Bran I
The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of
summer.
They set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode
among them, nervous with excitement.
This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brothers to see the king's justice done.
It was the fourteenth year of summer, and twelfth of Bran's life.
The man had been taken outside a small holdfast in the hills.
Robb thought he was a wildling, his sword sworn to the King-beyond-the-Wall.
It made Bran's skin prickle to think of it. He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them.
The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves.
They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.
But the man they found bound hand and foot to the holdfast wall awaiting the king's justice was old and scrawny, not much taller than Robb.
He had lost both ears and a finger to frostbite, and he dressed all in black, the same as a brother of the Night's Watch, except that his furs were ragged and greasy.
The breath of man and horse mingled, steaming, in the cold morning air as his lord father had the man cut down from the wall and dragged before them.
Robb and Jon sat tall and still on their horses, they've seen this before, he thought, they had done this themselves, he remembered.
Bran sat between them on his pony, trying to seem older than himself, trying to pretend that he'd seen all this before.
A faint wind blew through the holdfast gate.
Over their heads flapped the banner of his house.
His father sat solemnly on his horse, long brown hair stirring in the wind.
His closely trimmed beard was shot with white, making him look older than his years.
He had a grim cast to his grey eyes this day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the children of the
forest.
He had taken off Father's face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell.
There were questions asked and answers given there in the chill of morning, but afterward he could not recall much of what had been said.
Finally his lord father gave a command, and two of his guardsmen dragged the ragged man to the ironwood stump in the center of the square.
They forced his head down onto the hard black wood.
Lord Stark dismounted and Theon brought forth the sword.
The sword was as wide across as a man's hand, and taller even than Theon.
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke.
Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
His father peeled off his gloves and handed them to Ser Jory.
He took hold of Ice with both hands and said, "In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, by the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die." He lifted the greatsword high above his head.
Jon moved closer. "Keep the pony well in hand," he whispered. "And don't look away. Father will know if you do."
Bran kept his pony well in hand, and did not look away.
His father took off the man's head with a single sure stroke and blood sprayed out across the snow, as red as surnmerwine.
One of the horses reared and had to be restrained to keep from bolting.
He could not take his eyes off the blood, the snows around the stump drank it eagerly, reddening as he watched.
The head bounced off a thick root and rolled.
It came up near Greyjoy's feet. He laughed, put his boot on the head, and kicked it away.
"Ass," Jon muttered, low enough so Greyjoy did not hear while his eyes trailed away at something else, Bran noticed.
"What is it?" He asked, wondering.
Jon put a hand on his shoulder, and Bran looked over at him
"A ghost." Jon whispered, plainly, making him gulp.
He tilted his head towards the headless corpse, but he could see nothing but the pooling blood.
"Boo!"
"Arghh!" Bran screamed clutching to Jon's robes as he heard something from behind.
Robb laughed hard as he held his knees while Jon joined him while holding him tightly.
"You did well," Jon told him with a smile.
It seemed colder on the long ride back to Winterfell, though the wind had died by then
and the sun was higher in the sky.
He rode with his brothers, well ahead of the main party, his pony struggling hard to keep up with their horses.
"He died bravely," Theon said, accompanying them. "He had courage, at the least."
"No," Jon said quietly. "It was not courage, this one was dead of fear, you could
see it in his eyes."
Theon was not impressed.
"The Others take his eyes," he swore. "He died well, dare you snow, to race me to the bridge?"
"I would take you," Robb answered, kicking his horse forward while Theon cursed and followed, as they galloped off down the trail.
Robb was laughing and hooting while Theon was cursing and Jon followed them quickly.
The hooves of their horses kicked up showers of snow as they went.
He did not try to follow, his pony could not keep up, he had seen the ragged man's
eyes, and he was thinking of them now.
After a while, the sound of Robb's laughter
receded, and the woods grew silent again.
So deep in thought was he that he never heard the rest of the party until his father
moved up to ride beside him.
"Are you well, Bran?" he asked, not unkindly.
"Yes, Father," He answered as he looked up, wrapped in his furs and leathers, mounted
on his great warhorse, his lord father loomed over him like a giant. "Theon says the man
died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid."
"What do you think?" his father asked.
