They did not remain at Castle Black.
The blood Gehrman had given Jinx quieted the hunger enough to force him into sleep, but it had done nothing to mend the ruin of his body. Once the first desperate relief passed, the extent of the damage became impossible to ignore. His breathing remained steady, yet every rise of his chest pulled at wounds that had closed only enough to keep him alive. Broken arrowheads still hid beneath swollen flesh. Several bones had mended crookedly, while the crude regeneration around his stomach had trapped dirt, cloth, and fragments of metal inside him.
Maester Luwin was not there.
The healers travelling with the northern host possessed skill enough for battle wounds, but none of them wished to begin cutting into Jinx while surrounded by thousands of pounds of rotting flesh and the lingering remains of whatever power had poisoned the land.
Gehrman listened to their objections with his hands folded over the metal whistle in his lap.
Then he looked toward the Doll.
"We will take him to the sanctuary."
Rickard, who had not allowed his gaze to leave his unconscious son, lifted his head. "What sanctuary?"
"One of the little lord's dens," Gehrman answered, glancing toward Castle Black as though the devastation around them were an inconvenience rather than the grave of hundreds. "Though he always preferred the word hideout. Sounded more adventurous when he was small."
Xuehara knelt in the frozen road with Jinx's head resting against her lap. His blood had soaked through the front of her travelling clothes, but she seemed unaware of it. "Where?"
"Near enough that he will survive the journey."
"That was not what she asked," Rickard said as he stepped closer, Ice still bare in his hand. "You appeared from nowhere, stopped my son with a whistle, fed him blood that rendered him unconscious, and now expect us to follow you into the wilderness."
Gehrman's weary eyes moved toward the Valyrian greatsword before returning to Rickard's face. "You may remain here and allow half-trained field surgeons to pull broken steel from his liver if that gives you greater comfort."
Rickard's jaw tightened.
Greatjon gave a low grunt behind them, looking over Jinx's torn body. "I hate the old bastard already, but he has a point."
The Doll had retrieved Dark Sister from the road. She held the bloody sword carefully in both gloved hands without appearing troubled by the weapon's history or the fresh lives upon its edge.
"The sanctuary contains what is required to treat him," she said, her pale eyes settling upon Xuehara. "Clean water. Medicines. Instruments. Blood."
The final word drew every nearby gaze.
Rhaegar's attention sharpened immediately, but one sideways glance from Xuehara kept the question behind his teeth.
Eddard crouched beside his twin and touched two fingers against Jinx's wrist again, as though needing the pulse to reassure himself every few moments. "Will the blood wake him?"
"No," the Doll answered. "Not if administered correctly."
"And you know what correctly means?"
"I have tended the little lord before."
Xuehara looked up sharply.
The Doll did not flinch beneath the force of her stare.
"How many times?"
The old man answered for her. "Enough that arguing in the snow is wasting blood he does not have."
They left the greater part of the army south of Castle Black.
Greatjon protested until Gehrman explained that the sanctuary's entrance would not admit hundreds of men, nor would Jinx react kindly if he awakened surrounded by an army inside a place he considered his own. The Umber lord eventually agreed to remain with the main force, though he did so only after extracting a promise from Rickard that a rider would return before nightfall.
Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy accompanied Rhaegar and Elia. Brandon rode with Rickard, Xuehara, and Eddard, while Lyanna and Benjen were ordered to remain with the guarded column despite their furious objections. A small number of Stark men followed at a distance, far enough that their heartbeats would not surround Jinx if the blood wore off early.
The dragon egg came with them.
No one tried to take it farther from Jinx than necessary.
The Doll placed it within a padded litter beside him, wrapping both in thick furs while Xuehara and Eddard rode on either side. Even unconscious, Jinx's left hand repeatedly shifted toward the scaled shell until his fingers touched its moss-covered surface. Only then did the tension leave his arm.
Rhaegar watched that happen three times.
He said nothing.
Gehrman guided them east from the kingsroad along a trail so narrow that several riders believed it ended whenever the trees thickened. The Doll pushed his wheeled chair over roots, stone, and frozen ground with no visible strain. The chair itself appeared crude until one looked more closely. The wood bore dark metal reinforcement beneath it, and the large wheels adjusted subtly whenever they crossed uneven ground, as though hidden joints shifted beneath their rims.
Eddard noticed but kept his questions to himself.
