A Game of Thrones Chapter Twenty-one

TyrionAre you certain that you must leave us so soon? the statuesque populace Com humanityder asked him.Past certain, sea captain Mormont, Tyrion replied. My familiar Jaime pass on be marveling what has work of me. He may watch that you harbour convinced me to take the dreary.Would that I could. Mormont picked up a squawk claw and cracked it in his fist. doddering as he was, the headmaster Commander still had the strength of a bear. Youre a cunning man, Tyrion. We vex need of work force of your sort on the rampart.Tyrion grinned. Then I sh entirely depend the s regular(a) Kingdoms for dwarfs and ship them all to you, entitle Mormont. As they laughed, he sucked the plaza from a crab leg and reached for a nonher. The crabs had arrived from Eastwatch solo this morning, packed in a barrel of snow, and they were succulent.Ser Alliser Thorne was the only man at table who did non so much as crack a smile. Lannister mocks us.Only you, Ser Alliser, Tyrion tell. This era the laughter round the table had a nervous, uncertain quality to it.Thornes black eyes fixed on Tyrion with loathing. You suck a b gaga deliveroration for or so iodine who is microscopic than half(prenominal) a man. Perhaps you and I should escort the super acid together.Why? asked Tyrion. The crabs ar here.The remark brought more guffaws from the early(a)s. Ser Alliser stood up, his lecture a tight line. Come and consume your japes with steel in your relegate.Tyrion looked pointedly at his right hand. Why, I have steel in my hand, Ser Alliser, although it appears to be a crab fork. Shall we duel? He hopped up on his direct and began po classg at Thornes thorax with the niggling fork. Roars of laughter change the mainstay room. Bits of crab flew from the Lord Commanders m fetch onh as he began to gasp and choke. change sur see his raven joined in, cawing loudly from above the window. duel Duel DuelSer Alliser Thorne passing p gear uped from the room so stiff ly it looked as though he had a dagger up his only whent.Mormont was still gasping for breath. Tyrion pounded him on the back. To the victor goes the spoils, he called out. I claim Thornes sh argon of the crabs.Finally the Lord Commander recove flushed himself. You are a wicked man, to provoke our Ser Alliser so, he sc old(a)ed.Tyrion seated himself and took a sip of wine-colo carmine. If a man paints a target on his chest, he should expect that sooner or later someone get out unfastened an arrow at him. I have seen dead men with more c at a timeption than your Ser Alliser.Not so, objected the Lord Steward, Bowen Marsh, a man as round and red as a pomegranate. You ought to hear the droll names he turn backs the lads he trains.Tyrion had heard a few of those droll names. Ill wager the lads have a few names for him as well, he said. Chip the ice come to your eyes, my good lords. Ser Alliser Thorne should be mucking out your stables, not drilling your young warriors.The postdat e has no shortage of stableboys, Lord Mormont grumbled. That come outs to be all they s wipeout us these days. Stableboys and sneak thieves and rapers. Ser Alliser is an anointed knight, one of the few to take the black since I have been Lord Commander. He fought bravely at Kings Landing.On the wrong side, Ser Jaremy Rykker commented dryly. I ought to know, I was in that location on the battlements beside him. Tywin Lannister gave us a splendid choice. egress the black, or see our heads on spikes in advance even blood line. No offense intended, Tyrion.none taken, Ser Jaremy. My father is very fond of spiked heads, especially those of people who have annoyed him in some fashion. And a face as magisterial as yours, well, no doubt he saw you decorating the city argue above the Kings Gate. I destine you would have looked very striking up there. convey you, Ser Jaremy replied with a sardonic smile.Lord Commander Mormont cleared his throat. sometimes I fear Ser Alliser saw you true , Tyrion. You do mock us and our noble purpose here.Tyrion shrugged. We all need to be mocked from time to time, Lord Mormont, lest we pelf to take ourselves too seriously. More wine, please. He held out his cup.As Rykker filled it for him, Bowen Marsh said, You have a great thirst for a petite man.Oh, I think that Lord Tyrion is quite a large man, Maester Aemon said from the outlying(prenominal) end of the table. He spoke softly, yet the high officers of the Nights study all fell quiet, the better to hear what the ancient had to say. I think he is a giant come among us, here at the end of the world.Tyrion answered gently, Ive been called many things, my lord, entirely giant is seldom one of them.Nonetheless, Maester Aemon said as his clouded, milk- etiolate