Armies of Summer

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Beyond the Wall - Mance Rayder's Camp - Tauriel's Tent

She was exhausted, honestly.

Tauriel had spent the past week convincing the giants that she meant no harm, and begging them to come join the camp. Trying to convince them that the threat of White Walkers was real, though they seemed to believe her on that, it was more of a struggle to convince them that her father had a plan to save them all. But she had finally managed, and had ridden back to camp with them and their mammoths in tow.

So, with the giants now officially part of our camp, my father and I have managed to secure relatively stable agreements with the Thenns, the Frozen Shore folk, the Hornfoots, the Ice-river clans, and the cave people.

"Woman are you ready yet? Your father has been waiting for ages he says." Tormund hollered as he barged into Tauriel's tent, luckily she had just finished dressing.

"My father can wait forever for all I care. I just want to sleep, cannot he not wait until tomorrow?"

"No, he wants to go talk to Craster now." Tauriel looked over at Tormund from where she was sitting by the fire, trying to warm up, and, seeing his determined face decided he was probably right, her father wouldn't wait. He never does. So, she grabbed her weapons, and marched out her tent with Tormund, heading to meet her father by the horses they would be using to make the two day trip to Craster's Keep from where they were.

Castle Black - Courtyard

Jon swung his sword again and Grenn managed to block it this time, but Jon simply pushed it away and elbowed the man in the nose, breaking it. And then coming back up to cut across his chest with the sword.

"If that were a real sword, you'd be dead. Lord Snow here grew up in a castle spitting down on the likes of you. Pyp. Do you think Ned Stark's bastard bleeds like the rest of us?" Alliser Thorne said as he pulled Grenn from the ring, Pyp stepped forward shakily, and with good reason as with one swing Jon had the poor boy on his back.

"Next!" Jon dispatched the next one just as quickly.

"Next!" This time, two men were shoved forward by Thorne, this took Jon a second longer than the others, but they were both defeated quickly.

"Lord Snow, it appears you're the least useless person here. Go clean yourselves up. There's only so much I can stomach in a day." Jon could feel the tightness in his muscles from the exercises, but he forced himself to calm down as he began to walk to the armory to remove his practice gear, followed closely by the men he had defeated.

As soon as they group was in the privacy of the armory, the gang of men behind Jon turned on him.

"You broke my nose, bastard!" Grenn growled, spitting out the blood that had drained into his mouth.

"It's an improvement." Jon said with a sneer as he tried to put his things away so he could leave the conversation.

"If we threw you over the Wall, wonder how long it'd take you to hit." Grenn said menacingly.

"I wonder if they'd find you before the wolves did." Pyp added, and before Jon could retort, Tyrion Lannister had walked through the doors into the armory.

"What're you looking at, halfman?" Green said, turning to face the little man.

"I'm looking at you. You've got an interesting face. Very distinctive faces. All of you."

"What do you care about our faces?" Rast grumbled, shifting around, suddenly realizing this halfman was a Lannister.

"It's just I think they would look marvelous decorating spikes in Casterly Rock. Perhaps I'll write my sister-in-law, Arya about it. She is Jon's aunt after all, I'm sure she'd be delighted to make that happen." The three men looked at each other in fear before the tried to put their poker faces back on, turning to glance at Jon one last time.