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When Leon walked out of the infirmary at Castle Black, it was already afternoon.
Just as Maester Aemon had observed earlier, Leon had been drenched head to toe in blood, the kind of wounds that would have killed an ordinary man five or six times over.
Yet aside from a few minor scrapes and the bone-deep exhaustion in his limbs, not a single real wound could be found on him.
A skeptical apprentice even took scissors and cut open Leon’s blood-soaked undershirt, determined to find something.
The one wound still oozing blood seemed to have a will of its own.
In places too dim to see clearly, countless tendril-like sprouts grew from the edges, gripping both sides and pulling them together.
Even the blood that had seeped out was slowly reabsorbed by Leon’s skin.
The apprentice had never seen or heard of anything like it in his life.
He couldn’t help himself, he called out loudly for Maester Aemon to come and look.
“Maester, look at this.
Is there even any need to stitch it up?”
Maester Aemon had been setting bones and bandaging the other Night’s Watch Recruits who filled the infirmary.
He raised his head at the words.
He had just finished treating the last recruit’s wound and had already been planning to examine Leon anyway.
Aemon had been the finest maester the Citadel had produced in his day.
There was a reason he had come to serve in mankind’s most glorious order.
His medical knowledge rivaled anyone alive.
Yet even he, when he pressed his palm flat against the wound on Leon’s back, found himself unable to speak for a long moment.
Through his palm he could feel a faint vibration running beneath the muscle.
When he lifted his hand, the wound that had originally spanned dozens of centimeters had already healed to half its length.
It was like watching a slideshow fast-forwarded hundreds of times.
Aemon glanced at the apprentice beside him, who stood stunned into silence.
Perhaps in the apprentice’s eyes, Leon’s healing speed was more unsettling than watching Leon beat down ten Night’s Watch Recruits single-handed.
“Apply the medicine and bandage him up.” He silenced the apprentice with the most severe look he had ever worn in his life, then turned to Leon.
“Also, Leon.”
Leon, stripped bare, feeling the cold draft against his back, replied on instinct.
“What is it, Maester Aemon?”
“From this day forward, your injuries — present and future — are to be treated by me and me alone.
No other hands.”
Maester Aemon’s word was law at Castle Black, second only to the Lord Commander.
When he spoke like that, there was simply no room to push back.
Leon found the cleanest black cloth tunic he could and walked out of the infirmary.
The moment he was gone, the apprentice, who had been sitting on a stomach full of questions, finally couldn’t hold it anymore.
He turned carefully to the mentor he trusted most.
“Maester Aemon, I’ve read every medical text I could find.
This kind of regenerative constitution, I’ve only seen it in legends, in dragons, whose flesh is forged of blood and fire.
Is Leon some kind of dragon that grew a human body?”
Maester Aemon didn’t hesitate for an instant.
He delivered a swift cuff to the apprentice’s head.
“Nonsense.
By the Seven, miracles sometimes appear among men because they have a purpose to fulfill.
Leon is no dragon, and I forbid you to spread that slander.”
The apprentice looked ready to argue something even worse.
Words like “demon” and “heresy” were already forming on his lips.
Maester Aemon raised his hand and added another cuff before the boy could get them out.
That quieted him for a while.
Outside the dim infirmary doors, a small crowd had gathered.
Night’s Watchmen lined the entrance.
Common folk stood behind them, eyes bright with the kind of adoration people reserve for heroes.
At the front stood Jon, his injuries light enough that he’d been bandaged long ago, one arm hanging in a sling.
Beside him was Edd the Old Iron, and a few other brothers Leon didn’t know well, their faces couldn’t hide it, the barely-contained delight of men who had just watched someone do something extraordinary.
And there, having fought his way through a forest of hairy legs, was the little imp.
He pushed to the front, tilted his head back, and asked his first question.
“Leon.
Does it still hurt?”
Something shifted on Jon’s face.
The joy drained out of it and guilt flooded in.
Leon had put himself through all of that for Jon’s sake, taken injuries that heavy, and Jon’s first instinct hadn’t even been to ask if he was in pain.
He’d wanted to ask what it felt like to beat that many men.
One sentence from the little imp, and Jon couldn’t find it in himself to meet Leon’s eyes.
He stayed where he was, silent, and let the crowd slowly swallow him.
“Hss—”
Leon finally sucked in a sharp breath.
His wounds sent a token protest to his nerves, just enough to acknowledge they existed.
“If my nerves aren’t broken,” he said, the wince already fading, “I think I’m done hurting.” He looked down at the little imp with an easy smile.
The little imp ignored the crowd entirely.
He grabbed Leon by the arm and marched forward on his short legs, hauling Leon bodily out of the press of people.
Leon didn’t even react in time.
He stumbled along, half-dragged, until they reached a quiet corner away from the noise.
“Lord Imp, you have something for me?” Leon was fairly certain that if any other dwarf in the world had manhandled him like that, he would have introduced that dwarf to his fist.
But this was the little imp, one of the story’s central figures, a man who had played the hero’s role for eight full seasons straight.
Leon let the offense slide.
The little imp glanced left, then right.
Satisfied they were alone, he asked his first question.
It made Leon frown.
“I hear you’re just a Night’s Watch Recruit.
Haven’t even taken your vows yet?”
“That’s right.
Though after today’s performance, it won’t be long.”
“You’re not like Jon.
You’re not like the others.” The little imp’s voice was level, direct.
“You have real potential, and this place will waste it.
The Night’s Watch isn’t the glorious destination it used to be.
Stay here, and you’ll rot.
Day after day, nothing but rot.”
➤ Next: Leon, Bursting with Righteousness, Politely Refuses the Little Devil’s Tempta…