The dead land surrounding Castle Black gradually gave way to winter-bare forest. Pines still held needles here, though many leaned away from the direction of the Wall. Animal tracks appeared again in the snow, faint and old, and the horses grew less frantic as the distance from the slaughter increased.
Near dusk, Gehrman raised one hand.
The party stopped before a rocky hillside covered in snow and twisted roots.
There was no visible entrance.
Only a shallow depression beneath an overhang, half-blocked by fallen stones and thorny brush. Gehrman removed the rune-covered whistle from his coat, placed it between his teeth, and blew three short notes.
The sound entered the stone.
Something answered from beneath the hill.
A deep grinding began behind the rocks. Snow slid from the overhang as one section of the cliff shifted inward, revealing a descending passage wide enough for two horses to enter beside one another.
Torchlight awakened along the walls without anyone touching flame to wick.
Arthur's hand moved toward Dawn.
Gehrman glanced back at him. "If the lamps frighten you, Ser, the rest will be a difficult evening."
"They lit themselves."
"They often do."
The sanctuary began as a cave.
Natural stone closed around them as the passage descended, slick with moisture and warmed by unseen springs. Pale mist drifted through cracks in the walls. Water ran somewhere below, its steady movement echoing beneath the earth.
The horses were left within a hidden stable carved near the entrance. From there, the Doll pushed Gehrman down broad stone steps while Rickard and Eddard carried Jinx between them upon the litter. Xuehara kept one hand resting against her son's shoulder throughout the descent, while Brandon followed with the dragon egg held in both arms.
Rhaegar noticed how carefully Brandon carried it.
He also noticed that Xuehara noticed him noticing.
His eyes returned to the passage ahead.
The rough cave gradually changed.
Carved columns rose from the stone, their surfaces marked with symbols none of them recognized. Iron braziers burned with low golden flames that gave off little smoke. Old banners hung from the walls, dark fabric bearing the same crimson mark Gehrman's whistle carried—the shape of a hanging figure, antlers, or hooked blades depending upon how the light touched it.
The path opened into a large cavern.
A pool of clear water filled one side, fed by a small underground waterfall that spilled through a crack in the rock. Steam rose from its surface, warming the chamber enough that snow melted from cloaks and armor. Stone tables stood near the water beside shelves of sealed bottles, folded cloth, herbs, surgical instruments, and metal containers marked with more runes.
Farther within the sanctuary, several doorways led into adjoining rooms. One contained narrow beds. Another held weapons of unfamiliar design. A third appeared to be a workshop, its tables crowded with glass, metal, and the remains of devices too strange for even Rhaegar to identify.
A huge round mechanism hung from chains above the central chamber, blackened iron surrounding a crimson glass center. It turned slowly without visible hands moving it.
Lady Xuehara stopped at the edge of the pool.\
Her gaze travelled across the carved pillars, the medical tables, the strange weapons, and the banners bearing a symbol she had never seen within her own son's rooms.
"What is this place?"
Gehrman's chair came to a stop beside her.
"One of Jinx's sanctuaries," he answered. "There are others scattered across the North. Smaller rooms beneath hunting lodges, tunnels beneath forgotten towers, shelters within the mountains. Places for his people to rest, heal, hide, or prepare."
Rickard looked toward him. "His people."
Gehrman removed his hat.
Without its shadow, his age became more visible. Deep lines crossed his brow and gathered around tired eyes that had witnessed far more than the weathered hunter's clothing suggested. Grey filled most of his beard, and several old scars disappeared beneath his collar.
"Gehrman," he said, resting the hat across his lap. "The First Hunter. I have served the little lord longer than any other person still living outside his blood."
Xuehara stared at him.
"Longer than anyone?"
"Since he was four."
Brandon nearly dropped the egg.
Rickard's expression did not change at first. Then confusion slowly displaced suspicion. "Jinx was four years old when he entered your service?"
Gehrman's mouth twitched.
"Other way around."
Elia stepped closer, one hand resting against the edge of her cloak while Arthur remained near her shoulder. "What does First Hunter mean?"
The Doll had already begun preparing the nearest stone table. She spread clean cloth across it, arranging knives, curved needles, metal tongs, and bottles with the quiet precision of someone who had performed the task many times.
Gehrman watched her work while answering.
"It means I was the first man Jinx chose for the Hunt. The first to bear his mark. The first to teach the others what it meant to become a beast without surrendering the man."
Rhaegar's gaze lifted toward the crimson banners.
"The Hunter's Mark."
Gehrman looked at him.