eyes moved to Tyrions face, I think it is true.For once, Tyrion Lannister found himself at a loss for words. He could only bow his head courteously and say, You are too kind, Maester Aemon.The blind man smiled. He was a ti ny thing, wrinkled and hairless, shrunken d bearstairs the weight of a hundred geezerhood so his maesters collar with its links of many metals hung loose about his throat. I have been called many things, my lord, he said, neertheless kind is seldom one of them. This time Tyrion himself led the laughter.Much later, when the serious business of eating was through with(p) and the others had left, Mormont offered Tyrion a chair beside the fire and a cup of mulled spirits so bullocky they brought tears to his eyes. The kings channel house be perilous this far north, the Lord Commander told him as they drank.I have Jyck and Morrec, Tyrion said, and Yoren is riding south again.Yoren is only one man. The Watch shall escort you as far as Winterfell, Mormont announced in a tone that brooked no argument. three men should be sufficient.If you insist, my lord, Tyrion said. You might send young Snow. He would be glad for a chance to see his brothers.Mormont frowned through his four-ply g rey beard. Snow? Oh, the unappeasable bastard. I think not. The young ones need to forget the lives they left privy them, the brothers and mothers and all that. A visit home would only stir up lookings best left alone. I know these things. My own blood kin . . . my sister Maege rules BearIsland now, since my sons dishonor. I have nieces I have never seen. He took a swallow. Besides, Jon Snow is only a boy. You shall have three weight-liftthe likes of swords, to living you safe.I am touched by your concern, Lord Mormont. The strong drink was making Tyrion light-headed, but not so drunk that he did not realize that the Old Bear wanted something from him. I entrust I can repay your kindness.You can, Mormont said bluntly. Your sister sits beside the king. Your brother is a great knight, and your father the most powerful lord in the Seven Kingdoms. Speak to them for us. Tell them of our need here. You have seen for yourself, my lord. The Nights Watch is dying. Our strength is less than a thousand now. Six hundred here, cardinal hundred in the ShadowTower, even fewer at Eastwatch, and a scant third of those battle men. The Wall is a hundred leagues long. Think on that. Should an attack come, I have three men to defend each mile of wall.Three and a third, Tyrion said with a yawn.Mormont scarcely seemed to hear him. The old man warmed his hands in the beginning the fire. I sent Benjen Stark to search after Yohn Royces son, lost on his first ranging. The Royce boy was green as spend grass, yet he insisted on the honor of his own command, grammatical construction it was his due as a knight. I did not wish to shock his lord father, so I yielded. I sent him out with two men I deemed as good as any in the Watch. More seagull I.Fool, the raven agreed. Tyrion glanced up. The bird peered down at him with those beady black eyes, ruffling its wings. Fool, it called again. Doubtless old Mormont would take it amiss if he throttled the creature. A pity.The Lord Comma nder took no notice of the irritating bird. Gared was near as old as I am and longer on the Wall, he went on, yet it would seem he forswore himself and fled. I should never have believed it, not of him, but Lord Eddard sent me his head from Winterfell. Of Royce, there is no word. unrivaled deserter and two men lost, and now Ben Stark too has foregone missing. He sighed deeply. Who am I to send searching after him? In two years I get out be seventy. Too old and too weary for the burden I bear, yet if I correct it down, who will pick it up? Alliser Thorne? Bowen Marsh? I would have to be as blind as Maester Aemon not to see what they are. The Nights Watch has become an army of sullen boys and tired old men. Apart from the men at my table tonight, I have perhaps twenty who can read, and even fewer who can think, or final cause, or lead. Once the Watch fatigued its summertimes building, and each Lord Commander raised the Wall higher than he found it. Now it is all we can do to sta y alive.He was in deadly earnest, Tyrion realized. He felt faintly embarrassed for the old man. Lord Mormont had spent a good part of his life on the Wall, and he needed to believe if those years were to have any meaning. I promise, the king will hear of your need, Tyrion said gravely, and I will tell to my father and my brother Jaime as well. And he would. Tyrion Lannister was as good as his word. He left the rest unsaid that King Robert would ignore him, Lord Tywin would ask if he had taken leave of his senses, and Jaime would only laugh.You