THEON
In the searching dark, pressed up against him like a child with its nose to the window, he could hear the staggering footsteps and the ragged breathing of the ghosts that stalked him. Even knowing that the footsteps were his own and that ghosts did not breathe made no difference. In this place they walked beyond a doubt, dripping blood and sighing sadly. The swords are gone, the swords that kept them in their tombs. I saw when I came down with Barbrey Dustin. Shades beyond count, Starks both long gone and terrifyingly present. The nearest thing I have left to kin, all dead. Them and Asha, but he would never see her again.
There had been a time, in the first few years after Theon's arrival, when he had imagined himself here one day. That Lord Stark would wed him to Sansa, and he would somehow contrive to inherit the castle in her name. That then he would lie here, in death as worthy as any of them. Lord Greyjoy, the squid wolf. Even just thinking it made him realize how utterly impossible it was. A boy's foolish dream. I could never have ruled the north through Sansa. Not unless Robb and Bran and Rickon all died without issue. . . oh Robb, I didn't, I never. . .
The one thing Theon was grateful for was that Robb himself was not down here. He did not think he could have stood to set eyes on that tomb and everything it represented, all the ironies, all the disasters. And yet at the same time he craved it, would have gone there so he could fall on his knees and beg the absolution that Robb could never give. Would have laid peacefully on the stones, waited to die with his king – or use the knife that Tormund had given him, if he thought his courage would fail. I would. I would. The Stark dead might still come for him. My dreams turned to flesh at last.
It made Theon want to laugh. It made Theon want to weep. But as it happened, Theon could do neither. He had Mance to save.
Yet the deeper they foraged into the crypts, the less certain Theon became of whether he was saving them or killing them. It was true that Lord Manderly had told them that the Kings of Winter were their only hope, but winter, as Theon had cause to know, made for a cruel bedfellow. Time vanished entirely in this dark freezing warren, so it was impossible to know how long it had been, but Mance was in such bad shape that they had to stop often. They slept and woke fitfully, curled up together on the hard stone and shivering until their teeth rattled. Both of them had the same nightmares.
It unsettled Theon considerably to realize that of the two of them, he was in fact the stronger. It was him who, with his clumsy lopsided gait and frail stooped shoulders, had to almost carry Mance down the endless narrow steps, steps that not even Stark feet had trod in generations. The vaults down here were ancient and cramped, the ceilings barely above their heads, the walls glittering with hoarfrost and webbed with some hardy winter lichen. It was edible, as Theon discovered when he broke off a crusty patch and forced it down. The only feast in these halls was the one laid for the dead, and they had to lick the dampness off the stones in an effort to wet their parched throats. They had to find a way out, or starve. The state they were in, it wouldn't take long.
Manderly said there was something here. Something to find. For the life of him Theon could not imagine what. Unless he was somehow to master the Stark spirits and lead them up to do valiant battle, to defend their ancestral home from these foul intruders, an idea that choked a demented giggle out of him for its sheer ludicrousness. Gods, Robb, where are you? You should have killed him. Robb Stark and Ramsay Snow, the two halves of his life. They shared the same initials, and both had wed women named Jeyne, which had undone them in different ways. But Stark was not Snow, and Snow was not snow. One a king, the other a monster. I am trapped between them more unfathomably than ever before, but I'll find it, I will, gods have mercy, have mercy. . .
Theon only dimly recognized the names graven on the tombstones they passed. Kings in the North from long before the Conquest, their deeds had doubtless been drilled into him by Maester Luwin at some point, but all had fled now. Sometimes Mance knew, however, and would tell their tales, as much as he could before his strength gave out again.
They were very deep under Winterfell by now. When Theon looked at the stones that surrounded them – when he could see them – he could make out no mark of mason or chisel, only smooth unbroken blocks far too large for even the strongest scaffolding to lift. He thought of the legends surrounding Winterfell's raising, that giants had laid the foundations under the direction of Brandon the Builder. He had always dismissed that as just another Stark invention, yet he had been perfectly willing to believe that his family's hall in Pyke was built on the bones of the largest kraken ever to wash up from the deep. Yet looking around him now, Theon was hard pressed to deny it. But how did Brandon master the giants? Whenever she wasn't scaring Sansa and Bran and Rickon with tales of how giants ground the bones of little northern children to make their bread, Old Nan had told of how they were wild and proud, a race and a law unto themselves, a remnant of a time when magic was strong in the world. But they are no more.
