𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐎𝐘

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰᴏᴜʀ

𝟛

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Torsten turned to the sudden sound of wings. Blue grey feathers filled his eyes, as sharp talons buried themselves in his face. Red pain laced through him sudden and fierce as pinions beat around his head. He saw the beak, but there was no time to get a hand up or reach for a weapon. Torsten reeled backward, his foot slipped, and then he was falling. And still the eagle clung to his face, its talons tearing at him as it flapped and shrieked and pecked. The world turned upside down in a chaos of feathers and horseflesh and blood, and then the ground came up to smash him. 
The next he knew, he was on his face with the taste of mud and blood in his mouth and Tormund was kneeling over him, gurgling with laughter. He could still hear wings, though the eagle was not in sight. Half his world was black. "My eye." He said in sudden panic, raising a hand to his face. 

"It's only blood, lad. He missed the eye, just ripped your skin up some." Tormund stood over him bellowing, he saw from his right eye as he rubbed blood from his left. Then there were hoofbeats, shouts, and the clacking of old dry bones. "Bag o' Bones." Roared Tormund. "Call off the hellcrow!"

"There's your hellcrow!" Rattleshirt pointed at Torsten. "Bleeding in the mud like a faithless dog!" The eagle came flapping down to land atop the broken giant's skull that served him for his helm. "I'm here for them." 

"Come take them then." Said Tormund. "But best come with sword in hand, for that's where you'll find mine. Might be I'll boil your bones, and use your skull to piss in. Har!" Tormund laughed. 

"Once I pick you and let the air out, you'll shrink down smaller'n that girl. Stand aside, or Mance will hear o' this." Said the Lord of Bones. Ygritte stood.

"What, is it Mance who wants them?" She asked.

"I said so, didn't I? Get him up on those feet." Tormund frowned down at Torsten. 

"Best go, if it's the Mance who's wanting you." Tormund and Jon hauled the bastard boy to his feet. 

"He's bleeding like a butchered boar." Ygritte said, pointing a finger at Torsten's bloody face. 

"We'll go, come on, Jon." The blood kept running down into his right eye, and his cheek was a blaze of pain. When he touched it, his gloves came away stained with red. The wind was blowing snow into Torsten's eyes. He could feel the blood freezing on his face. But even through the blowing snow, the shape of the great white hill that loomed above the trees was unmistakable. 
Torsten heard the scream of the eagle overhead. 

"Was it hard for you to kill the Halfhand?" Mance asked upon their arrival.

"Yes." Jon answered honest. 

"You liked him? I like the both of you, but if you're playing us false, it won't be hard for me to kill you. I've got Wildling blood in my veins. These are my people." Torsten's throat was dry.

"We understand." Jon answered. Torsten's face was throbbing, the snow kept coming down, and it was hard to think. 

"Well, how could you understand?" Mance said sharply. 

"You want to protect your people." The Wildling king studied Jon's face. 

"Do you know what it takes to unite ninety clans, half whom want to massacre the other half, for one insult or another? They speak seven different languages in my army. The Thenns hate Hornfoots. The Hornfoots hate the Ice-river clan. Everyone hates the clave people. So you know how I got moon worshipers and cannibals and giants to march together in the same army?" He stepped closer. 

"No." Said Torsten. 

"I told them we were all going to die, if we don't get south. Because that's the truth." Mance was honest with the bastards.

"Shouldn't be long now." Tormund announced. 

"What's wrong with him?" Asked Torsten. 

"He's a warg. He can enter the mind of animals, see through their eyes. He's scouting for us." Said Mance. 

"What you lads, never met a warg?" Ygritte laughed, and they felt like fools. 

"Orell, where were you this time?" After attacking Torsten, the warg had found himself somewhere he never wanted to be again. 

"The Fist of the First Men." Orell answered.

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