The Dragon in the North - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Jon was going to die. Not in the way all mortals died, in the fullness of time, but in the next few moments. He was sure of this.

His death faced him, in the form of a tall being with blue-white skin, long white hair, and frozen blue eyes. It resembled a man, yet was not a man. It parried his blows with insulting ease, no longer intimidated by Longclaw, not even surprised that his sword did not fall to pieces at the touch of its own great ice weapon.

And yet, the creature could hardly be called evil, Jon thought, even as he found it increasingly hard to fight it off. Instead, mortal men were the ones who kept betraying him, over and over. He’d not expected this treachery either, though he should have, after his own brothers of the Night’s Watch had cut him down.

Truly though, this predicament was his own fault. He’d argued with Sansa against sending the Knights of the Vale back to their home. He’d protested that even if they could not trust Lord Baelish, surely Lord Royce would not betray them. Well, he’d been proven wrong. Again.

The great ice weapon came down once more, faster this time, and Jon barely managed to deflect it, making the quick movement at great cost to his ribs, which were a burning mass of agony on his right side.

He knew he should attend to the fight, but to what end? Even if he defeated the White Walker, who was currently, Jon suspected, holding back from dispatching him, he was surrounded by a mass of wights, who would butcher him as soon as they were given leave.

The fight was eerily silent. The White Walker made not a sound as it swung and thrust, while Jon tried to suppress his own grunts and gasps, though it was hard – every breath brought agony from his ribs, and a cut on his forehead was dripping blood into his eye. The wights were frozen in place, with only the occasional twitch to show that they were not lifeless. Jon could not bear to think that most of the wights were his own men, tricked and betrayed, abandoned by those who had been their allies – now imprisoned in an obscene mummery of life, forced to serve the Night’s King until they fell to pieces.

Jon tried to remember how he’d arrived here, fighting White Walkers and wights on the wrong side of the Wall. The first strange occurrence was the trickling of people in ones and twos, begging for refuge in Winterfell, all with similar stories. Hamlets south of the Wall were emptying, half their population disappearing during the night, only to come back, dead-alive, to prey on the living.

Jon had decided – such a fool, he chided himself now – to take some men and investigate. Lord Baelish was leaving for the Vale at the same time, to inform Lord Arryn of their victory over Ramsey Bolton and the destruction of his house. Some horsemen and common soldiers had been left to aid Jon, and instructions were given to the Master-at-arms to obey Jon’s commands.

Lies, all of them, Jon thought, as he tried to force his aching arms to hold off one more blow, to get through the creature’s defences. Once they had arrived at the closest village to the Wall, nothing more than a huddle of houses, it had started snowing, and the dead had attacked. The only men who stayed with Jon, and who’d been almost immediately cut down, were some scattered Northerners. He could still see the look of contempt on the face of the soldier of the Vale as he turned away from Jon – he’d even heard the man’s words, though the winds were howling, then.

“The king has fallen! We must leave this place.”

Jon didn’t know if anyone had protested, unnerved as they’d been at the idea of fighting the creatures of legend they’d only heard of in old tales. So he’d watched all hope ride away, and had been left with this creature, whose expression, he was convinced, was one of barely concealed scorn. What did they think, these creatures? Jon tried to compel his flagging muscles to obey him, but he knew he was almost finished. He was just thankful that he’d insisted Tormund stay with his people, and that he’d left Ghost behind, guarding Sansa. Such a pointless death should only be his own – it was his due, as a man who never learned from experience.

The unearthly screech took Jon by surprise. For a second, he thought it was another ice creature, and that he was truly doomed. But looking up at his opponent, he realised that the screeching sound had taken the White Walker by surprise, too.

Jon could hardly believe what he was seeing – the long spindly figure had stopped trying to stab him, and was looking at something in the sky, above Jon’s head. But Jon didn’t care. With his last strength, he brought Longclaw around in a wild swing, digging into the White Walker’s neck, and caught the look of disbelief and rage in its frozen blue eyes in the seconds before it fell apart.