"They're gone," Theon said aloud, as if to confirm it.
"Who?" Mance's breathing had begun to whistle in the past few day-nights. Even opening his eyes was plainly a trial.
"Giants." Theon swept a hand at the barrow. "They must have built this. But they're gone."
Mance laughed, cutting off with a grunt of agony. "No, turncloak. They're not. You should have been. At the battle for the Wall. Lord Snow and his men. Feathered themselves half a dozen at least. And Mag the Mighty. Died in the tunnel. With Donal Noye the one-armed smith."
"Battle?" Theon was startled. He'd heard talk of it among the Boltons and the northmen, and from Stannis as well, but all of them had given the impression that it had been a mere hiccough, an ill-mannered backwoods assault beaten off by the superior numbers and divine right of the more civilized folk. Likewise, the wildlings had had their own opinion of it, but a factual word coming out of Tormund Thunderfist's mouth was almost as rare as an honest Frey. Yet it seemed he'd been closer to the truth in this instance.
"Aye." Mance grinned redly. "Proper battle. The sort for songs. You know any good songs, turncloak?"
"I. . . I did. Once." The only song under the Dreadfort was the screaming.
Mance was quiet a moment. Then he cleared his throat and, in a hushed, cracking voice, began to sing.
"In stone halls they burn their great fires
in stone halls they forge their sharp spears
Whilst I walk alone in the mountains,
with no true companion but tears.
They hunt me with dogs in the daylight
they hunt me with torches by night
For those men who are small can never stand tall
whilst giants still walk in the light.
Ooooh, I am the LAST of the giants
so learn well the words of my song
For when I am gone the singing will fade
And the silence shall last long and long."
"Don't." Theon shivered, looking over his shoulder nervously. He didn't need giants joining ghosts. "Please don't."
Mance shot him a mischievous look and kept on singing. At the chorus he gave the last of his strength to it, roaring, "OOOOH, I AM THE LAST OF THE GIANTS," until the very stones seemed to shudder, to wake and answer. And as Theon stood on edge, straining, he heard Mance's singing echoing away down the vault, echoing in a different way, not on rock but something. . . open.
Mance heard it as well. "There," he rasped, grabbing Theon's sleeve. "That way."
Theon thought he felt a movement of air; the stillness down here was otherwise profound. Knowing that, he knew as well that the time had come to face whatever was lurking in the shadows. Taking a deep breath that rattled to his missing toes, he hitched Mance's arm tighter around his shoulders and started to lurch down the hall. If they ever lost the direction, all Mance had to do was sing again.
Both of them were gagging with the effort by the time they finally ducked under a low stone lintel and into a small, circular chamber. They'd always been at the mercy of torches before, burning what few there were left and blundering and groping in the dark until they found another one, but this place had a faint reddish glow of its own, enough to throw bloody shadows. A tall statue stood at the end, above a carved sepulcher. It was there from whence the light came.
Every hair on the back of Theon's neck stood up. He didn't know what it was, what this strange stain on his bones was, or the taste of quicksilver and flame in his mouth, but he did know that this was something utterly beyond his or anyone's comprehension, something that had endured until a thousand generations now of people had passed by. Some force moved in him, brought him closer step by step, until he was looking down at the effigy of the tomb. No face he'd seen before, no name he'd heard. The runes were unreadable to him besides, a language long beyond the use or memory of man. It was foolish to think that Mance's song had called to them somehow, woken them – but he knew of uprisings, of resurrections, of monsters that wore familiar faces –
Mance whispered an oath and stopped dead.
"What?" Since Theon was still carrying him, that entailed him to stop as well. He looked anxiously at his companion. "What is it? What does that say?"
