THE NORTH BEYOND | JON SNOW

CHAPTER TWO.

"If you want to lead, learn how to follow."

The Lord Commander stormed away, leaving his steward staring after him, his precious pride left in tatters and scattered to the wind. He didn't move for a while, and Azure supposed it was to nurture his wounded ego. She waited a while and then crawled away. As much as she wanted to set her plan into motion, everyone knew that the North after nightfall brought with it terrors that no man lived to tell tales about, only rumours about blue eyed, flesh eating creatures that slept in the day and hunted in the black of night. So she decided that by nightfall the next day, every crow would be gone and she would resume her plans to go south of the Wall. But she hoped that they would carry on north towards Mance's settlement in the mountainous area of the Frostfangs, so she could travel without having to watch for Nights Watch at her back. The Frostfangs were no place for a crow, she thought, if the wildlings in Mance's army didn't kill you, the shadow cats would sneak up to your tent and rip you apart and Gods help you then. Azure turned back and walked away, her resolve strengthening with every step she took.

She stepped inside her of her tent and found Helga, the delicate golden-haired girl, bent over her bag. Helga looked up, her large eyes dilated in fear as Azure came striding over, ripping her bag away from the wildling.

"What are you doing?" She fumed, her nostrils flared.

"I didn't mean it, honest. Rowe had already opened it, I only looked inside."

Helga's face was paler than the snow around them. Azure closed her eyes and attempted to make her voice as hospitable as possible. "Next time, Helga dear, if anyone opens it you come straight to me you hear? And if you tell anybody about what you saw in here, I'll cut your throat and pull your tongue out."

Helga nodded, and walked out of the tent to the sleeping loft where all of Craster's wives bed for the night.

She lays back, sighing as she looks inside of her bag. Most of the items are stolen from her time with Mance's army: boots, coated in doeskin for warmth and spiked with iron for grip, iron ice axes with a stone handle and sewn sheepskin gloves. The last item in the bag was a dagger that was hidden away at the bottom of her bag, away from sight. Most of the items in the bag were to use when she was climbing the Wall. The Wall that she hadn't even seen. It was suicidal to most, if the men of the Nights Watch spotted you, their archers would shoot you down and you'd plummet to your death. And even if you were to get over the Wall unseen, navigating the South for a wildling was a death wish signed with your own blood. It seemed as though every option Azure had laid out for her almost certainly ended in her death. She could hear the winds battering against her tent, threatening to dislodge it from the ground it was rooted to, and prayed to the Old Gods quietly.

•••

When dawn came, Azure was busy looking for the steward, Jon Snow, though she didn't know it. She walked around, listening out for that gruff, Northern voice she heard the night before. As she wandered, a wildling ran into her, her hands bloody.

"What's on your hands?" Azure asked the wildling who looked at her, her eyes full of distrust.

"Danna's giving birth, it's a boy." And then she bustles away, without another word.

Azure carried on walking, glad that it was a boy that Danna gave birth to. And then she heard the voice, coming from behind her. She spun around and saw Gilly, one of the latest of Craster's wives to be pregnant and then she laid eyes on the fattest man she'd ever seen in her life, bulging in black with his back to her. Impossible, she thought, he would have broke the wall he was pushed against, so she loitered around waiting for the voice again. He couldn't be, she reasoned to herself. Imagine trying to persuade that..that thing to...No, she decided. There was a mistake. And then she heard the voice again, coming from behind him and the relief was etched plainly onto her face.

"No, it doesn't sound a bit mad, it sounds impossible." Jon Snow stood up, and though his words didn't reach Azure clearly, she knew it was an argument of some kind. She closed her eyes, Gods be kind, she begged. It would be the only chance she had to get rid of the crows before they started attracting attention. And then she opened them, wondering what Gilly of all of Crasters wives was doing talking to a crow. Azure watched Gilly run away and decided she'd worry about it later.

The crow watched his friend leave and started rubbing a stone over his sword, sharpening it I supposed. I walked over to him, he had black hair, almost as dark as mine and dark eyes. Everything about him seemed dark.

"I saw you, with Gilly. What did she want?"

He stopped sharpening his sword to look at me, and then carried on again. "What's it to you?"

"She's my friend," I told the lie convincingly enough,  "did she ask you to help her?"

"Why would she need my help?" His hand scraped the stone down the sword. Scratch, scratch, scratch.

"She's pregnant and if it's a boy she..." I stopped and looked away as if I had said too much.

"What happens if it's a boy?"

I didn't answer, looking down at the floor in mock sadness. "I shouldn't have said anything."

He looked up at me again. "Tell me."

"I can't, but you can see for yourself if you'd like. Follow Craster tonight and you'll know." And again I said a silent prayer that Danna gave birth to a boy, otherwise Craster would have been sacrificing sheep tonight. And honour or not, no one gives two shits about the sheep.

He opened his mouth to say something but I'm already hurrying away to Craster's tent. I took a second to compose myself and walked in.

"I've something I need to tell you."