Jaehaerys

"Are you well, boy?" Lord Mormont asked, scowling.

"Well," his raven squawked. "Well."

"I am, my lord," Jaehaerys lied . . . loudly, as if that could make it true. "And you, my lord?"

Mormont frowned. "A dead man tried to kill me. How well could I be?" He scratched under his chin. His shaggy grey beard and the tiredness on his face made him look old and grumpy. "You do not look well. Are you hurt?"

"Not as much as I had thought it to." Jaehaerys pushed his long silver hair singed off in the fire as his clothes took the flames. He had not burned himself as badly as he had thought caught up in the flames. His once long hair had been burned off in the fire and his clothes had burned off beyond repair. But somehow he was unhurt. "The maester says my ribs are bruised, but otherwise I'm as good as I ever was."

"Bruised ribs are nothing. Maester Aemon will patch you up in no time."

"As you say, my lord." It was not the ribs that troubled Jaehaerys; it was the rest of it. The corpse, the cold and dark and bright blue eyes, shining in the night like the sword Andrew Stark had wielded. Jaehaerys thanked the gods that no one saw him writhing on his bed, unable to even close his eyes. And when at last he did sleep, he dreamt, and that was even worse. No amount of Milk of the Poppy Maester Aemon provided saved him from the dreams of blue eyes and black hands.

"Dywen and Hake returned last night," the Old Bear said. "They found no sign of Benjen Stark, no more than the others did."

"I know." Jaehaerys had dragged himself to the common hall to sup with his friends, and the failure of the rangers' search had been all the men had been talking of.

"You know," Mormont grumbled. "How is it that everyone knows everything around here?" He did not seem to expect an answer. "It would seem there were only the two of . . . of those creatures, whatever they were, I will not call them men. And thank the gods for that. Any more and . . . well, that doesn't bear thinking of. There will be more, though. I can feel it in these old bones of mine, and Maester Aemon agrees. The cold winds are rising. Summer is at an end, and a winter is coming such as this world has never seen."

Winter is coming. The Stark words had never been heard for decades now, yet now with the return of his cousin his words sounded so grim or ominous. Needless to say the two dead had proved more than enough to the Night's Watch. As soon as the truth about Othor was reached, the black brothers cut the cold dead body of Jafer Flowers but not before it slew a couple of men.

"Corn," the raven was crying. "Corn, corn."

"Oh, be quiet," the Old Bear told it. He looked down at Jae and eyed his belt and the absence of his sword. "I see that the fire ruined your sword."

It had. Jaehaerys had taken the ruined blade back to the armourer to fix it only to learn that it had gotten bad beyond any repair. "Aye," he replied the Lord Commander.

"Here." Lord Mormont laid a large sword in a black metal scabbard banded with silver on the table between them.

Jaehaerys hesitated. He had no idea what Lord Mormont meant. "My lord?"

"The fire you caused melted the silver off the pommel and burnt the crossguard and grip. Well, dry leather and old wood, what could you expect? The blade, now . . . you'd need a fire a hundred times as hot to harm the blade." Mormont shoved the scabbard across the rough oak planks towards him. "I had the rest made anew. Take it."

"Take it," echoed his raven, preening. "Take it, take it."

Hesitantly, Jaehaerys took the sword in hand. He pulled the sword from its scabbard carefully and raised it level with his eyes.

The pommel was a hunk of garnet carved into the likeness of a roaring dragon's head. For a moment Jaehaerys could almost see Viserion in its face. The Prince found that he still missed him. Somehow he found solace in the carved head believing that he was still with him.

The grip of the sword was soft leather, new and black. The blade itself was a good half foot longer than those normal longswords most people used, tapered to thrust as well as slash, with three fullers deeply incised in the metal. The sword actually seemed lighter than the blades he had wielded before. The blade was exquisitely balanced. The edges glimmered faintly as they kissed the light. When he turned it sideways, he could see the ripples in the dark steel where the metal had been folded back on itself again and again. "This is Valyrian steel, my lord," he said wonderingly. He knew enough about valyrian steel to identify it out. He knew the look, the feel.

"It is valyrian steel," the Old Bear told him. "It was my father's sword, and his father's before him. The Mormonts have carried it for five centuries. I wielded it in my day and passed it on to my son when I took the black."

He is giving me his son's sword. Jaehaerys could scarcely believe it. He had met Ser Jorah in King's Landing a couple of times. The man had left his home and family in fear of King Eddard after selling some prisoners from the dungeons of Bear Island into slavery. From what little he had known of Jorah Mormont, Jaehaerys found him likeable. "Your son - "

"My son brought dishonour to House Mormont, but at least he had the grace to leave the sword behind when he fled. My sister returned it to my keeping, but the very sight of it reminded me of Jorah's shame, so I put it aside and thought no more of it until we found it in the ashes of my bedchamber. The original pommel was a bear's head, silver, yet so worn its features were all but indistinguishable. For you, I thought a dragon more apt. One of our builders is a fair stonecarver."