Mance didn't answer. Then he let go of Theon and hobbled forward. He reached the tomb and put both hands on it, spreading his battered fingers on the stone. He too had less than ten, but this was the first time Theon had noticed which ones. The wildling king was missing the thumb on his left hand, the little finger and the middle finger on his right. Considering what he did to Ramsay, he's lucky not to miss a hand. But Ramsay's torture had always been as excruciatingly slow and detailed as possible. Likely he would have seen just taking a hand as an insult to his craftsmanship.
Theon shook his head hard. No, I have to be strong. "What is it?"
Still Mance was silent. He lifted his left hand and traced the runes with his intact fingers, shaping them out, his mouth working as some epiphany apparently struck him like a charging aurochs. Then he said, "Ahai."
"Gods bless you." Theon giggled weakly.
"No." Mance looked up wildly, his greying hair falling over his face. "Ahai. Is this what your fat friend meant? It must be. Though even he must not have known for certain. Just rumors. That whatever was in the crypts. Might be worth it. Whispers. Ahai."
A finger colder than death itself touched the back of Theon's neck. That was another word he had heard uttered in the camp, among the northerners and the Baratheons. Something that went down to the very reason Stannis was there to capture him in the first place, why he had been able to glamor Arnolf Karstark and trick Ramsay with the red witch's sorcery. Tales of a hero reborn and a magic sword. If all the time that had been some trick, a fraud and a flummery. . . but it was possible he had misunderstood what Mance had said. Anything was still, in this instant, possible.
"Ahai," Theon said stupidly. "Azor Ahai?"
Mance gazed at him for a long moment, then nodded.
"I. . . no." This was too much. Why, of all the many halls of hell, would Azor Ahai be buried here, in this one? Besides, that was just another old story, a tale as improbable as saying that the Swan Queen or some other fairy-tale creature was buried here, as improbable as saying. . . as saying that giants built the walls of Winterfell. Theon didn't know much of the legend, and had forgotten what little he had been told, but he did seem to recall that Azor Ahai had been the hero of the Battle of the Dawn, the commander who led the Night's Watch against the Others and drove them back into the far north. The Starks had always had close ties to the Night's Watch, but why in the name of. . .
Brandon the Builder did not only raise Winterfell. He also raised the Wall.
But. . . it was Stannis who was said to be Azor Ahai reborn. . . though if Theon thought of it, that did not preclude the original man from still being buried somewhere. Assuming he is still dead. One never knows these days. And the entire matter could be written off as a fascinating historical question but of no practical application whatsoever if it wasn't for that glow. That light.
Theon had seen it, of course. Lightbringer, the magic sword that served as proof of Stannis' claim. While he was hanging in his chains on Stannis' wall, hearing Stannis' conversations, learning intimate details of his strategy and inclinations. He meant to burn me to death. He would never have allowed me to be present if he ever thought there was any chance I would escape. Then again, Theon Greyjoy knew something about madness these days. Any man who was in his wits, and even one who was not, could have recognized the growing insanity in Stannis, the last living scion of the Baratheon line. With Robert dead and Renly, neither of them leaving any trueborn issue, Stannis stood further and further alone. It was entirely possible that Robert had some baseborn blood running around somewhere that Cersei Lannister had failed to eradicate, but no one would ever know. And as for Stannis. . . his actions were increasingly bizarre and underhanded and desperate, unreasonable, stubborn and proud beyond all sense. But once he had been told that he was the true king, and a messianic hero come again, he would beat himself to death sooner than yield his ground.
Lightbringer. The weapon that Azor Ahai had forged and tempered by plunging through the beating heart of his beloved wife. The red sword of heroes. Stannis did not have it. Had never had it. His sword, his weapon, his mantle of prophecy. Every bit of it a seductive lie.
"We have to open that tomb," Theon said hoarsely. "We have to – "
He was cut off as Mance seized him from behind. Theon was opening his mouth to shout, for all the bloody good it would do – who did he think would hear him? – when Mance shoved his head against the cold stone. The awareness of the dead thing within, the nearness of it, the strange heat – and Mance's hands, mutilated but still with desperate strength, pressing him to it. He will give me to them, to it. And it will consume me. He was. . . now, he was. . .
