Chapter Text
“You've seen what's coming!” Jon stood on a crate below deck on the Blackbird, addressing the shattered remnants of the Night’s Watch contingent he’d brought to Hardhome, and the Wildlings they’d rescued. “We can’t keep fighting amongst ourselves. What they’ll do to all of us is a thousand times worse than anything we could ever do to each other. We can’t force living men to stay north of the Wall. Hate them all you want, at least they’re living. And the Free Folk can’t stay so proud of their freedom that they won't stop raiding and raping once they get south. We don’t have time for it! We have to tell the men at Eastwatch what we saw.”
At best, he got a handful of grunts and nods in response, mostly from people he knew already agreed with him. The rest of them stared blankly into space, as they’d been doing since the ship raised anchor and fled the horde of dead men that had slaughtered their families. But he felt compelled to say something. The ship was nearing Eastwatch, and he needed to stir some feeling in these men. He already feared that his pleas for help would be laughed off by his brothers, and needed witnesses to help his case.
Tormund sat leaning against a rafter at the base of the crate. He tugged Jon’s leg. “Sit down, boy. They know that already. Do them a mercy for a few more hours, and let them pretend they don't.”
Jon had nothing to say to that. He’d always been a thinker; a worrier; he couldn’t sit still when he knew what was out there. But these men, women, and children all wanted nothing but to huddle on the floor, still and silent. Yet if they were drinking and dancing, I’d be sulking in a corner. That was to be expected, he supposed. It had been that way his whole life.
Before he could sit, the hatch opened. The captain’s mates flew down the stairs, and the last one in closed and locked the hatch. What now?
“Dead men?!” Jon barked, his hand on Longclaw.
“We can’t tell, it’s too foggy,” the mate replied. Jon suspected he’d come from the Iron Islands. The man was in his fifties, and his face looked like a jagged rock that had never known anything but the spray of salt water. “But there are sails, and they’ve got no business this close to us.”
The oarmaster’s drum beat louder and faster, as the Blackbird did its best to escape whatever was coming for it. Every man who could fight reached for his sword, Crow and Wildling alike. We need fire arrows on the deck, Jon thought, but the water was too choppy to safely carry a torch.
“Lamp oil! Cover the floor with it!” Jon shouted to anyone who would listen. Better to burn alive than give them any more meat than they've already got.
But before anyone could carry out his command, they screamed at the terrible sound of oars snapping like twigs, all along the left side of the ship. The Blackbird shuddered, too hard to be from anything else but a ship smashing against its hull. Seconds later came the footsteps above. The women held their children close, and the fighting men stood where they were, swords drawn. There was no time to form up into any sort of defensive position, and there were too many sick and dying men to step over.
The creatures above deck banged and pulled at the hatch; relentlessly and methodically. It would only be a matter of time until they broke it. Jon girded himself for the sight of a dead, rotting fist punching through the splintering wood.
But what finally broke through was metal, not flesh or bone. Axes. Men. The defenders said nothing and made no move, but Jon could sense their relief. Nothing a man could do to them was worse than what they’d seen on shore. Jon puzzled at who it could be. Pirates, this far north? It wasn’t unheard of, but with its black hull and sails, the Blackbird was plainly a ship of the Night’s Watch, and any half decent pirate knew there would be little of value in its hold. Maybe they want the ship itself, or maybe we’re the only prey they could find.
After what seemed like an eternity, the hatch finally broke open. Not pirates. Pirates weren’t fool enough to wear armor to fight on the deck of a ship, but the men streaming down the stairs and lining walls all wore mail and breastplates. Some of them were brown of skin, some fairer, and some jet black. But despite that, they all seemed a mirror image of each other. Even in the cramped, crowded, ever-swaying quarters of the Blackbird, they moved with an inhuman precision, their steps all in perfect unison. None of them spoke. Their armor was all the same, immaculately clean and of excellent quality, though Jon could not make out the strange sigil on the breastplate. His men froze. No Wildling or Black Brother had seen anything like it.
Some shirtless Wildling fool charged toward the stairs, screaming and waving a sword in each hand, but tripped over a dying child and landed flat on his face. One of the soldiers wordlessly stepped forward, drove a spear through the back of the Wildling's head without so much as a grunt, and stepped right back to where he'd been standing. And that was that.
Two brown-skinned men trotted down the stairs and stepped over the Wildling, paying him no mind as he bled out on the floor. One was fat, balding, and middle-aged. The other was younger and built like a proper soldier. They wore armor as well, but Jon doubted either of them expected to need it. The suits were almost laughably ornate, plated in gold and inlaid with more gems than Jon had ever seen in one place; rubies, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, onyx, and diamonds. The men had curved swords on their belts, but neither felt the need to draw them.
“Drop swords! Drop! Drop!” Shouted the fat one in a thick, guttural foreign accent. Everyone looked to Jon. Bugger it, they're living men who can fight. We’ll tell them what we saw. Jon threw Longclaw to the floor, and the rest of his men followed suit.
The survivors of Hardhome were marched single-file above deck, where more of the strange soldiers awaited them. A plank about ten feet long had been laid down between the Blackbird and the other ship. On the Blackbird’s side of the plank was another man with an unremarkable face and absurd suit of armor. He eyed each captive as they stepped onto the plank. Those who looked like they could fight or labor were waved aboard, as were the children and more comely women. The old and the sick and the wounded were casually pushed into the Shivering Sea. Some went willingly.
Jon finally got close enough to read the sigils on the soldiers’ breastplates. On the left was some strange beast with wings and tits and a tail; black on white. The symbol on the right was more familiar, though Jon had only seen it in books and drawings. These men have never set foot on dry land in Westeros, he knew immediately. Not since Jon was a babe had a living man in the Seven Kingdoms dared to show the three-headed dragon.