The prince's brows drew together as a half-remembered report began taking shape within his mind, though he remained silent while Gehrman continued.
"I had already lived half my life before the little lord found me," the old hunter said. His fingers moved slowly across the worn brim of his hat, feeling old cuts in the leather. "I was not a young man waiting for some noble child to discover hidden greatness in me. I was a woodcutter's son who learned that animals paid more reliably than lords."
The underground waterfall continued pouring into the pool behind him, filling the pauses in his voice.
"I had no family name worth recording. To Winterfell, I was simply Gehrman. Hunted wolves when villages lost sheep. Found missing men when their families could gather enough copper. Guided patrols through the Wolfswood when their young knights realized trees all look alike once snow begins falling."
Rickard's gaze shifted.
There was the faintest sign of recognition upon his face—not of Gehrman himself, but of the kind of man he described. The North relied upon thousands like him and remembered few of their names.
Gehrman leaned back within his chair.
"By then, I had hunted nearly everything beneath the northern trees. I knew how frightened animals moved, how wounded men lied, and how the forest changed when something dangerous entered it. My knees hurt every winter. My fingers had begun stiffening. I thought my better years were behind me."
His eyes moved toward the unconscious boy being lifted onto the prepared stone table.
"Then Jinx Stark wandered into the Wolfswood at four name days old and informed me I was wrong."
Xuehara's lips parted.
"At four?" Her voice sharpened with disbelief and old maternal fury. "He was alone?"
"Yes."
"How did he leave Winterfell without anyone seeing?"
Gehrman gave her a look that suggested she knew the answer already.
Xuehara shut her eyes briefly. Jinx had been disappearing into cellars, crypts, roofs, trees, and abandoned rooms since he learned to walk. At four, he was small enough to pass through spaces grown men did not realize existed and clever enough to wait until every servant believed someone else watched him.
"He found me while I was tracking a wounded boar," Gehrman continued. "I knew something was wrong before I saw him because the forest had gone silent. Birds stopped calling. Snow fell from the branches without wind. Even the boar had stopped moving ahead of me."
The old man's voice softened slightly as the memory returned.
"I turned and found a black-haired child beneath a pine, dressed in clothes worth more than everything I owned."
Gehrman studied Jinx's sleeping face as though the blood and wounds had peeled away beneath memory.
"He watched the trail and said, 'You let it run.'"
A faint, disbelieving sound escaped Eddard.
That sounded exactly like Jinx.
"I told him a tired beast makes mistakes," Gehrman said.
"And what did he say?" Elia asked.
"'So does a tired man.'"
Despite everything surrounding them, Brandon's mouth twitched.
Gehrman continued with the exchange as he remembered it, his rough voice carrying both his own words and the impossible certainty of the four-year-old prince who had confronted him.
"I told him I was older than I looked. He said, 'You are younger than you think.' Then he walked closer, looked me in the eye, and ordered me to serve him."
Rickard stared openly now.
"He ordered a grown man into his service at four."
"He had a gift for finding the exact tone that made a person want to throw him into a stream."
Eddard looked down at his twin. "He still does."
Gehrman's dry smile appeared and vanished.
"I told him he had not lived long enough to require service. He said he required a hunter. I told him there were younger hunters."
The old man paused.
"'They are not you,' he said."
Xuehara looked toward Jinx.
Even as a child, he had apparently seen value in men overlooked by everyone else.
Gehrman's fingers settled upon a crimson symbol carved into one arm of his chair.
"He drew a deck of painted cards from beneath his cloak and spread them across a fallen tree. Told me what became of me depended upon what I chose."
Rhaegar's attention sharpened again. "A deck of cards?"
"A strange thing for a four-year-old to carry, yes."
Gehrman glanced toward him, clearly unwilling to explain more.
"I chose one. The card bore the mark you see around us."
Elia looked toward the banners. "The hanging figure."
"Or antlers. Or hooked blades. Men see what their instincts offer them." Gehrman traced the symbol beneath his thumb. "Jinx called it the Hunter's Mark. Said it belonged to those capable of mastering the beast within themselves more completely than ordinary men."
Arthur's gaze shifted toward the unfamiliar weapons stored against the wall.
"What did he promise?"
"Senses. Instincts. Strength enough to hunt creatures men were never meant to face." Gehrman's expression grew more distant. "But he warned that power would not make us less beastly. It would only make the choice clearer. We would remain men because we chose to remain men."
