𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐎𝐘

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛᴇᴇɴ

𝟛

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As night turned to morning, the smoke of Mole's Town blew away and the southern sky was clear again. No clouds, thought Torsten. That was good. Rain or snow could doom them all. Clydas and Maester Aemon rode the winch cage up to safety at the top of the Wall, and most of the Mole's Town villagers as well. Men in black cloaks paced restlessly on the tower tops and shouted back and forth across the courtyards. A couple men on the barricade led a prayer, beseeching the Warrior to give them strength. Some men were curled up beneath their cloaks sleeping. The Wall wept and the sun crept across a hard blue sky. Never evenfall.

Torsten found himself in the Common Hall, breaking his fast with the rest of his brothers. Hobb had cooked up some of his best mutton, cooked in a thick broth of ale and onions. Even Edd woke up for that. They ate every bit of it, using chunks of bread to wipe the bottom of the pail. By the time they were done sun had finally settles across the Wall, the shadows sharp and black throughout the castle. Ser Alliser took a tankard full of mead, and took a swig. It had been the same mead Torsten had been offered. They had been serving it for the men who were breaking their fast. The mead had been so potent that it made Torsten's eyes water and sent tendrils of fire snaking through his chest. After that it had put him off his food. Ser Alliser took another swig, then wiped his mouth with stubby fat fingers. "Your foray to Craster's Keep, I'll sanction it. But I won't order anyone to go with you. Volunteers only." Alliser told Torsten and Jon, who had been called forth upon. 

"Thank you, Ser Alliser." Torsten meekly turned to face the lines of dinning tables, his brother's filled logged seats, stuffing their faces with anything they could get their hands on. "Ahem, brothers. Jon and I are going beyond the Wall to Craster's Keep. We're going to capture the mutineers holed up there, or kill them. I'm asking for volunteers to come with us." Torsten said as tankards clunked and the sharp screetching of knives hitting plates echoed. "There's sixty miles of wilderness between here and Craster's, Mance Rayder has an army bearing down on us, last seen at Mole's Town, but we have to do this. Our survival depends on us getting to these mutineers before Mance does... They know the Wall. They know our defences. If Mance learns what they know, we're lost. But if that's not enough, then consider this. If the Night's Watch are truly brothers then Lord Commander Mormont was our father. He lived and died for the Watch, and he was betrayed by his own men. Stabbed in the back by cowards. He deserved far better. All we can give him now is justice." Torsten missed the Old Bear dearly. 

"Who will join us?" Jon asked, he'd placed a heavy hand upon Torsten's shoulder and gave it a reasuring squeeze. Torsten couldn't put his feelings into words, all he felt was guilt and regret towards the old dead man. 
Slowly one by one their brothers stood. It started with their friends, Edd and Grenn, slowly the rest followed. 

"I can't let a recruit come north of the Wall." Torsten told Locke.

"Then let me say my vows. If it's a fight you're looking for, then you need men who know how." Said Locke. Torsten looked towards the horrid fat face of Ser Alliser Throne, the man said nothing, but the bow of his head said enough.

"Thank you, brother." 

Torsten swung down onto the ground from his horse. He'd left the crutch back at Castle Black, which he'd soon come to regret. The wind whistled, and Torsten shivered. His leg was throbbing, and his head. He was not fit to kill a kitten, yet here he was. Craster's Keep. Twilight deepened. The cloudless sky turned a deep purple, the colour of an old bruise, then faded to black. The stars began to come out. Torsten was grateful for the light. He rattled his longsword hilt to loosen the blade in its scabbard. Craster's Keep was a few yards to his left, still blocked by splintered ruins of spikes and forestry. There were other corpses too, strewn amidst broken barrels, hardened pitch, and patches of snow. Torsten had no wish to linger here. He started walking toward the Wildling camp, past the bodies of his dead brothers. A raven was pulling out bits of brain from a shattered skull. It looked up as he walked by. It screamed at him, then it opened its wings and flew away. Torsten went in front, picking the way carefully through the undergrowth. A light snow had fallen the night before, and there were stones and roots and hidden sinks lying just under its crust, waiting for the careless and the unwary. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. 

That's when the bodies started dropping. One by one. 

Torsten Snow met a mutineer bravely. "Dance with me then." He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands had a slight tremble, due to his burn from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Torsten thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night's Watch. 

When the song of swords had finally stopped, all that was left of Craster's Keep were dead men and the women they had beaten and kept as slaves. "We lost four brothers." Jon announced. And there was nothing to be done for it. The oder had been given, and honour bound them to obey.

"Five." Edd corrected, while a brother placed Locke's dead beaten bloody body amongst the rest. 

"What in seven hells could do that to a man?" Grenn stammered, lost for words. Locke's body lay facedown in the snow, one arm outflung. His thick sable cloak had been slashed and his neck pierced with blood and gashes to the bone. His face purple, like all the air in him had been taken out. 

"I count ten dead mutineers. Locke said there were eleven of them." Edd said.

"Where's Rast?" Grenn asked, eyes filtering through the familiar faces of his dead brothers. Torsten saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shape gliding through the dense forestry. He turned his head, glimpsing a white shadow in the darkness. 

"Jon!" Torsten laughed, with a grin that stretched ear to ear. 

"Where in the seven hells? Come here!" Jon embraced Ghost in his arms. "I missed you, boy!" Torsten placed his hand against the direwolf's head, letting his finger tips graze over the warmth and softness of the animals pelt. 

"It's not safe for you here on your own. Mance Rayder has an army heading this way and there's worse out there than Mance. Come with us, to Castle Black. We can find you work. Keep you safe." Torsten told the old women, who kept a safe distance between her and the crows. 

"Meaning all respect, Ser Crow. Craster beat us and worse. Your brother crows beat us and worse. We'll find our own way." She said. 

"You want to stay here?" Torsten confirmed, the women's face soured quickly. Leaning forward she spat whatever saliva she had left in her mouth, by Torsten's muddy boots.

"Burn it to the ground." 

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