Terror unknown even to Theon flooded him. He wrenched and jerked like a hooked fish on a line. "No," he wept. "No, please, please, don't. I'll smile, I'm happy, please don't kill me, I'll serve you. . . Reek. . . I know how, I know my place. . . Reek. . ." No, don't forget, don't, you won't remember, you're Theon. . . but his remaining strength collapsed like an eggshell crushed in a fist. He will kill me here, and no one will find my body, not even the ghosts.
His face was mashed so hard against the tomb that he could feel the wetness of his tears, taste them running against his broken lips. Salt, he thought inanely. Stinging in the raw places, dripping onto the stone. This was it, the end, he would –
Then out of nowhere, the pressure leavened. Mance released him, gasping as if the effort had taken all his strength as well, and Theon stumbled backwards, choking. He rose to his feet, turning on the wildling king furiously, nearly lost his balance – and forgot everything he had been going to say, or even think.
The lid of the tomb was moving. Before Theon's imagination could get too swept up in vivid fevers of undead corpses raising withered hands to cast aside flesh and stone, he realized that it was far more graceful than that, more measured. There appeared to be no visible force animating it. Only as easily as if it had been meant to do this all along.
The red light grew stronger, flickering weirdly. Mance's hand was clutching him again, but this time on his arm, as if to hold both of them up. And without knowing what was come over him, Theon stepped forward and looked down into the sarcophagus.
It was empty – of a body, at least. Nothing remained in the bottom, not even a scrap of bone or cloth or dust, so that Theon was suddenly and terrifyingly unsure whether Azor Ahai had lain there at all. What is dead may never die. He tasted salt on his lips again, but this time only the memory of it, from when his uncle the Damphair had baptized him upon his return to Pyke. But then that was cleared away, everything but the shock.
He knew at once that the sword could be made of no ordinary substance. Otherwise there would have been nothing left of it either, only the rusted stains that showed where the ancient Starks had grasped their steel. But it was still intact, from hilt to crosspiece to fuller to tip. It glowed only faintly, like a banked fire or one long smoldering in the peat. All the colors of red and gold seemed to breathe on the surface of the not-steel, to undulate beneath it, to linger on an edge still sharp enough to slice the air itself, or a scrap of silk tossed aloft. A thing of perfection, of consummate artistry, a weapon for a warrior fit to wield it.
Theon backed away. He couldn't look on it without hurting his eyes, as wan and dim as its light was. He wanted it, he hungered for it, he knew what it was: life, salvation, light, a chance. The knife Tormund had given him was nothing but a child's toy in comparison. My choice. So was this, but in a way that it terrified him even to begin to comprehend.
Mance was staring. He made some sign on himself that must have been a wildling's way of warding off evil. Beyond the Wall they must need a great deal of it, but none so much as you'd need with Ramsay. Then, while Theon was still paralyzed, Mance staggered forward, reached down, and grasped Lightbringer by the hilt.
At once, the noise that came from him had Theon fleeing wildly for the door, not daring to look back. Mance fell to his knees, clutching the sword; Theon could smell the char of his flesh. He is burning, he thought, panicking. You cannot lay hands on it without the sacrifice. You have to pay the price. You have to know who you are. You have to know your name.
Mance's screaming haunted him all the way down the dark corridor beyond, as he tried to run but fell again. He flashed madly back to his escape attempt with Kyra, running in the woods outside the Dreadfort and hearing the barking of the bitches and the laughing of the boys. And Ramsay, always Ramsay. It was Ramsay that awaited him back there.
Theon stopped in his tracks, shaking from head to heel. Little subterranean shivers continued to run through him even after he forced the larger ones to stop, but he ignored them. He turned, far more calmly than he felt. With a literal death grip on his knife, he advanced back into Azor Ahai's tomb.
