That afternoon, the knights sent out to look for Jon finally returned.
Before they’d left, Ned hadn’t told them what they were searching for, only that they were to patrol the area nearby.
But when they came back, all they brought with them was a single warhorse.
The animal was plainly spooked, its mane clotted with mud and snow, its rein snapped through.
It had taken several knights considerable effort just to bring it back to Winterfell at all.
Seeing this, Ned’s brow slowly drew together.
More unsettling still, the knights had found, near where the horse had been, a line of enormous tracks, and a stretch of trees crushed flat.
They had searched the area for a long while afterward and found no sign of any beast.
It was as though the thing had simply vanished into thin air.
“It must have been left by some enormous creature, my lord. But none of us have ever seen a print like that.”
The lead knight’s face had gone somewhat pale as he said it, his voice low.
Ned crouched slowly and pressed a hand into one of the prints in the snow.
Looking at those great tracks, he knew at once what had made them.
A dragon.
Ned rose and looked back once, toward Winterfell.
It was a good half day’s ride from here, and there were no villages nearby.
In the dark, Frostflame would be unlikely to draw anyone’s notice.
Good.
The boy had thought of that.
Ned stood, brushed the snow from his hands, and by the time he turned back, his face had settled into its usual calm.
He waved his remaining knights over.
“What you saw here today, none of you will speak of. To anyone.”
The knights glanced at one another.
Ned swept his eyes over them, his voice dropping lower.
“I’ll see to the beast myself. No one is to come near this place without my leave.”
“As you say, my lord.”
The knights bowed their heads and said nothing more.
They had ridden with him for years now.
They knew well enough when to speak, and when to hold their tongues.
If their lord chose not to explain himself, they would not press him for it.
Back in Winterfell’s great hall, Ned gathered Robb and the rest of the family and gave them the news.
“Jon has already gone back to Castle Black. He left early.”
Robb blinked, caught off guard.
“So soon? He said he wasn’t leaving until tomorrow.”
“Something came up that needed his attention, so he went on ahead,” Ned said.
Robb frowned.
“He didn’t want to disturb anyone’s rest.” Ned glanced at his eldest son.
Robb opened his mouth, then let it go with only a sigh.
“That’s just how he’s been these past years. Coming and going without a word.”
Arya, seated nearby, lifted her head at once and burst out, “Hmph. When he gets back, I’m going to ask him why he never takes me along, not once!”
Robb laughed.
“If we brought you, you’d be off looking for wildlings your first day at the Wall.”
“I would not!” Arya shot back, indignant.
“Hahaha”
Laughter rolled through the hall.
Frostflame spread her great wings and drove her massive body up into the clouds, the wind striking Jon full in the face until he could barely keep his eyes open.
He pressed himself low at once, both hands gripping the spikes along her spine, his body flattened tight against her neck.
That whole day, they landed to rest only once, in open wasteland.
A journey that would once have taken more than ten days on horseback, a full month even, was, beneath Frostflame’s wings, left far behind them in a single day.
To keep from being seen, Jon kept Frostflame flying high, steering clear of the castles and settlements that lay along their path.
They flew by day, and by night sought out some empty stretch of ground to land and rest.
The farther they left the North behind, the more the bone-deep cold eased, though the weather did not improve for it.
The clouds ahead pressed lower and lower, and the sky darkened by degrees.
Night fell.
At Jon’s signal, Frostflame came down in a remote stretch of high ground, where withered yellow trees shook violently in the wind and loose stones tumbled now and again from the rock face.
Jon stroked Frostflame’s jaw for a while, then let her go off to hunt.
She’d taken little food that day, and after so many hours in the air, she was long past hungry.
Once she’d gone, Jon made his way to a hollow beneath the rock face, built up a small fire, and bent his head to sort through his pack.
He had been resting a while when a faint sound came suddenly from the other side of the rock.
Jon went still at once.
In almost the same instant, his hand had already closed around the hilt of Longclaw.
Three men stepped out from a cave not far off, thick-built and hard-faced, cursing under their breath as they came, plainly stirred up by whatever noise had reached them from outside.
They wore ragged cowhide armor, their faces worn hard by wind and hunger.
“Just the one?”
The burliest of them licked his cracked lips, his eyes fixing on the Valyrian steel sword at Jon’s hip, a greedy light kindling in them.
“Good fortune. Leave the pack and the sword, and we’ll let that be the end of it.”
Jon said nothing back.
He drew Longclaw at once, the firelight catching along its rippling steel.
The three bandits traded a look, grinned viciously, and closed in.
The tallest, wielding an axe, came in first, hauling the heavy blade up in both hands and bringing it down straight for Jon’s skull.
Longclaw drove out.
The blade tore clean through worn leather and buried itself beneath the man’s ribs.
He let out a low grunt, his body going rigid, and dropped where he stood.
The second bandit was already closing, his short knife aimed straight for Jon’s throat.
Jon caught it on the flat of his blade.
Clang!
The knife was knocked wide, and Longclaw turned with the motion, opening a gash across the man’s wrist.
Blood sprayed.
The bandit screamed, clutching at the wound, and staggered backward.
Jon closed the distance in a single step.
Longclaw swept across in a horizontal cut, and leather and flesh alike parted beneath it.
“What are you…”
Watching both his companions fall in the space of a breath, the last bandit’s grin vanished entirely.
He let out a strangled cry and turned to run.
Jon didn’t go after him.
He had already felt Frostflame coming back.
Boom—!
An enormous white shape came plunging out of the sky, a violent wind driving down ahead of it.
The gale pressed down from above; the trees on the slope bent as one, and loose stones went rolling across the ground.
Frostflame dove, her great claws slamming into the earth, the rock beneath them splitting on the instant.
The blast of wind sent the fleeing bandit tumbling through the air; he crashed down hard several paces off.
Her violet, slitted eyes bore down on him from above, and a low growl rolled out of her throat.
The man shook all over, the last color draining from his face.
The hand that had held a blade only moments before could no longer even grip it steady.
Frostflame lowered her head.
The great claw came down, slowly.
The scream cut off at once.
Silence settled back over the valley, broken only by the wind and the thick smell of blood on the air.
Jon searched the bodies, found nothing worth taking, and walked toward the cave the men had come from.
Before he’d even reached it, a foul stench drove him back several steps.
He shook his head, gave up on going in, gathered his things, and made a new camp further off, downwind.
He ate the game Frostflame had brought back, then lay against her and slept.
The next day, before it was fully light, Jon woke, finished off the last of yesterday’s food, and climbed back onto the dragon’s spine.
“Let’s go, Frostflame.”
The great dragon spread her wings and lifted off the ground once more, leaving the blood-soaked valley behind.
Jon lay against her back, his eyes fixed on the black stretch of sea to the east.