That was that. He was finished. Shadows passed over him, but he paid them no heed, and leaned heavily on his sword, thinking that poor Ser Rodrick would have had his balls for treating a Valyrian steel sword with such lack of respect. Still, it was no matter. The wights were starting to twitch awake, and would soon attack, even without orders from their master, who was currently melting into a puddle at Jon’s feet.

The screech sounded again, closer this time. Jon thought he could also hear the flapping of great wings, but that was ridiculous. The sound was not of an eagle, or any great bird of prey, and he would know that better than anyone. He started to think that his wits were deserting him, along with everyone else, it seemed.

The falling snow had lessened since the White Walker had broken apart. For some moments, he still felt cold and he still saw his breath – his last breaths, he assumed. Yet, to add to the strangeness of that day, he could feel himself getting warmer. What was happening? Was this the snow sickness? He’d heard that when you were close to death, you felt warm, even as you were freezing. But the warmth was coming from outside his body, he reckoned. Impatiently, he scrubbed at his eyes to try and see what was going on.

A blast of heat on his face made him recoil, and stare at the wights. They were on fire.

For a moment, they froze in place, but then they seemed to come to their senses, and still tried to run towards him, to do any damage to him that they could. When something white and impossibly huge came between them and Jon, he started to think that he was perhaps losing his faculties, especially when it started picking up the shrieking things in its mouth and shaking them like a wolf would.

Soon, all the dead men lay in pieces on the plain. Some were still on fire. The clouds had vanished and it looked like a beautiful winter’s day – cold but clear. So Jon saw everything clearly, but still found it difficult to believe his eyes, and rubbed them again. There was nothing for him to fight, anymore.

The White Walker was gone. The wights were aflame. But who had saved him? Just as he was about ready to scream the question out loud into the air, his saviour landed in front of him, moving the earth all around, sending the mud up in great spattering gouts.

It was an enormous white and gold dragon.

Jon formed the words in his head, and even then could barely believe them. A huge dragon was standing in front of him, its strange eyes looking at him, as it crunched one of the wights in its massive fanged mouth. The look seemed apologetic – not that Jon was about to object. Something that size, with fangs that sharp, could eat what it liked.

Actually, the dragon wasn’t really standing. More like crouching, he thought. It seemed to be lowering its head, and one enormous wing was stretched out, forming a kind of stair . . . Oh, no. No, no, no. By the seven hells, the old gods, and the new, he was not going to get on the dragon’s back.

The look from its golden eyes seemed almost hurt, and Jon chided himself, until he wondered at his own thoughts. Could the creature read his mind? He sometimes felt like he knew what Ghost was thinking, and there were those who believed he warged into his direwolf, but what was reality, and what was fantasy, here? He almost snorted at his own idiocy. He was asking about reality and fantasy, when in front of him was a creature of legend, one which had not been seen for hundreds of years.

Jon sheathed his sword carefully, and approached the dragon, wincing at every movement. Every bone in his body ached, but he managed to lift a careful hand, and patted the enormous head around where he thought its ears should be. Ghost always likes that, he thought, feeling ridiculous. A sound came from the dragon. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have called it a purr.

The big head nudged him, and an image appeared in his head – the back of a woman with long white hair, riding a huge black dragon, flying through the air. It was nothing Jon had ever seen before, and he bit his lip, considering, until he came to a decision. He called himself fool, and lackwit, but asked the question anyway, silently. Are you in my thoughts? He soon got a reply.

Jon was sure that the feeling of joy that washed over him was not his own, and he shivered. This was passing strange. The vision of the woman and the black dragon was replaced by others – two dragons, of varying sizes, flying, playing, fighting. And always the woman, with long white hair and purple eyes, watching them with the indulgent and loving eyes of a mother.

Do you want me to get on your back, he thought. The joy increased tenfold, and the images went by ever faster, with one thing in common – flying. So Jon resigned himself, and carefully clambered up on the dragon’s back, trying to remember what the white-haired woman had been holding onto. Though who was he trying to fool? He knew very well who the woman was: Daenerys Targaryen, who styled herself Mother of Dragons, as well as many other titles besides. He ached too much to try and remember them all.