Mance was still on his knees, holding the blade. His screaming had stopped, though his breathing was so hard and heavy that his shoulders were shaking. Lightbringer continued to flare on and off, like a torch guttering in the wind. There was one more effervescent cascade of brilliance that punched a strangled sob from Mance, then it subsided. And as Theon's dazzled eyes readjusted, he could scarcely believe what they were showing him.
Mance looked. . . whole. The fingers were still missing, and the wounds still scarred and gaping, but the flow of blood had stopped. Some of the fragility had vanished from his face, his skin was smoother, his eyes devouring with the heat of the flame. Smoke wreathed his fingers and drifted lazily into the rock-ribbed ceiling of the vault. And as Theon continued to stand there, disbelieving, he heard another scrape of stone.
The statue of Azor Ahai that stood above the now-bare coffin began to turn slowly on its plinth, as if some hidden catch had been triggered. When Mance had dared to take out the sword, most like. No one would have come here unless they were at the uttermost end of need. And no one would have taken the sword and then been able to wield it unless there was –
Theon's breath caught so hard in his lungs he thought he'd been hit –
– a way out.
The statue completed its rotation, as stately as a dancer at a harvest ball. But where it had stood was a dark narrow path, a tight spiral staircase leading into the gods only knew what. It was barely wide enough for one man to walk upright; they'd have to crawl. An earthy smell of mildew breathed from it, but no rot or ruin. Just the very beginning and end of darkness.
Mance heaved himself upright, employing Lightbringer rather basely as a crutch. It continued to glimmer and flash and gleam; Theon was mesmerized by it. Not only it, but what he thought it had done to Mance. Fire cleanses so well as destroys. It was a healing of some sort. How he wanted to be whole again, when he had been broken his whole life – but he was far too terrified to grip it, to put that theory to the imminent and likely fatal test. I am too weak to stand it.
"Turncloak." Mance's voice was a smoke-thickened growl. "Do you see a scabbard?"
Theon was about to answer that this was the least of their concerns, but then decided it was actually very sensible. They could scarcely go slithering up a tightly enclosed space with a sword that was not only glowing but also lethally sharp, after all, and he busied himself fumbling about the catacomb in hopes of just such a useful object. It was to his vast surprise when one such actually appeared. A dull leather thing, perfectly ordinary-looking, but when Mance slid the blade into it the room was plunged into almost complete blackness. Silence reigned but for his continued gasping.
At last, it was Theon who spoke. "We should go."
"Aye," Mance agreed. His shadow tottered forward, still unsteadily but with far more purpose than when Theon had all but carried him into this room. He gestured to the narrow staircase. "You first."
Swallowing his objections, Theon obeyed. He went gingerly across the floor and ducked in; the ancient steps were steep enough that he grasped them with his flayed hands for better purchase. On all fours, he began to climb.
Once more, time seemed to melt away. There was nothing but this, nothing but here, and it had always been so. Mance came after him just as stealthily; his art must have been perfected by years with the free folk, evading the patrols of the Night's Watch and anything else that roamed in the wild. It made Theon feel obscurely better to know that Mance was guarding his back. He still did not understand the purpose of the attack in the tomb, but at least Mance did not seem inclined to continue it. And it had opened the lid, which their frail strength would never had had a prayer of otherwise.
Up and up. As far up as they had gone down. Theon kept waiting for the stair to be blocked, or for some other reason to present itself to stop this madness, but he thought of the crypts and shuddered. They saved my life, but I have seen enough of them for all of it. Whatever little there was like to be left, and at last, he felt the frigid kiss of winter on his face. Air. Outside air. The top.
Just ahead, Theon could make out the spectral shape of a grate. He thought he wouldn't be able to move it, but it broke aside easily, rusted through, when he pushed it. He crawled through, into a culvert jagged with broken ice and stone, and emerged in rustling trees.
The godswood. He knew it at once. He had become a man here, had seen Bran's face here, had let Jeyne marry Ramsay and known it for the lie. Around him, the trees stood thick and black and stooped, weighed down with crusted ice. Torches burned distantly on the walls of Winterfell; the godswood was enclosed within the castle, three acres. It was not snowing at the moment, but the air was pungent and sharp with chill. The hot pools smoked like Stannis' nightfires.
