New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤 ✦ In Aeg’s old world, progress had never been steady, but over the centuries it generally moved forward.
Westeros was different.
Here, population was the foundation of production, yet long winters, scarce resources, and constant wars kept killing the very people needed for recovery.
Each hard winter could erase generations of growth.
The result was a society whose development lagged far behind the age it claimed.
Whatever truth lay behind the ten thousand years since the Dawn Age, one fact was clear: in a feudal realm—and especially in the sparsely populated North—armies could not be raised overnight.
* * * “I will contact the lords,” Eddard Stark said.
He knew his brother well enough to understand that Benjen meant no insult, so he did not take offense.
Instead, he sighed and shook his head.
“Each house can provide men in proportion to its strength.
We may gather a few hundred and send them to the Wall.
But this is the busy season.
Do not expect much in manpower.
Supplies are another matter.
Give me a list, and I will see what can be done.” “What of the king?
Give me a chance to speak to him.
I will tell him myself.” “I already told Robert in the crypts that the Wall needs support.
Unfortunately, his mind is elsewhere.
The situation in King’s Landing is tense.
This journey north is his way of asking for my help.” “If the Wall fails, the North suffers first,” Benjen said, his voice hard.
He had cooled somewhat, but not enough.
“If that happens, it will not matter how securely you help Robert hold King’s Landing.
Think on the danger to the North.
As for ordinary supplies, those can be discussed in time.
There is one unusual thing we do need quickly: dragonglass.
There is some to be bought in the markets, but as an ornament it is expensive and rare.
The Watch needs a great quantity, and cheaply.” “I read in a book that Dragonstone has enormous deposits of dragonglass,” Aeg said at the right moment.
“If they can be mined, there should be more than enough.” “I will write to Stannis and discuss the matter with him.
He can make things easier for you.” Eddard clearly had no faith in the claim that dragonglass could kill the Others, but after refusing so many of his brother’s requests, he could hardly refuse this one as well.
He glanced toward the window.
“It is growing late.
Bathe, change, and prepare for the feast.
Robert is an old friend, but he is also the king.
Even if he takes no offense, others may use the slight against us.” * * * The two men of the Night’s Watch took their leave of the Lord of Winterfell.
Benjen led Aeg toward their rooms.
Though the First Ranger had sworn his life to the Watch, he was still a Stark in truth, and the room where he had lived as a boy had naturally been kept for him.
What surprised Aeg was that Benjen had also managed to secure a small room for him inside the castle.
In theory, with Winterfell overflowing, a common black brother of no importance should have been lucky to find a spot in a shared room at an inn in the winter town.
Why should he enjoy a place within the castle like the knights and ladies?
Then again, Aeg had the faint sense that this arrangement was less honor than precaution.
It was easier to keep him from running if he slept within the walls.
His thoughts were still turning when they met a boy coming the other way.
“Uncle Benjen!” “Jon.” Some of the weight lifted from the First Ranger’s face.
“You’ve grown taller.” The boy was lean, with the same long face and dark brown hair as Benjen.
He looked little like the actor Aeg remembered, but the greeting told him who the boy was at once: Jon Snow, known to the world as Eddard Stark’s bastard, and in truth the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.
Yet Jon’s true parentage was not what drew Aeg’s eyes.
At the boy’s side stood a small white wolf, staring up at him with curious red eyes.
‘What is going on?’ Because Aeg knew the story, neither Gared nor Will had crossed the Wall as deserters.
That meant the opening scene in which a Night’s Watch deserter was executed should never have happened.
If that execution never happened, the Stark children should not have found the dead direwolf and her pups on the way back to Winterfell.
So how in seven hells had this little direwolf ended up with Jon Snow?
“If I am not mistaken, that little one beside you is a direwolf,” Benjen said.
He had noticed the pup as well, and his eyes sharpened.
“They are not found south of the Wall.
Where did it come from?” “Villagers found its dead mother on a track outside Winterfell,” Jon said.
“Jory went to investigate and brought back a litter.
Six pups, exactly.” ✦ ✦ ✦ Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.