldor nodded quickly, then hurried off to lead the refugees away before Ivar could say anything else.
After Haldor led them away, Freya, standing beside him, spoke up. "That's it? Ye're not sendin' 'em away? And that's hardly punishment enough fer Haldor. He didn't even come back with enough game this time. Just some hares and birds. Barely enough t' feed us tomorrow."
"What d'ye want me t' do?" Ivar shook his head. "Haldor already brought 'em here. We can't send 'em away now, not when they might die out there or run into Jorund's men along the way." He let out a breath before adding, "Don't worry. I'll go huntin' on the morrow and the day after. I'll bring back enough game then. Ye won't have t' worry about food after that. Just make sure Haldor follows what I told him about feedin' them on his own portion until they can hunt on their own."
As he finished speaking, Ivar glanced toward the refugees being led away. Since they were already here, he couldn't simply cast them out to die. Still, they would need to earn their food, follow his rules, and work like everyone else. Those who refused would be reason enough for him to drive them away later. He was not running a charity. And he certainly wasn't about to let someone undermine his band because they couldn't stomach the rules he had put in place.
Freya looked at him for a moment before turning away. There was nothing more she could do now that Ivar had already made his decision, and she still had to clean the hares and birds Haldor had brought back. The rest of the band soon scattered as well after realizing there was nothing interesting left to watch, including Ylva.
Alfyn and Arvid stayed behind though, and when Ivar noticed them lingering nearby, he asked, "Ye lot need somethin'?"
Alfyn flashed him a wide grin before speaking. "Now that I think about it… what if ye feed 'em fer a fortnight or a moon first, then I'll take the refugees meself? I'll lift the burden that brat Haldor dumped on ye. What d'ye think?"
Ivar's eyes widened at the man's shamelessness before he barked, "Get lost!"
Then he turned and walked off with a dark look on his face. Thankfully, Alfyn had not heard that he had already decided to deal with Jorund himself. If he had, the man would have hounded him endlessly with questions and demands to join in the revenge. Still, Ivar knew it was only a matter of time before the truth slipped out one way or another. He could only shake his head at his own carelessness.
—----
The days that followed settled into a hard and weary rhythm.
At dawn, Ivar would leave the camp with bow in hand and his beasts prowling silently beside him through the snow-covered land. Game had grown scarcer with every passing day, likely driven away by the fighting Jorund and Sylas had unleashed throughout the land, but he still managed to bring something back more often than not. Sometimes it was only hares or lean foxes. Other times, when fortune favored him, he returned dragging an elk and auroch large enough to feed his camp for days. Each successful hunt eased the tension around his men for a little while, though never fully. There were simply too many mouths to feed now.
And when the camp finally ran out of salt, Ivar had no choice but to journey east toward the eastern shores, bringing with him some of his band. He avoided the clans that lived near the coast and chose the most secluded part of the shores. Then, he ordered his companions to gather seawater and then they spent long hours boiling it over great fires until coarse salt remained behind. The work was slow, exhausting, and wasteful in firewood, but it was better than watching meat spoil or his people weaken from the lack of it.
True to Ivar's orders, much of Haldor's own portion of food went to feeding the refugees he had brought back. The man complained often and loudly during meals, earning laughter from some and curses from Freya, but he endured it nonetheless.
The refugees themselves slowly began earning their keep. The older men helped gather wood, repair tents, and haul water and supplies through the snow, while the younger men and women joined the hunters to learn how the band worked. Ivar refused to let the older men join the hunts, as most of them often complained about the rules he had already put in place. The younger ones, however, adapted far more easily, so he had his people slowly begin incorporating them into his band.
At night, after the camp had settled and the fires burned low, Ivar cultivated inside his tent. Progress remained painfully slow compared to the cultivation world, yet it was still progress. More importantly, he continued probing deeper into the strange connection between himself and his beast companions, though he was still far from mastering it.
But it was the crow who occupied most of his attention during those days. Edric Rivers recovered slowly. The swelling on his face eventually lessened enough for him to speak more clearly, though the bruises lingered in shades of purple and yellow across his jaw and cheekbones. Every day, Ivar visited him. Every day, he tried to make the crow speak. And every day at first, the crow refused.
So Ivar resorted to the same methods he had used on Jorund's men. A touch here, and a press there.
Pain. Pure, blinding pain that left no wound behind soon came into the man. Edric resisted longer than most wildlings had. Longer than Ivar expected, honestly. But even stubbornness had limits. Eventually, the crow began speaking simply to make the pain stop.
And during all of it, Ivar did his best to learn and understand the man's language. By the end of the first sennight, he could already understand simple sentences. By the second, he could hold rough conversations, though some difficult words still escaped him. The southern tongue was far more refined than the rough speech commonly used among the free folk, filled with strange terms for laws, ranks, castles, and other things the free folk had little use for.
Still, after a fortnight and more, Ivar finally considered himself capable of speaking the language, albeit with difficulty. And as he sat across from the crow after nearly a moon of learning, speaking in broken but understandable southern words, he couldn't help but feel satisfied. Because now, at last, the real questioning could begin.
—-----
Edric looked at the man before him with fear, puzzlement, and a strange sort of amazement. This was the first time he had ever encountered something like this, someone who seemed more interested in learning his language than in simply killing him.
At first, Edric had thought it some cruel game.
The wildling would torture him for a few words, repeat them badly with that rough northern accent of his, then demand more. Again and again. Sometimes the man would point at objects around them, the fire, snow, rope, bowl, hand, tree, and force Edric to name them. Other times he would speak broken sentences and wait patiently to be corrected, only to inflict that invisible agony whenever Edric refused to answer or tried to lie.
Edric had hated him for it. Truly hated him.
