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“Enough.
You damned lot of peasants and thieves’ sons — Lord Leon has no further need of your service.
Get lost, all of you.”
Jon’s words hit the recruits like a pardon.
Catching Leon’s slight nod, they dropped whatever they were holding and scattered like startled birds.
That rare brush with a nobleman’s indulgence had left Leon still savoring the moment.
He shot Jon a glare for spoiling his fun.
“Don’t forget what I told you last night.
Go find the Lord Commander now and complete your Night’s Watch oath ceremony.”
“Regrettably, Edd and I both have sentry duty today.
We won’t be able to witness such a glorious moment.” After Jon finished, Ol’ Eddy wore an equally regretful expression and nodded at Leon.
“So go.
Quickly.
When you return, I want you to recount every detail of the oath ceremony to me personally.
Promise me, Leon.”
“Alright.
I will.”
After dawdling a moment longer, Leon reluctantly left the barracks and headed alone toward the Commander’s Tower.
He appeared outwardly casual as he walked, but ever since the White Walker had invaded his dreams, Leon had kept a taut string of vigilance coiled in his chest.
So he easily detected something amiss coming from one of the buildings inside Castle Black.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
Keeping time with the rhythmic hammering of Smith Donal beating a sword blank, Leon stepped into Castle Black’s one and only smithy.
“Leon.
Looking to have a new sword made?
Or shall I forge you some other kind of weapon?”
Without even turning his head, Smith Donal knew who had arrived.
His hands never stopped moving, one gripping the tongs, the other wielding a hammer, pounding away at material gradually taking the shape of a longsword.
“This is my first time in your smithy, but I’ve heard the legends about you from the other recruits so often my ears are practically callused.”
“And what kind of legends have you heard?
That my feet have trod across all the Seven Kingdoms?
That I’ve tasted more delicacies of land and sea than can be counted?
That I’ve bedded over a hundred women?
Or that I’ve fought in over a hundred battles?”
When the topic turned to himself, Smith Donal seemed to have no end of words.
His brawny arm rose high, then crashed down heavily, that mechanical motion, day after day, night after night, had long since become one with the man himself.
“All of those.
But what’s missing from every tale is why a great man like you would choose to come north, all the way to The Wall.”
“Tell me, then.
When did that severed arm of yours get reattached?”
Faced with an anomaly that would have sent an ordinary man fleeing in terror, Leon instead seemed perfectly at ease.
He pulled up a chair and settled in unhurriedly, eager to hear what explanation this “Smith Donal” might offer.
Smith Donal’s byname was One-Arm, and as the saying goes, there are only mistaken names, never mistaken bynames.
It was precisely after losing an arm during the Siege of Storm’s End that Smith Donal had resolved to take the black and turn his back on the world.
Yet this “Smith Donal” standing here had both arms perfectly intact, showing not the slightest trace of any recent suturing.
Having been exposed on the spot by Leon, Smith Donal showed no sign of anger.
Unhurriedly, he worked the material in his hands until it took the rough shape of a sword, then plunged it with clean efficiency into a vat of cold rapeseed oil.
Only then did he turn around to face Leon directly.
But rather than explaining who he was, Smith Donal instead spoke a line laden with deeper meaning.
“A boy owes the Many-Faced God a life.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I’m asking your name.”
“A man has no name.”
“What’s all this ‘a man’ business?
Can’t you use first-person pronouns?”
“A man can use them.
But a man has long since devoted himself body and soul to the Many-Faced God.
Now, a man is no one.”
Leon found talking to this self-styled “a man” character to be a case of more frustration than communication.
All the “a man” this and “a man” that was already giving Leon, whose comprehension was merely average, a splitting headache.
Still, from the manner of his speech, Leon dredged up memories of the television series’ plot.
Piecing things together, he managed to hazard a few guesses.
“Then let me ask you.
This life the boy you speak of owes to the Many-Faced God — whose life is it?”
“Alliser Thorne.”
This time, Smith Donal dropped the endless “a man” routine and instead delivered a specific, precise name outright.