Mance emerged behind him, and pushed himself to his feet. He stood inhaling and exhaling gusty breaths, silver steaming from his nose and mouth in a way that made Theon nervous. They will know we are here. The only way out of the godswood was past the heart tree, to the gate that led into the main keep. And he somehow doubted that Mance intended to linger here forever.
The wildling king placed one finger to his lips, and Theon nodded. I will not be a coward, at least. Moving low and quickly, they scrambled through the thick trees toward what would be the western wall, near the Hunter's Gate where he had departed to find Bran and Rickon. I never did. Thank the gods, thank the gods.
Here, there was a tower walk that the Boltons had mercifully left unmanned. And as Mance began to scale the steps for a better look – something that he certainly would not have been able to do in his previous state – Theon noticed something odd. A barrel lying along the wall, with a length of oiled hemp running it to another some several dozen yards away.
A cold suspicion clawed at his mind, but fled before he had the words to voice it. He gazed up nervously at Mance, who had attained a position of some prominence and was staring out at the forest beyond. How he could hope to see anything Theon did not know; the moon was barely a crescent, the stars faint as clouded glass. Yet how good it was to lay eyes on them, the night air caressing his face. For the first time since he had fallen into the Boltons' power, Theon Greyjoy almost felt like a man.
A howl cut the night. Once, and then again.
"Gods," said Mance, very low.
"What?" The weight of the fear returned.
"There are wolves out there." Mance turned and started to hasten down. "More than one. And I could be mad, but I thought I saw. . ."
"What?"
"Not just a wolf, but a big one. Bloody big one. Leading them."
Theon clenched his fists. "There were tales. . . of a huge wolf bitch with a great pack in the riverlands, but that's the riverlands. She can't be here. Not really."
"Can she?" Mance's smile twisted. "Stranger things have happened. Giants, for instance. Now, before we lose any advantage entirely, we must – "
Another howl split the night. But this was no wolf. Once and then again, and a third time. A long low cold rumble, a sound that Theon knew intimately as well. Warhorns. Northern warhorns. And rising above them, a sharper, skirling wail of pipes. Clansmen.
Mance went stiff. Abandoning his half-completed descent, he whirled around and began to climb to the top again, so fast he almost slipped off the crenel. He reached the wallwalk on hands and knees, a hunched feral shape in the darkness, and stared so long that Theon knew, as if there had been any doubt, that he was not mistaken. They are coming.
"Men," the wildling king breathed. "An army. We're under attack."
"No." Theon felt almost brave. "They are."
The warhorns ripped the night again. Now there was shouting, more torches flaring, the pounding of armored feet and distant cursing, stamping, screaming. The Boltons had been made aware that their enemy was on them, and Theon could not help but wonder if Stannis was leading the attack himself. The false one was rotting away in a cage somewhere, but that had all been a lie. If he takes me, he will kill me. But no, even that was no longer true anymore. He had the knife.
Theon inhaled a reckless breath. He threw his arms out to either side and laughed. Salt and iron. And snow, snow, snow. Mayhaps he had never been a true Greyjoy after all. His father had said so, at least. But with Stannis Baratheon's men surging on Winterfell, and the Boltons scrambling to meet the attack, and the red sword in Mance's hand and the bronze knife at his side, he was finally made perfect again. Eternity. In his mind's eye, Robb turned to him and smiled.
Don't go, Theon whispered. Stay with me. Just a little while. It won't be long. Then I'll be with you.
Robb's smile withered. Only sorrow remained, crushing. You left me, he answered, and began to walk away. His head was no longer on his neck; it was gone, and Grey Wind's mournful golden eyes lifted to him instead. Robb crumpled to ashes and Theon's scream died in his throat.
But the night was still around him, and he was standing yet.
Theon began to run. Skipped through the snow, kicking up trails. Flung himself down and scrubbed his arms out to either side, rolled in it like a child, a dog let off the collar. His laughter turned to sobs and back to laughter, and he listened to the first hiss of arrows, the distant thud of a trebuchet. It seemed the Boltons were not entirely as unprepared as one might hope, but no matter, no matter. He lay spread-eagled in the snow and laughed.