Yet as the days passed, that hatred slowly tangled together with confusion. The wildling learned far too quickly. Faster than any man Edric had ever met. A word spoken once or twice was often enough for the fellow to remember it. Entire phrases took only days before he began using them himself. By the second sennight, the man was already speaking in rough but understandable sentences. It was absurd. No wildling should have cared about such things.
Most wildling Edric had encountered during his years at the Wall could barely be bothered to speak the common tongue properly, instead butchering it with thick accents and crude phrasing. Yet this one pursued words with almost frightening hunger, as though every new thing Edric taught him held value greater than gold and food. And worse still, the man was not stupid. That frightened Edric more than the torture.
Now, as he sat across from the wildling once more, Edric could not help but feel trapped between fear and curiosity. But the curiosity vanished instantly, and the fear deepened, when the man before him asked the one question Edric least wished to answer.
"How many men guard the Wall?"
Edric immediately shook his head, making it clear he would not answer no matter what. Yet he already knew the man before him possessed ways to force the truth from him.
For a fleeting moment, Edric considered killing himself right then and there rather than giving the wildling such information. But the thought passed almost as quickly as it came. He was afraid to die. He did not want to die. And despite everything, some stubborn part of him still clung to the hope that he might somehow survive the situation he had fallen into.
The man before him sighed and said, "Fine. Knew ye wouldn't answer if I asked about the Wall without usin' me magic fingers." The wildling raised his fingers toward him, and Edric couldn't help but shiver.
The man then added, "Anyway, I want t' make a deal with ye. I won't ask about the Wall, how many men guard it, what defenses it has, or anythin' like that. But ye've got t' answer questions about the world beyond it. The year, the current king, and other things like that. Just normal information of the world south of the wall. Surely ye can answer that, right?"
Edric considered the offer and couldn't help but think it was, indeed, a fair deal. Still, he tried to think of what use information about kings and years could possibly have for this man. After a while, however, he still came up empty.
He stared at the wildling, who watched him as intently as he was. But Edric remained silent, refusing to give a definite answer just yet. Perhaps if he waited a little longer, the man might reveal more. Then the wildling slowly raised those cursed 'magic fingers.'
Edric's body grew tense immediately. The fingers moved closer, inch by inch, toward the places where the man usually pressed to unleash that unbearable agony. Even before they touched him, Edric's breathing became ragged and uneven, his mind already recalling the pain that would follow.
The fingers drew nearer, and nearer.
Finally, before those fingers could touch his skin and work their cursed magic, Edric gave in and blurted out, "Aye! Aye, I'll answer! I'll answer yer questions about kings an' years! Just… please… get yer fingers away from me."
The moment the words left his mouth, Edric felt himself sag. Suddenly, his body felt very small before the wildling sitting across from him, as though he had shrunk while the man before him had grown impossibly large. Shame washed over him. He couldn't help but feel humiliated that he had been broken down and dismantled by nothing more than the man's fingers. No blades. No whips. And no hot irons. Just fingers.
The only mercy left to him was that none of his brothers from the Night's Watch were there to witness what had become the most shameful moment of his life. Tears slipped from his eyes and fell silently into the snow as he lowered his head and waited for the man's questions.
—---
Ivar smiled triumphantly as he watched the man before him finally broken and obedient. Learning the crow's language day after day had been a grueling task, yet he had finally mastered enough of it to speak properly. More importantly, he had managed to turn the man into a meek "aye sir" without even needing to press on his nodes and inflict pain anymore.
He watched Edric silently staring down at the snow between them, shoulders slumped and spirit thoroughly crushed. The crow no longer looked like the stubborn man who would at least refuse to speak first before giving in because of the pain. Now he simply looked tired and defeated.
And for some reason, that made Ivar feel a little disappointed. Still, what mattered was that he finally had answers within reach.
After a moment of silence, Ivar leaned forward slightly and asked in rough but understandable language of the man, "What year are we in?"
Edric stayed quiet for a heartbeat before answering lifelessly, "One hundred twenty-six… One hundred twenty-six AC."
Ivar's eyes narrowed slightly. "What meaning… AC?"
"Aegon's Conquest," Edric replied quietly.
The moment those words left the man's mouth, a wide grin spread across Ivar's face.
Finally, at last, he had confirmation. All the doubts he had carried until now vanished instantly. He truly was in the world he had suspected all along. More importantly, the timeline was finally laid out before him.
He immediately followed with another question. "Who current king?"
Edric lowered his gaze even further. "King Viserys Targaryen."
Ivar's smile widened. Another solid piece of proof that he was truly in the world he suspected, and it even matched what he remembered from the show about who sat the throne during this period. Meaning his arrival had not changed the course of the world. Or at least, not the world beyond the Wall.
He allowed the silence between them to stretch for a while as he slowly calmed his thoughts. After a few minutes, he continued questioning Edric, asking about everything the man knew south of the Wall. And true to his word, he avoided asking about the Night's Watch itself or the Wall's defenses.
Edric answered every question he knew with the same exhausted tone, no longer even attempting to lie.
Ivar became so immersed in the questioning that he only snapped out of it when someone called to him from afar.
"Ivar! Food's ready!"
He turned and saw Asgeir waving toward him near the campfires. Only then did he notice that the sky had already darkened.
Ivar shook his head faintly. His eagerness to learn more had completely consumed him.
He looked back toward Edric and said, "From now on, ye're me guest. As long as ye keep answerin' me questions on the morrow and after that, ye'll be protected. Ye have me word."
He didn't bother waiting for the man's reaction before turning toward Asgeir and calling back, "Comin'."
It was then that his stomach grumbled loudly. Ivar blinked once before immediately quickening his pace toward the makeshift kitchen, where the smell of good food was coming from.
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A/N: Please don't forget to rate and review the story after reading. And if you want to read ahead. You know where to look.