The old hunter looked toward Jinx again.
"You will possess the senses and instincts of a predator, he told me, but you will remain a man because you choose to remain one."
The words hung heavily within the sanctuary.
Eddard stared at his twin's ruined body and understood the cruelty in them. Jinx had created an order built upon mastering the beast within, yet his own beast had finally consumed him.
Gehrman continued more quietly.
"He placed one hand on the card and told me I would be the first to follow him into the Hunt. I asked whether he meant I would become the first hunter."
A small, genuine fondness entered the old man's face.
"He shook his head and corrected me."
Gehrman straightened as much as his damaged body allowed.
"'The First Hunter.'"
Rhaegar inhaled sharply.
Everyone turned toward him.
The prince stared at Gehrman as the last pieces joined together within his memory.
"The Hunters."
Gehrman's face became unreadable.
Rhaegar stepped nearer, amazement overtaking caution despite Elia's hand catching lightly upon his sleeve. "The order that operates throughout the southern kingdoms. Bounty hunters, trackers, monster slayers, assassins when the contract is dark enough—though they refuse certain work regardless of payment."
Greatjon was not present to hear it, but several Stark men near the entrance exchanged startled looks.
Barristan slowly lowered his hand from his sword.
Rhaegar continued, the reports returning more quickly now. "They have hunted outlaws through the Kingswood when royal patrols failed. They found pirates hidden among the Stepstones. They brought three of the Ninepenny remnants back alive after everyone else believed them dead."
Arthur looked toward Gehrman with new understanding.
"I have heard men call them monsters," he said.
"And others call them the only reason certain roads remain safe," Barristan added.
Rhaegar's gaze stayed fixed upon the old man. "My father has contracted the Hunters."
The words brought a subtle change to the room.
Rickard's expression hardened at the mention of Aerys.
Rhaegar noticed but continued. "More than once. Men he wanted found, taken, questioned, or killed. They were expensive, but they never failed after accepting the contract."
"Not every contract was accepted," Gehrman said.
"No." Rhaegar's voice held an astonishment he no longer tried to hide. "That angered him more than the cost."
Gehrman gave a faint grunt.
"A common reaction among men who mistake crowns for authority over all things."
Elia's eyes moved between Gehrman and Jinx.
"You are their leader."
"The First Hunter," Rhaegar corrected softly, understanding the distinction now.
Silence spread through the sanctuary.
Everyone looked toward the unconscious Stark prince lying upon the stone table.
The scattered stories suddenly changed shape.
Hunters appearing where no ordinary tracker could have followed. Contracts completed without witnesses. Strange weapons found beside slain beasts. Men and women from forgotten houses vanishing for years before returning stronger, quieter, and bound to an organization no lord could command.
The Hunters had never truly served coin.
They had served Jinx.
The lazy prince who slept through lessons, vanished from feasts, and allowed his father to believe he possessed no ambition had quietly built an order feared and respected throughout the southern kingdoms before most of his own family realized he left Winterfell at night.
Rickard looked as though someone had struck him.
"How large is this order?"
Gehrman glanced toward him.
"Large enough."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the answer you require while your son is bleeding onto my table."
The Doll moved to Jinx's side and began cutting away the last strips of leather around his abdomen. Xuehara immediately stepped nearer, but the woman paused before touching the first wound.
"You may remain," the Doll said. "He will feel less distress when he wakes if your scent is near."
Xuehara placed one hand against Jinx's blood-matted hair.
"Do what you must."
The Doll selected a narrow pair of silver tongs. "This will be unpleasant to witness."
"I gave birth to him."
A faint softness touched the Doll's expression. "Yes. You did."
Gehrman rolled his chair toward the shelves, reaching for several bottles while Rickard remained where he stood, still trying to reconcile the son he believed he knew with the hidden sanctuary surrounding him.
Rhaegar followed the crimson Hunter's Mark carved across one column with his eyes. A dozen questions still crowded behind his silence, but Elia kept hold of his sleeve, and Xuehara's attention had returned fully to Jinx.
Eddard moved to the opposite side of the table and took his twin's hand while the Doll prepared to remove the first broken piece of steel. Gehrman passed her a dark bottle, then another filled with something pale and luminous, quietly naming each one as she arranged them beside the instruments.
The sanctuary settled into the careful rhythm of work around them, the waterfall carrying away the smaller sounds as the Doll bent over Jinx's oldest wounds and his family gathered close enough that he would not wake among strangers.