are a young man, Tyrion, Mormont said. How many winters have you seen?He shrugged. Eight, nine. I misremember.And all of them short.As you say, my lord. He had been born in the dead of winter, a terrible bestial one that the maesters said had lasted near three years, but Tyrions earliest memories were of spring.When I was a boy, it was said that a long summer always meant a long winter to come. This summer has lasted nine years, Tyrion, and a tenth will soon be upon us. Think on that.When I was a boy, Tyrion replied, my moisture nurse told me that one day, if men were good, the gods would give the world a summer without ending. Perhaps weve been better than we design, and the Great Summer is finally at hand. He grinned.The Lord Commander did not seem amused. You are not fool enough to believe that, my lord. Already the days grow shorter. There can be no mistake, Aemon has had letters from the Citadel, findings in accord with his own. The end of summer stares us in the face. Mormont reached out and clutched Tyrion tightly by the hand. You must make them under carrell. I tell you, my lord, the trace is coming. There are wild things in the woods, direwolves and mammoths and snow bears the size of aurochs, and I have seen darker considerations in my dreams.In your dreams, Tyrion echoed, persuasion how badly he needed another strong drink.Mormont was deaf to the mete in his voice. The fisherfolk near Eastwatch have gli mpsed white walkers on the shore.This time Tyrion could not hold his tongue. The fisherfolk of Lannisport lots glimpse merlings.Denys Mallister writes that the mountain people are pitiful south, slipping past the ShadowTower in numbers greater than ever before. They are running, my lord . . . but running from what? Lord Mormont moved to the window and stared out into the night. These are old bones, Lannister, but they have never felt a chill like this. Tell the king what I say, I supplicate you. Winter is coming, and when the yearn Night falls, only the Nights Watch will stand among the realm and the darkness that sweeps from the north. The gods help us all if we are not ready.The gods help me if I do not get some sleep tonight. Yoren is determined to ride at first light. Tyrion got to his feet, sleepy from wine and tired of doom. I thank you for all the courtesies you have done me, Lord Mormont.Tell them, Tyrion. Tell them and make them believe. That is all the thanks I need. H e whistled, and his raven flew to him and perched on his shoulder. Mormont smiled and gave the bird some corn from his pocket, and that was how Tyrion left him.It was vinegarish insentient outside. Bundled thickly in his furs, Tyrion Lannister pulled on his manuss and nodded to the poor frozen(p) wretches rest sentry outside the Commanders Keep. He set off across the yard for his own chambers in the Kings Tower, travel as briskly as his legs could manage. Patches of snow crunched beneath his feet as his boots broke the nights crust, and his breath steamed before him like a banner. He shoved his hands into his armpits and walked faster, praying that Morrec had remembered to warm his prat with calorifacient bricks from the fire.Behind the Kings Tower, the Wall glimmered in the light of the moon, immense and mysterious. Tyrion tallyped for a moment to look up at it. His legs ached of cold and haste.Suddenly a strange madness took hold of him, a yearning to look once more off t he end of the world. It would be his last chance, he thought tomorrow he would ride south, and he could not imagine wherefore he would ever want to return to this frozen desolation. The Kings Tower was before him, with its promise of warmth and a soft bed, yet Tyrion found himself walking past it, toward the vast watch palisade of the Wall.A wooden dance step ascended the south face, anchored on huge rough-hewn beams change posture deep into the ice and frozen in place. Back and forth it switched, clawing its way upward as hunched as a bolt of lightning. The black brothers assured him that it was much stronger than it looked, but Tyrions legs were cramping too badly for him to even contemplate the ascent. He went instead to the iron cage beside the well, clambered inside, and yanked hard on the bell rope, three quick pulls.He had to wait what seemed an eternity, standing there inside the bars with the Wall to his back. Long enough for Tyrion to begin to wonder why he was doing t his. He had sightly about decided to forget his sudden whim and go to bed when the cage gave a jerk and began to ascend.He moved upward slowly, by fits and starts at first, then more smoothly. The ground fell away beneath him, the cage swung, and Tyrion wrapped his hands slightly the iron bars. He could feel the cold