The Old Bear's Daughter

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"Ho!" Yoren's cry woke Juliana from her sleep, "Get up, you lazy sons of whores! Arm yourselves!"

Over the years, Juliana had learned to always sleep with a weapon on or near you but nonetheless, she armed herself further, putting a knife in each boot and strapping on two sheaths with daggers to her back. 

"If this all goes to shit, you get those two out of here," Yoren told Juliana pointing at Arry and Gendry. "Bring them north. To Winterfell."

She nodded her head to show that she understood and he made his way towards the door of the building they had taken shelter in for the night.

"Hey, there's men out there who want to fuck your corpses! Outside, now!"

"Move! Move!" someone behind Juliana yelled as they all made their way outside.

"Gold cloaks!" somebody else yelled.

Different boys ran off into different directions as Yoren walked towards the leader of the Gold Cloaks and Juliana followed Arry and Gendry to a few bushes where they did close enough to hear what was being said.

"Where's the bastard?" the man asked.

"Got more than a few bastards here," Yoren told him, "Who's asking?"

"Ser Armory Lorch, sworn bannerman to Lord Tywin Lannister. These men from the capital requested our assistance. Drop your weapons in the name of the king."

"Now which King would that be?" Yoren asked.

"This is your last chance. In the name of King Joffrey, drop your weapons."

Yoren spat on the ground, "I don't think I will."

"So be it." The speaker lifted his hand and another man lifted a crossbow, shooting a bolt into Yoren's chest, sending him to the ground.

Arry began panting next to her as Juliana watched Yoren stand up, "I always hated crossbows. Takes too long to load."

Yoren managed to kill five men before Armory Loch stuck a sword in his throat and ended his life.

Gendry went to leave their hideout and started to run forward with Arry hot on his heels.

"What are you doing?" Juliana whisper-yelled.

"Probably something stupid," Gendry replied as he and Arry continued running.

 The two of them ran into battle alongside the other recruits and Juliana had no choice but to follow them, as she had promised her friend to get them north.

It wasn't long before someone tried to shove a sword through Juliana's chest but the young woman used one of her daggers to deflect it before she used the other one to slit the man's throat.

She was fighting off another man as she felt a sword piercing her shoulder from the back.

Angry about not seeing the man coming, she kicked out her foot, hitting her target between his legs and then turning around and breaking his neck.

As she only had a limited range with her daggers, she picked up the sword from the man she had just killed only to immediately pierce the chest of another soldier with it.

Continuing to fight off soldiers, Juliana got distracted as she saw Gendry get knocked out from the corner of her eye and in the split second that it took her to turn to him, another Gold Cloak hit her over the head with the pommel of his sword.

*****

Juliana had awoken on a cart and quickly jumped off only to realise that her hands were in shackles and her weapons gone. 

She had marched alongside Arry, Gendry, and Hot Pie for the entire night until they came to the dark and destroyed fortress of Harrenhall where they could hear people screaming and crying.

"What kind of fire melts stone?" Hot Pie asked.

"Dragon Fire," Arry explained, leaving Juliana to ponder on how the little boy knew so much of Westeros' history. Come to think of it, Arry new of a lot of things that only properly educated people would know.

"There's dragons here?" Hot Pie asked.

"All dragons are dead, Hot Pie," Juliana explained, "They died out."

He nodded before asking, "What's that smell?"

"Dead people," Arry and Juliana said at the same time before the little group continued to walk with the rest of the prisoners.

*****

Juliana stood next to Arry in the prison-pen as they heard a man beg for his life and then yell before his screaming stopped abruptly.

"He's dead," an old woman said, "He was my son. My sister was three days ago. My husband, the day before that."

"They take someone every day?" Gendry asked.

"Does anyone live?" Arry asked but they never got an answer.

*****

Thunder was rumbling above as Juliana lay next to Arry in the mud. She had tried to see for a way to escape Harrenhall but come up empty handed so far.

"Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, The Hound." she heard Arry mumble next to her, "Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, The Hound."

Arry kept on repeating his list of names until he fell asleep but Juliana couldn't manage to drift off into sleep so she sat up and looked to her other side where Gendry sat leaned against a wooden pole, watching her.

They stared at each other for a while until he broke the silence by asking, "So how did a woman end up with the Night's Watch? Everyone knows they only take men."

"I was always very close to my father when I was a child. So, when he left for the wall I snuck onto a carriage and went there with him. The only one who noticed me leaving was my brother but he would never have told on me," she explained to him in a hushed voice so she wouldn't wake the other prisoners up.

"What about your mother?"

"My father's first wife died and he never married again. I never met my mother, she left me on the doorsteps of my father's home."

"So you're..."

"A bastard? Yes, but after sneaking to the Wall with my father and staying hidden for almost a month, he decided to let me stay and later legitimized me. A lot of men didn't approve of me being there but I worked for my stay. I helped in the kitchen and that's really what made them warm up to me seeing as their cook was terrible," she laughed slightly at that and she could see a grin forming on Gendry's lips.