~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday!
Thanks!
The night was deep, but candlelight still burned in the Maester’s Tower where Maester Aemon slept.
Under that dim glow, the two apprentices’ “strikingly handsome” faces could have scared the bravest wildling to death.
Fortunately, Leon lay sprawled across Maester Aemon’s bed with his eyes shut, snoring away without a shred of dignity, spared the sight of those two honored visages.
Earlier that day, while hauling Leon toward the tower, the pair had passed the recruit mess hall.
Cook Jenny had asked, curious, what breed of wildling produced such a pig-headed man.
One apprentice answered truthfully: This is Leon.
At that, Jenny, who’d been utterly smitten with Leon’s pretty face and fighting prowess, promptly extinguished that laughable little crush.
Whether Leon would feel any sadness upon waking and learning of this was anyone’s guess.
But given how soundly he slept after being knocked unconscious, without a care in the world, he probably wouldn’t mind in the slightest that the world now held one fewer lady who admired him.
“Oi, Zit.
How does the flesh on this guy’s face even work?
He was swollen like a pig all day — how’s he completely healed by nightfall?
Did Maester Aemon smear some priceless medicine on him or something?”
“Who knows?
The Maester won’t let us anywhere near Leon’s treatment.
Maybe tonight, once he’s asleep, you could go have a look?”
“You really are thick, Zit.
Leon got beaten so ugly today even Jenny wouldn’t glance at him.
Don’t you want to get your hands on that miracle salve that cures ugliness?”
“Ha!
So that’s your angle.
Once the Maester’s out cold, I’ll go with you.
I know where he keeps the bottles.”
The two murmured right in front of Leon, openly scheming what could only be called a betrayal of Maester Aemon.
Whether they were simply that stupid or had no grasp of consequences was hard to say.
Either way, Leon lay on the bed, offering no response beyond the steady rhythm of his breathing.
That night, Leon dreamed.
Dreamed without pause.
And it was a dream in which his consciousness remained perfectly lucid.
He walked through an endless forest under cold, bright moonlight.
The path ahead was obscure, stretching on as if it had no end.
On both sides, on every tree as far as he could see, human faces were carved in sharp relief.
They’d startled him at the dream’s beginning, but Leon had gradually grown accustomed to these faces growing from the wood.
Bold and meticulous, he even reached out to touch the grain of one such face.
Beneath his fingertips, it felt no different from the natural wood grain of any ordinary tree.
Then, without warning, a bone-deep chill seized him, the sensation of something staring at his back.
Leon turned without hesitation.
What he saw was worse.
Every face on every sacred Weirwood within his sight had turned toward him in unison.
Eyes that had been shut now gaped wide open.
And from each pair of eyes, two lines of bloody tears streamed down.
At the far end of those weeping, blood-streaked faces, a tall figure of indiscernible form was pacing toward him.
Flee.
The thought erupted from somewhere deep in Leon’s chest.
Even the mouths of the Weirwood faces shaped the word in unison: Flee.
But Leon did not turn.
Did not run.
His mind was clear, he knew he was inside his own dream.
The figure, seeing that Leon had neither collapsed trembling nor bolted like any ordinary man would, seemed to take interest.
It quickened its pace.
Now Leon could see: the figure had a pair of brilliant blue eyes, like two impossibly precious sapphires set into its skull.
Closer.
30 paces.
20.
10.
The White Walker stopped less than a meter from him.
Even inside the dream, Leon could feel the cold radiating off its body, not the bone-penetrating chill atop The Wall, but something deeper, something that threatened to freeze his very soul solid.
“Human.
You have seen me.
Why do you not flee?”
The White Walker’s voice was impossibly cold, every syllable compressed through ice, carrying the distorted crackle of a failing transmitter.
Perhaps this was the first time in 8,000 years it had met a mortal so bold.
Its face, which should have been incapable of expression, as if cast from ice, now shifted, forming a look of vivid curiosity.
“The Song of Ice and Fire.
I’ve now seen the ‘ice’ part.”
Leon’s reply was more to himself than anything.
The White Walker before him looked utterly baffled.
Then Leon lifted his head and examined the creature from head to toe with the bright, hungry curiosity of a child.
The White Walker, in turn, studied Leon for a moment.
Finally, it nodded with satisfaction.
“Upon waking, leave The Wall.
Come north.
Advance straight along the first great road you see.
Where no road exists, follow the North Star.
You will reach the Thenn Mountains.
I shall await you in the city of Thenn.” The White Walker’s tone was cadenced and rhythmic, steeped in an ancient intonation no wandering minstrel could ever hope to imitate.
It continued: “Become my servant.
You possess a body of worthy qualification.
I shall permit you to retain a portion of your lowly soul, that you may be distinguished from those beast-like Wights.
When winter comes, this is a supreme honor millions would struggle to attain.
You shall share in my eternal life.”
Its face had returned to blankness, but Leon read the pride in its eyes.
“Mortal.
Have you considered your answer?” Seeing that Leon had not immediately accepted — with joy or with trembling — the White Walker did not press.
Patience was not a virtue the long-lived lacked.
“Heh.
Big words.
That speech might suit your boss.
But a grunt like you ought to act like one.”
Leon spat contemptuously toward the White Walker.
If this damnably realistic dream hadn’t frozen his mouth bone-dry, that thick gob of phlegm would have splattered right across the creature’s face.
The White Walker understood little of what Leon said, but the contempt and disdain in his eyes, it understood perfectly.
It flew into a rage.
It stepped back half a pace, reaching for the long blade slung behind it,
And Leon drove a full-force kick straight into its breastplate.
This White Walker had forged its body without pause in the Lands of Always Winter for 8,000 years.
Its strength was monstrous beyond measure.
But caught completely off guard, it still stumbled and crashed to the ground.
“Motherfucker.
Acting tough in my dream?
You’re asking for it.”
Leon dropped straight into a Crow Sits on Airplane, straddling the White Walker’s chest.
His fists, each the size of a sandbag, rained down on its face like a storm.
The combo burst left the White Walker’s mind a blank of question marks.
No time to think.
It could only shield its head with its arms and endure Leon’s fury.
“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
“ORA ORA ORA!”
➤ Next: Unbelievable — Such Incredible Recovery, Yet Not a Descendant of the Dragon, …