of the metal even through his gloves. Morrec had a fire vehement in his room, he noted with approval, but the Lord Commanders tower was dark. The Old Bear had more sense than he did, it seemed.Then he was above the towers, still inching his way upward. Castle Black lay below him, etch in do work. You could see how stark and empty it was from up here windowless keeps, crumbling walls, courtyards clogged with broken stone. Farther off, he could see the lights of Moles Town, the little village half a league south along the kingsroad, and here and there the undimmed glitter of moonlight on water where icy streams descended from the mountain senior high school to cut across the plains. The rest of the world was a bleak conceit of windswept hills and rocky fields spotted with snow.Finally a thick voice behind him said, Seven hells, its the dwarf, and the cage jerked to a sudden s legislate and hung there, swinging slowly back and forth, the ropes creaking.Bring him in, damn it. There was a grunt and a loud groaning of wood as the cage slid crabwise and then the Wall was beneath him. Tyrion waited until the swinging had stopped before he pushed outspoken the cage door and hopped down onto the ice. A heavy intention in black was leaning on the winch, while a blink of an eye held the cage with a gloved hand. Their faces were muffled in woolen scarves so only their eyes showed, and they were plump with layers of wool and leather, black on black. And what will you be wanting, this time of night? the one by the winch asked.A last look.The men exchanged sour glances. Look all you want, the other one said. Just have a care you dont fall off, little m an. The Old Bear would have our hides. A small wooden shanty stood under the great crane, and Tyrion saw the dull glow of a brasier and felt a brief gust of warmth when the winch men opened the door and went back inside. And then he was alone.It was bitingly cold up here, and the wind pulled at his clothes like an insistent lover. The top of the Wall was wider than the kingsroad often was, so Tyrion had no fear of falling, although the footing was prankster than he would have liked. The brothers spread call on the carpeted stone across the walkways, but the weight of countless footsteps would melt the Wall beneath, so the ice would seem to grow around the gravel, swallowing it, until the path was bare again and it was time to crush more stone.Still, it was nothing that Tyrion could not manage. He looked off to the east and west, at the Wall stretching before him, a vast white road with no beginning and no end and a dark abysm on either side. West, he decided, for no special reaso n, and he began to walk that way, following the pathway nearest the north edge, where the gravel looked freshest.His bare cheeks were healthy with the cold, and his legs complained more loudly with every step, but Tyrion ignored them. The wind swirled around him, gravel crunched beneath his boots, while ahead the white ribbon followed the lines of the hills, acclivity higher and higher, until it was lost beyond the western horizon. He passed a vast catapult, as tall as a city wall, its base sunk deep into the Wall. The throwing arm had been taken off for repairs and then forgotten it lay there like a broken toy, half-embedded in the ice.On the far side of the catapult, a muffled voice called out a challenge. Who goes there? HaltTyrion stopped. If I halt too long Ill freeze in place, Jon, he said as a shaggy pale shape slid toward him silently and sniffed at his furs. Hello, signature.Jon Snow moved closer. He looked large and heavier in his layers of fur and leather, the hood o f his cloak pulled down over his face. Lannister, he said, yanking loose the scarf to uncover his mouth. This is the last place I would have pass judgment to see you. He carried a heavy barb tipped in iron, taller than he was, and a sword hung at his side in a leather sheath. Across his chest was a gleaming black warhorn, bind with silver.This is the last place I would have expected to be seen, Tyrion admitted. I was captured by a whim. If I touch Ghost, will he spate my hand off?Not with me here, Jon promised.Tyrion scratched the white wolf behind the ears. The red eyes watched him impassively. The beast came up as high as his chest now. Another year, and Tyrion had the gloomy feeling hed be looking up at him. What are you doing up here tonight? he asked. Besides frost your manhood off . . . I have drawn night guard, Jon said. Again. Ser Alliser has cordial arranged for the watch air force officer to take a special sake in me. He seems to think that if they keep me awake half the night, Ill fall asleep during morning drill. So far I have thwarted him.Tyrion grinned. And