"My lord, you honour me, but - "

"Spare me your but's, boy," Lord Mormont interrupted. "I would not be sitting here were it not for you and that beast of yours. You fought bravely . . . and more to the point, you thought quickly. Fire! Yes, damn it. We ought to have known. We ought to have remembered. The Long Night has come before. Oh, eight thousand years is a good while, to be sure . . . yet if the Night's Watch does not remember, who will?"

"Who will," chimed the talkative raven. "Who will."

Truly, the gods had heard Jae's prayer that night; the fire he had used had caught in the dead man's clothing and consumed him as if his flesh were candle wax and his bones old dry wood. He had only to close his eyes to see the thing staggering across the solar, crashing against the furniture and flailing at the flames. It was the face that haunted him most; surrounded by the fire, hair blazing like dry straw, the dead flesh melting away and sloughing off its skull to reveal the gleam of bone beneath.

Whatever demonic force moved Othor had been driven out by the flames; the twisted thing they had found in the ashes had been no more than cooked meat and charred bone.

"A sword's small payment for a life," Mormont concluded. "Take it, I'll hear no more of it, is that understood?"

"Yes, my lord." The soft leather gave beneath his fingers, as if the sword were molding itself to his grip already. He knew he should be honoured, and he was, and yet . . .

He is not my father. The thought leapt unbidden to Jaehaerys' mind. It was his Lord father he had wanted to impress, to make him proud. Yet he could scarcely tell Lord Mormont that it was another man's acknowledgment he wanted . . .

"I want no courtesies either," Mormont said, "so thank me no thanks. Honour the steel with deeds, not words."

Jaehaerys nodded. "Does it have a name, my lord?"

"It did, once. Longclaw, it was called."

"Claw," the raven cried. "Claw."

"Longclaw is an apt name." Jaehaerys tried a practice cut. The sword seemed more familiar in his hands than it actually was. It was almost as if he had wielded it for a long time. "Dragons have claws, as much as bears."

The Old Bear seemed pleased by that. "I suppose they do. You'll have to work more at your two-handed strikes. The blade can be used more effectively that way."

Jae knew about that. His cousin had fought that way. Where Jaehaerys had been taught to fight with a sword in one hand and the shield in the other, Andrew Stark had fought with just his sword, either in a one handed grip or with two hands. Jaehaerys was swift to see the effectiveness of his style. He may have been a failure and a disappointment but he was no stupid. He learns from his lessons.

"Ser Endrew can show you some moves, when your burns have healed." Mormont finished.

"Ser Endrew?" Jaehaerys did not know the name.

"Ser Endrew Tarth, a good man. He's on his way from the ShadowTower to assume the duties of master-at-arms. Ser Alliser Thorne left yestermorn for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea."

Jaehaerys lowered the sword. "Why?" he asked, stupidly.

Mormont snorted. "Because I sent him, why do you think? He's taking the hand of the demon with him. I have commanded him to take ship to King's Landing and lay it before your father."

"My lord," he asked hesitantly, "it's said there was a bird last night . . . "

"There was. What of it?"

"I had hoped for some word of my family."

"Family," taunted the old raven, bobbing its head as it walked across Mormont's shoulders. "Family."

The Lord Commander reached up to pinch its beak shut, but the raven hopped up on his head, fluttered its wings, and flew across the chamber to light above a window. "Grief and noise," Mormont grumbled. "That's all they're good for, ravens. Why I put up with that pestilential bird . . . if the letter brought word of your family, do you think I would keep it from you. The message concerned Winterfell. Maester Walys has sent word of his King's victory to your uncle, assuring him that nothing bad has happened to the King. Little does he know for he should have written this letter to his King telling him to worry about his uncle." Mormont snorted. "We have white shadows in the woods and unquiet dead stalking our halls, and the War of the Wolf rips apart the Seven Kingdoms."

Benjen Stark had been the Old Bear's best hope to turn the King in the North towards the evil threat from the North. Jaehaerys could have calmed his father then and peace could have been won. His father would have listened to him, listened to the threat of the Others. He had always told them of it, raised and trained them for it. With Benjen Stark lost, what chance was there to bring the Dragonslayer back? "What of war, my lord? My brother?"

