𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒, game of thrones

Chapter Nine

"Bran," Lyanna whispered softly. "Bran, come back. Come back now, Bran. Bran . . . "

She didn't want to shake him, what scared her was that Bran's eyes went up and all white like snow. She wonder if that she will look like once she knew how to Warg. Bran's eyes were back...

"Bran?" Lyanna said again . "You were thrashing, making terrible noises. What did you see?"

"Winterfell." He said. "It was Winterfell. It was all on fire. There were horse smells, and steel, and blood. They killed everyone, Lyanna."

Lyanna placed her hand on his head, she felt wetness and sweat, stroking back his hair. "You're all sweaty," she said. "Do you need a drink?"

"A drink," he agreed. She held a skin to his lips, and Bran swallowed so fast the water ran out of the corner of his mouth. It's been a few nights since they hid in the crypts. "How long?"

"Three days," said Jojen. The boy had come up softfoot, or perhaps he had been there all along; in this blind black world. "We were afraid for you."

"I was with Summer," Bran said.

"Too long. You'll starve yourself. Meera dribbled a little water down your throat, and we smeared honey on your mouth, but it is not enough."

"I ate," said Bran. "We ran down an elk and had to drive off a treecat that tried to steal him."

"The wolf ate," Jojen said. "Not you. Take care, Bran. Remember who you are."

Lyanna had not dreamt of her wolf, Visenya left, perhaps she was starving and needed to eat something else rather than bread, honey, apples and health food. Bran spoke up "I have to tell Osha what I saw. Is she here? Where did she go?"

The wildling woman herself gave answer. "Nowhere, m'lord. I've had my fill o' blundering in the black."

Lyanna heard the scrape of a heel on stone, turned her head toward the sound, but saw nothing. She thought she could smell her, but she wasn't sure. All of them stank alike, and she did not have Visenya's nose to tell one from the other. "Last night I pissed on a king's foot," Osha went on. "Might be it was morning, who can say? I was sleeping, but now I'm not." They all slept a lot, not only Lyanna.

There was nothing else to do, Sleep and eat and sleep again, and sometimes talk a little . . . but not too much, and only in whispers, just to be safe. Osha might have liked it better if they had never talked at all, but there was no way to quiet Rickon, or to stop Hodor from muttering, "Hodor, hodor, hodor," endlessly to himself.

"Osha," Bran said, "I saw Winterfell burning." Off to Lyanna's left, she could hear the soft sound of Rickon's breathing.

"A dream," said Osha.

"A wolf dream," said Bran. "I smelled it too. Nothing smells like fire, or blood."

"Whose blood?"

"Men, horses, dogs, everyone. We have to go see."

"This scrawny skin of mine's the only one I got," said Osha. "That squid prince catches hold o' me, they'll strip it off my back with a whip."

Lyanna blurted out "I'll go if you're afraid."

Lyanna heard fingers fumbling at leather, followed by the sound of steel on flint. Then again. A spark flew, caught. Osha blew softly. A long pale flame awoke, stretching upward like a girl on her toes. Osha's face floated above it. She touched the flame with the head of a torch. Lyanna had to squint as the pitch began to burn, filling the world with orange glare. The light woke Rickon, who sat up yawning.
When the shadows moved, it looked for an instant as if the dead were rising as well. Lyanna and Brandon, Lord Rickard Stark their father, Lord Edwyle his father, Lord Willam and his brother Artos the Implacable, Lord Donnor and Lord Beron and Lord Rodwell, one-eyed Lord Jonnel, Lord Barth and Lord Brandon and Lord Cregan who had fought the Dragonknight. On their stone chairs they sat with stone wolves at their feet. This was where they came when the warmth had seeped out of their bodies; this was the dark hall of the dead, where the living feared to tread.