has Ghost learned to juggle yet?No, said Jon, smiling, but Grenn held his own against Halder this morning, and Pyp is no longer dropping his sword quite so often as he did.Pyp?Pypar is his real name. The small boy with the large ears. He saw me working with Grenn and asked for help. Thorne had never even shown him the proper way to get by a sword. He turned to look north. I have a mile of Wall to guard. Will you walk with me?If you walk slowly, Tyrion said.The watch commander tells me I must walk, to keep my blood from freezing, but he never said how fast.They walked, with Ghost pacing along beside Jon like a white shadow. I leave on the morrow, Tyrion said.I know. Jon sounded strangely sad.I plan to stop at Winterfell on the way south. If there is any cognitive content that you would like me to deliver . . . Tell Robb that Im going to command the Nights Watch and keep him safe, so he m ight as well take up needlework with the girls and have Mikken melt down his sword for horseshoes.Your brother is bigger than me, Tyrion said with a laugh. I decline to deliver any meat that might get me killed.Rickon will ask when Im coming home. Try to explicate where Ive gone, if you can. Tell him he can have all my things while Im away, hell like that.People seemed to be asking a great deal of him today, Tyrion Lannister thought. You could border all this in a letter, you know.Rickon cant read yet. Bran . . . He stopped suddenly. I dont know what message to send to Bran. Help him, Tyrion.What help could I give him? I am no maester, to ease his pain. I have no spells to give him back his legs.You gave me help when I needed it, Jon Snow said.I gave you nothing, Tyrion said. Words.Then give your words to Bran too.Youre asking a lame man to teach a cripple how to dance, Tyrion said. However sincere the lesson, the result is in all probability to be grotesque. Still, I know what it is to love a brother, Lord Snow. I will give Bran whatever small help is in my power.Thank you, my lord of Lannister. He pulled off his glove and offered his bare hand. Friend.Tyrion found himself strangely touched. Most of my kin are bastards, he said with a humourous smile, but youre the first Ive had to friend. He pulled a glove off with his teeth and clasped Snow by the hand, flesh against flesh. The boys grip was firm and strong.When he had donned his glove again, Jon Snow turned abruptly and walked to the low, icy northern parapet. Beyond him the Wall fell away sharply beyond him there was only the darkness and the wild. Tyrion followed him, and side by side they stood upon the edge of the world.The Nights Watch permitted the woods to come no closer than half a mile of the north face of the Wall. The thickets of ironwood and sentinel and oak that had once grown there had been harvested centuries ago, to give a broad swath of open ground through which no enemy could hop e to pass unseen. Tyrion had heard that elsewhere along the Wall, between the three fortresses, the wildwood had come creeping back over the decades, that there were places where grey-green sentinels and pale white weirwoods had taken root in the shadow of the Wall itself, but Castle Black had a prodigious appetite for firewood, and here the forest was still kept at bay by the axes of the black brothers.It was never far, though. From up here Tyrion could see it, the dark trees looming beyond the stretch of open ground, like a second wall built parallel to the first, a wall of night. Few axes had ever swung in that black wood, where even the moonlight could not penetrate the ancient tangle of root and thorn and hold limb. Out there the trees grew huge, and the rangers said they seemed to brood and knew not men. It was small wonder the Nights Watch named it the haunted forest.As he stood there and looked at all that darkness with no fires burning anywhere, with the wind gasconadeing and the cold like a spear in his guts, Tyrion Lannister felt as though he could or so believe the talk of the Others, the enemy in the night. His jokes of grumkins and snarks no longer seemed quite so droll.My uncle is out there, Jon Snow said softly, leaning on his spear as he stared off into the darkness. The first night they sent me up here, I thought, Uncle Benjen will ride back tonight, and Ill see him first and blow the horn. He never came, though. Not that night and not any night. gift him time, Tyrion said.Far off to the north, a wolf began to howl. Another voice picked up the call, then another. Ghost cocked his head and listened. If he doesnt come back, Jon Snow promised, Ghost and I will go find him. He put his hand on the direwolfs head.I believe you, Tyrion said, but what he thought was, And who will go find you? He shivered.