"Are you mad?" That was Mance, behind him. "Get up, turncloak. Get up. It'll be now, the only chance we have. They're coming from the Hunter's Gate, if we can make it back to the eastern side there may be a way through. And then we can – "
"No." Theon sat up suddenly, snow falling from his only he could work out what was vexing him about the barrels, and that thought he'd had. Something about how Ramsay had failed at bringing Winterfell down when he'd sacked it, that the stones still stood deep and strong. Something about an insult to his craftsmanship. Why he'd not merely taken a hand from Mance, or a foot, and had done. He took everything from me, but I am still here. The greatest insult of all. But it continued to flap just out of reach, maddeningly.
Theon rolled over and got to his feet. "The barrels," he said to Mance, who stared back at him blankly. "We have to get those barrels away from the walls."
"Suit yourself, turncloak. I'll be running for the eastern gate while you do."
"And get out how?" Theon's anger flared. "Gnaw it down with your teeth? I saved your fucking life, damn you. I think you owe me this."
Mance stared at him, then began to laugh. It sounded nearly as hysterical to Theon as he imagined his own did, and he realized it was the first time he had risked talking back to anyone in almost too long to remember. Mance can't take a finger for it. Well, he could, he had Lightbringer while Theon only had a knife, but he was no Ramsay. Theon had almost forgotten how liberating sarcasm could be. "You owe me," he said again, this time with a desperate vehemence.
"Could be I do. But I still don't see what this is about."
"Ramsay. . . you don't know him, not the way I know him. You were just a traitor, but I was his. . . pet." Yes, Lord Ramsay, of course I want to please you. . . you can do as you wish with me, everything I am is yours. . . if I bleed I'll welcome it. . . please, Lord Ramsay. . . of course I love you, on me and in me and through me, everything about me. . . "He's going to. . . I don't know what he's going to do, exactly. But that's his trap. If Stannis' army breaks in. . ."
Mance shook his head. "Both of them will kill us. Baratheon or Bolton."
"I. . . know. But Winterfell. My place. My place. Can't. . . I can't fail one last time. Not Robb. Not like this."
"Robb's dead. We will be soon, unless – "
"Now. Turncloak."
Mance stared a moment longer. Then shook his head again, muttered something in the Old Tongue that Theon guessed was not terribly complimentary, but he did not care. The sounds of combat were louder now, pounding on the gates. Trebuchets launched with a whump and a thud. Steel beat on steel in a rising tide. "Stannis!" the call came, blown on the freezing night wind, and the ungodly crunch of shattering wood suggested that the Baratheons and the clansmen had broken down at least one gate, might be pouring into Winterfell even now. "R'hllor and Stannis!"
"If the Lord of Light was any god, he'd call down lightning now and smite the lot of them," Mance remarked, with apparent unconcern. "Blow them all to kingdoms come."
And with that, Theon knew.
Knew.
He turned and began to sprint. But they had traversed almost the entire length of the godswood, and he knew in the pit of his stomach that he'd never make it back in time. He battered through the trees, unable to breathe for the solid wall of panic in his throat. Old gods! he screamed. Help me! And his father scorning, saying that a Greyjoy had no business calling on the gods of the Starks – but his father had worshiped the Drowned God, and drowned.
The trees were thinner up ahead. He knew there was no time; Ramsay might be lighting the torch even now. Must have a plan to get safe away – he was no martyr, diabolical or otherwise. Must be a way –
The curtain wall lay before him. The sounds of the battle were getting nearer every moment; the Baratheons were definitely inside the walls. Blow them all to kingdoms come. Aye, indeed.
I am not too late, Theon Greyjoy thought, and thanked the gods. He gathered his haunches under him, preparing to make a break for it. It was only then that he realized something was amiss. He would never have noticed if he wasn't so hyperaware.
The silence was just a split second. Only long enough to break on him in cold terror.
And then, the explosion.