Of Lions, Wolves, and Dragons (Jon Snow)

53. After the Battle

Everything inside Joellyn was screaming for her to push her horse faster so that they would arrive at the battle more quickly, but she knew there was nothing that she would be able to do for anyone by herself.  So, she forced herself to keep pace with Sansa and Littlefinger as they made their way to battle.  They certainly weren't going slowly, but they just weren't going as fast as she wanted to.  The anxiety she felt, knowing how much smaller the Stark force was than the Bolton force, was eating away at her, and she was afraid that, even with the addition of the Knights of the Vale, that it would be too late.

There was silence between the three of them as they left the encampment followed by the Knights of the Vale, and the silence became uncomfortable the closer they drew to the battle.  The sounds of the battle did little to provide Joellyn any comfort.  There was screaming, both by men and horses, the clanging of metal, and the crunching of metal.  She tried very hard to not picture what was happening to produce those noises, as it turned her stomach every time she pictured Jon, Davos, Tormund, Areo, and all of the rest of the men down there fighting.

When they were almost to the field of battle, Sansa said to Littlefinger, "The battle will just over the crest of the hill ahead of us there," and pointed ahead of them.

Joellyn turned to look at Littlefinger as he motioned to the knight closest behind him.  The knight came beside Littlefinger as Littlefinger said, "You know the plan, as we discussed it at length on the way North.  Let them know that we have arrived."

The knight nodded and took the horn that was at his hip and blew on it, sounding a long call to announce their presence.  Joellyn noticed that, as the sound of the horn faded, the battle did not sound as if it was raging as fiercly as it had been before the sound of the horn.  Littlefinger yelled out, "For the North!  Ride for the North," then the knight blew the horn again and all the rest of the Knights of the Vale pushed their horses to running, yelling as they went to join in the battle against the Boltons.

As the last of the knights rode by, Joellyn pushed her horse forward and came to a stop on the crest of the hill that Sansa had pointed out to Littlefinger.  Her heart almost stopped as she took in the sight before her.  There was the most enormous pile of bodies at the back of the field.  Joellyn had a hard time believing that what she was seeing was really true.  She couldn't even begin to imagine how many men that pile of bodies represented.  Past that massive pile of bodies, there was a group of Bolton soldiers, packed into a tight semicircle, surrounding what remained of the Stark forces.  There was no way for her to know for certain, as she didn't have practice estimating the number of men on the field of battle, but it seemed as if mabye half of the original group that left the Stark encampment remained.  After a quick survey, there seemed to be a lot of yellow still, so it seemed that many of the Dornish men were still alive, but there were no other details that she could gather from so far away.

Littlefinger and Sansa came to a stop beside her as the Knights of the Vale charged at the Bolton forces from behind.  They knights easily broke through the ranks of the Bolton forces at the center, then split in half as they continued around the circle, knocking away the Bolton men as they went.  She looked over at Sansa and Littlefinger, and saw a satisfied smile on Sansa's face as she watched Ramsay's men being killed right in front of him.

Turning her attention back to the field before her, she worked hard to draw her eyes away from the biggest motion in the battle to try to find any indication of Jon.  She noticed, about halfway between the carnage of battle and Winterfell, a small group of men turned their horses around and started racing back toward Winterfell.  Bringing her gaze back closer to the battle, she watched as three figures began racing after the men on horses, and she felt her heart begin beating at a fast pace as she realized what she was looking at.  What she recognized first was the giant Wun-Wun, and beside Wun-Wun was a man with bright red hair, who she recognized as Tormund.  What made her heart take off was the realization that Jon Snow was the one racing toward Winterfell beside Tormund and Wun-Wun.