The big head turned and fixed him with its golden eyes, and he held on tight to the spines on the dragon’s back. It seemed satisfied, and set off on an ungainly run, to gain speed, he thought. In spite of his exhaustion and pain, Jon observed that it used its wingtips for leverage, like a great bat, and had almost forgotten that it was going to launch itself into the sky. When it did, flapping its wings to gain height, Jon felt like every bone in his body was being shaken to pieces. But once the dragon had reached the clouds, it was more like he was riding one of them. The dragon did not bank and wheel as much as Jon imagined it would have, and he felt as though it was controlling itself for his sake.

Jon tried to look at the ground at it passed underneath him, but after a few moments, he gave up. Whether it was the pain in his ribs, or the unusual and perhaps terrible sensation of flying through the air, he felt a wave of disorientation and nausea that caused him to close his eyes. He held on tight to the dragon’s spines, and wondered where it was taking him. Was this really happening to him? Was he dreaming all this? No, it couldn’t be a dream – he’d never been in this much pain in a dream, without being woken out of it.

Afterwards, Jon was never sure how much time passed before the dragon started circling lower and lower. He lifted his head and saw, below them, a huge armed camp. Looking frantically from tent to tent, he eventually spotted a standard, just as the dragon landed with a great thump that rattled his bones once more.

Even though he’d expected it, the House device still made him groan – a red three-headed dragon on a black background. House Targaryen, of course. The dragon had landed in front of the biggest and most ornate tent, and Jon tried to gracefully roll off its back. He managed to land on his feet, but it was a close thing – he sank to one knee, but at least he didn’t fall, he thought with relief. Feeling like an old man, he held onto to the dragon to stand upright and looked up.

There was a semicircle of warriors around him, all pointing spears at him. They were mainly dark-skinned, and were wearing breeches and tabards, breastplates and helmets, but no other clothing besides. He idly wondered how long they would last in the North, once they got there. Because he clearly wasn’t in the North anymore.

For Jon, this weather was almost balmy. He wondered how far south the dragon had taken him, and couldn’t help wishing he’d kept his eyes open. He’d never seen the Neck, or anything south of Winterfell. Then he chided himself – he had better pay attention to what they wanted.

The leader of the strangely attired warriors yelled at him in a strange language, and jabbed his spear at Jon, who found himself strangely . . . angry. What was wrong with them? Why were they acting thus? He started warming up, and that was when Jon realised that once again he was sharing the dragon’s thoughts. He had to calm the dragon down, but how could he do that? He started patting the dragon’s neck clumsily, his pain and fatigue starting to get the better of him.

Suddenly, the main flaps of the tent opened, and a woman emerged, white-haired and purple-eyed. She swept her eyes over the scene in front of her – the angry soldiers, the angrier dragon, and him. Jon couldn’t help a feeling of admiration when he saw how quickly she came to a decision.

“Dovaogēdys!”

She had a clear voice which rang out over the camp and froze everyone in their stances, except the dragon, who was still rumbling angrily deep in his chest. “Kelītīs!”

Another of the warriors emerged from the tent behind her, and went for his sword as soon as he saw Jon, but Daenerys Stormborn, for it must be her, put a hand on his arm and shook her head. She murmured something to him, too faint for Jon to hear, and the warrior cracked out a couple of sharp commands at the soldiers, who retreated a few steps. The tent flaps opened again, and this time emerged a tall young woman and a short man. A very short man. Jon could hardly believe his eyes.

“Tyrion Lannister?”

The only Lannister who'd ever had time for him gave him what could be charitably described as a smirk.

“Well, if it isn’t Jon Snow!”

Daenerys folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“So this is the famous Jon Snow, the King in the North. Tell me, Jon Snow, what have you done to my dragon?”

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Note

The High Valyrian Daenarys uses just means "Unsullied! Halt!", and I got it from the episode in which Dany frees the Unsullied in Season 3.
"The Dragon in the North - Chapter 2"