𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐎𝐘

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴇʟᴇᴠᴇɴ

𝟛

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The waking was not so gentle. The room was dark, but under the blanket a pain was black, a throbbing in his leg that turned into a hot knife at the least motion. Torsten learned that the hard way when he tried to see if he still had a leg. Gasping, he swallowed a scream and made another fist. "Torsten." A candle appeared, and a well-remembered face was looking down on him, big ears and all. "You shouldn't move."

"Pyp?" Torsten reached up, and the other boy clasped his hand and gave it a squeeze. "I thought you'd gone..." Said Torsten.

"...With the Old Pomegranate? No, thinks I'm too small and green. Sam's here too." Pypar ginned.

"I'm here too." Samwell stepped to the other side of the bed, with his usual round moon face and sweet soft smile. Torsten's throat felt dry.

"Water." He gasped. Samwell brought it, and held it to his lips. "I saw the Fist." He said, after a long swallow. "The blood, and the dead horses... Jon said a dozen made it back."

"They almost left me... Grenn and Edd did... I wouldn't have blamed them. They shook me and screamed at me, even slapped me in the face, they did. Giant even tried to drag me to my feet, but I guess I was too heavy. They got me through it, though. We made it back to Craster's Keep." Samwell looked guilty. "At Craster's... Dirk and Ollo were tearing up the walls looking for food, some of the others were raping Craster's wives. Dolorous Edd figured Dirk's bunch would kill all the loyal men to keep us from telling what they'd done... I had to help Gilly and her baby. So I took her into the forest, we ran and left the others..." Torsten had never been so proud of Samwell before, though he'd left the others, he'd saved Gilly and her baby. Torsten tried to sit again. It was as much a mistake as the first time. He cried out, cursing.

"Sam, go wake Maester Aemon." Said Pypar. "Tell him Torsten needs more milk of the poppy... and for seven hells fetch Jon."

"No... Tormund..." Torsten tried.

"We know." Said Pypar. "The sentries on the Wall have been told to keep one eye on the south, and Donal Noye dispatched some men to Weatherback Ridge to watch the Kingsroad. Maester Aemon sent birds to Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower too." Maester Aemon shuffled to the bedside, one hand on Samwell's shoulder, the other on Jon's. 

"Torsten, boy. Be gentle with yourself. It is good that you have woken, but you must give yourself time to heal. We drowned the wound with boiling wine, and closed you up with a poultice of nettle, mustard seed and moldy bread, but unless you rest..." Torsten fought through the pain to sit.

"I can't. Mance will be here soon..." Another spasm of pain twisted up Torsten's leg, and the next he knew he was flat on his back again.

"Drink this." Samwell held a cup to his lips. Torsten drank. His head was full of the sound of his brothers laughing. The faces above him began to blur and fade.

"Rest, Torsten." Jon told him. When the dreams took him, he found himself back at the Fist, splashing in the pools of the blood of his brothers, beneath a white weirwood that had the Old Bear's face. Jon was with him, laying lifeless on the ground surrounded by dead leaves. He was white as snow, his skin began dissolving, the flesh sloughing off his bones until only skull and skeleton remained and the pool blubbled thick and red.

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