“So it’s him?”
“Yes.
The Many-Faced God has grown impatient.
The boy must strike soon.”
“Hold on.
Why should I follow the bidding of this Many-Faced God of yours?
In case you’ve forgotten, this is the North.
We keep the Old Gods here.
And I’ve never even heard of your Many-Faced God.”
“The boy need not quibble.
A price of blood, sufficient and already paid, has been rendered.
The boy need only deliver the life of Alliser Thorne.”
“Then might I ask who paid this blood price?”
Leon was curious.
Though the Alliser Thorne of reality was acerbic and utterly devoid of human warmth, he had also, in all truth, poured heart and effort into training a pack of recruits, men who had arrived as mere bandits and thieves, into proper men of the Night’s Watch.
Aside from Jon, Leon could think of no one else who could harbor such deep-seated hatred for Alliser Thorne as to pay any price to hire a Faceless Man to carry out the assassination.
Though in the end, the task had been subcontracted down through layers until it landed right on Leon’s head.
Had he remained in the dark, so be it.
But now that he clearly had the chance to get to the bottom of it, by all reason and sentiment, shouldn’t he at least ask a few questions before sending Alliser Thorne on his way?
Perhaps having grown weary of Leon’s endless, childlike barrage of questions, the expressionless Smith Donal turned, pulled the now-quenched sword from the rapeseed oil, and gave it a few simple CLINK-CLANK taps.
A brand-new, single-handed longsword, still radiating a faint blue glow, was held out before Leon.
“This is the reward the Many-Faced God deems the boy deserves.
But to spur the boy onward, it has been delivered ahead of schedule.”
Beneath the lamplight, aside from the blue glow gradually fading from the blade, all that remained was a stark division along its central ridge, black on one side, white on the other, flickering like the boundary between heaven and hell.
“The Black-and-White Kiss?”
“Indeed.”
With that, Smith Donal reached up and tore off his human-skin mask, revealing a face so utterly unremarkable it would vanish in any crowd.
“Once the deed is done, the boy may summon a man at any time to forge weapons.
He need only hold this coin and call a man by the name ‘Mod.'”
“And a man will cross a thousand mountains and ten thousand miles, arriving at the boy’s side within half a day.”
As he spoke, the unremarkable face flicked a coin into the air with a toss of his hand, a coin with no obverse or reverse, or rather, with a human face on both sides, sending it spinning dozens of times off his fingertip.
Leon’s instinct was to reach out and catch it, but the unremarkable face snatched it back first, closing his fist around it.
“A man said — only once the deed is done will this be given to you.
And the task must be completed before the sun has fully set today.”
That lifeless, unremarkable face very nearly betrayed emotion at Leon’s rashness.
“I have an idea.
What if we chase the sun at a very high speed?
Then the task will never have a deadline!”
“The Many-Faced God is most displeased by the boy’s quibbling.”
With that, the unremarkable face retreated a step.
Leon felt his vision blur for an instant, and when his eyes refocused, where in the smithy was there any trace of the unremarkable face?
But there, solid and real upon the table, lay a steel sword of extraordinary sharpness.
Mod had even thoughtfully provided a scabbard worthy of matching such a magnificent blade.
The moment his hand closed around the hilt, Leon couldn’t help but exclaim, “Fine sword!”
And the Mount & Blade panel, as if eager to show off, stirred with a little commotion of its own.
“Acquired ‘The Black-and-White Kiss’ x1.
When equipped: Agility +10, Anti-Magic +10.
Description: Forged from legendary Valyrian steel, sharp beyond all resistance!”
…
So the more overpowered the equipment, the shorter the description?
Very fine.
Very mighty.
Seeing the Mount & Blade panel fall silent for a long while after, Leon thought to himself, his heart thrumming with excitement.
As it happened, the Bloodthirst progress bar in his system was just one man short of leveling up again.
“Alliser Thorne.
If my left foot happens to cross your threshold first when I arrive, you’re a dead man today.”
➤ Next: Solemnity, Leon Swears the Night’s Watch Oath