"Your brother did not fight in Riverrun." He said shrugging impatiently. "Perhaps your royal father's keeping him back in the Red Keep. There's been no raven from the Red Keep ever since the war started. I fear we count for less than nothing in King's Landing now that there's a open rebellion in the realm. These Kings tell us what they want us to know, and that's little enough."

And you tell me what you want me to know, and that's less, Jaehaerys thought resentfully. His brother Aegon had already fought in a battle and won a great victory at Stoney Sept, yet no word of that had been breathed to him . . . save by Samwell Tarly, who'd read the letter to Maester Aemon and whispered its contents to Jaehaerys that night in secret, all the time saying how he shouldn't. Doubtless they thought this war was none of his concern for he was a brother of the Night's Watch now. It troubled him more than he could say. Aegon was fighting and winning and he had fought and lost. No matter how often Jaehaerys told himself that his place was here now, with his new brothers on the Wall, he still felt craven. A failure, a loser for failing his father and a nobody who shamed his father like that.

Mormont noted his silence. "Are you hoping to flee and join your brother in war perhaps. Is that it? Is that your hope, boy?"

"He is my brother," he answered, sullen. "It is my family."

"And no one denies it," Mormont said at once. "Your brother is in the field with an army and a dragon. You father has a score of poweful allies around him and his sister with him. Why do you imagine that they need your help?"

"I..." Jaehaerys was at a loss for words. Mormont had the right. Ever since he came to the Night's Watch, no letter came to him from his family. Nothing, that even bear a word asking how he was. His older brother was the only one to send a letter, assuring him that he would come soon enough. And that had been moons before, before he became a man of the Night's Watch. If Aegon needed help, he was sure to ask, and his father... King Rhaegar would not even bother about it. Moreover, he didn't know what help he could be of to any of them. He didn't have a dragon or an army, just a sword and the name Targaryen.

"Even if you run off in the middle of the night, the moment you cross the New Gift, you'd find yourself in the hands of a northman. And this time it wouldn't end good for you. The North remembers and they wouldn't have forgotten you or your royal father." The Old Bear sighed. "You are not the only one touched by this war. Like as not, my sister is marching in Andrew Stark's host, her and those daughters of hers, same as she once did in his father's host before him. Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered, and willful. Truth be told, I can hardly stand to be around the wretched woman, but that does not mean my love for her is any less than the love you bear your half sisters." Frowning, Mormont leaned against his chair. "Or perhaps it does. Be that as it may, I'd still grieve if she were slain, yet you don't see me running off. Your uncle Benjen was still a fairly young man when his brother and his entire family was murdered in the south. Never once did I worry about him or place a guard on him on fear of him leaving his post. We said the words, just as you did. Our place is here . . . where is yours, boy?"

Jaehaerys desperately wanted to say that his place was with his family, but the words wouldn't come out. "I don't know," he said.

"I do," said Lord Commander Mormont. "The cold winds are rising. Beyond the Wall, The cold winds are rising. Cotter Pyke writes of vast herds of elk, streaming south and east toward the sea, and mammoths as well. Quorin Halfhand took a captive in the depths of the Gorge, and the man swears that Mance Rayder is massing all his people in some new, secret stronghold he's found, to what end the gods only know. Do you think your uncle Benjen was the only ranger we've lost this past year?"

"No," Jaehaerys said. There had been others. Too many.

"We've seen the dead come back, you and me, and it's not something I care to see again," the old man said. "Do you think your family's war is more important than ours?"

Jaehaerys stood silent. The raven flapped its wings at him. "War, war, war, war," it sang.

"It's not," Mormont answered him. "Gods save us, boy, you're not blind and you're not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?"

"No." Jae had not thought of it that way.

"Your lord father always talked about the dead, boy," Lord Mormont said. "Doubtless he raised you that way as well. I think you were meant to be here, and I want you with us when we go beyond the Wall."

His words sent a chill of excitement down Jae's back. "Beyond the Wall?"

"You heard me. I mean to find Ben Stark, alive or dead." He stood up from the chair. "I will not sit here meekly and wait for the snows and the ice winds. We must know what is happening. This time the Night's Watch will ride in force, against the King-beyond-the-Wall, the Others, and anything else that may be out there. I mean to command them myself." He pointed his forefinger at Jaehaerys. "By custom, the Lord Commander's steward is his squire as well . . . but I do not care to wake every dawn wondering if you've run off again. So I will have an answer from you, and I will have it now. Are you a brother of the Night's Watch . . . or only a pompous prince who wants to play at war?"

Jaehaerys straightened himself and took a long deep breath. This is what my destiny is, he thought remembering his father's words. Lord Mormont has the truth of it. This is my place. I am meant to be here. I am a brother of the Night's Watch. "I am . . . yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run again."

With that he muttered a quick apology for deserting his family.