He thought about it. "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"
"That is the only time a man can be brave," His father told him. "Do you understand why
I did it?"
"He was a wildling," Bran said. "They carry off women and sell them to the Others."
His lord father smiled. "Old Nan has been telling you stories again, in truth, the man
was an oathbreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch, no man is more dangerous, the
deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile, but you mistake me, the question was not why the man had to die, but
why must I do it?"
He had no answer for that.
"King Robert has a headsman," he said, uncertainly.
"He does," his father admitted. "As did the Targaryen kings before him, yet our way is
the older way, your brothers know this well, the blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words and if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die."
"One day, Bran, you will be Robb's bannerman, holding a keep of your own for your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you, when that day comes, you must take
no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away, a ruler who hides behind paid
executioners soon forgets what death is."
That was when Theon reappeared on the crest of the hill before them.
He waved and shouted down at them.
"Lord Stark, come quickly, see what Robb has found!"
Then he was gone again.
Jory rode up beside them. "Trouble, my lord?"
"Beyond a doubt," his lord father said. "Come, let us see what mischief my sons have
rooted out now."
He sent his horse into a trot, Jory, himself and the rest came after.
They found Robb on the riverbank north of the bridge, with Jon still mounted beside
him.
The late summer snows had been heavy this moonturn. Robb stood knee-deep in
white, his hood pulled back so the sun shone in his hair.
He was cradling something in his arm, while the boys talked in hushed voices.
The riders picked their way carefully through the drifts, groping for solid footing on the
hidden, uneven ground.
Jory and Rodrick Cassel were the first to reach the boys.
Bran felt the breath go out of him.
"Gods!" he exclaimed, struggling to keep control of his pony.
Jory's sword was already out.
"Robb, get away from it!" he called as his horse reared under him.
Robb smiled and looked up from the bundle in his arms.
"She can't hurt you," he said calmly, "She's dead, Jory."
Bran was afire with curiosity by then, he would have spurred the pony faster, but his
father made them dismount beside the bridge and approach on foot.
He jumped off and ran.
By then Jon, Jory, and Theon had all dismounted as well.
"What in the seven hells is it?" Greyjoy was saying.
Robb looked at him for a moment, before replying. "A wolf."
"A freak," Greyjoy said. "Look at the size of it."
Bran's heart was thumping in his chest as he pushed through a waist-high drift to his
brothers' side.
Half-buried in bloodstained snow, a huge dark shape slumped in death.
Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman's perfume.
Bran glimpsed blind eyes crawling with maggots, a wide mouth full of yellowed
teeth but it was the size of it that made him gasp.
It was bigger than his pony, twice the size of the largest hound in his father's kennel.
"It's no freak," Jon said calmly. "That's a direwolf, they grow larger than the other kind."
Theon said, "There's not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years."
"I see one now," His father replied.
"We should speak with the Huntsmen and Scouts, Father." Robb spoke, as he raised himself. "A beast this big, this close to the town and we had no clue till now, if it came for sheep or took a babe, it would have been disastrous."
"We should." His father agreed.
Bran tore his eyes away from the monster as Robb turned, that was when he noticed the bundle in his brother's arms.
He gave a cry of delight and moved closer.
The pup was a tiny ball of grey-black fur, its eyes still closed. It nuzzled blindly against Robb's chest as he cradled it, searching for milk among his leathers, making a sad little whimpery sound.
Bran reached out hesitantly.
"Go on," Robb told him. "You can touch him."
Bran gave the pup a quick nervous stroke, then turned as Jon said, "Here you go."
His half brother put a second pup into his arms.
"There are five of them." Bran sat down in the snow and hugged the wolf pup to his face.
Its fur was soft and warm against his cheek.
"Direwolves loose in the realm, after so many years," Muttered Hullen, the master of
horse. "I like it not."
"It is a sign," Jory said.
"This is only a dead animal, Jory," Robb frowned as he replied.
"Do we know what killed her?" Father asked, stepping closer to take a look.
"There's something in the throat," Jon told him. "There, just under the jaw."
His father knelt and groped under the beast's head with his hand. He gave a yank and held it up for all to see. A foot of shattered antler, tines snapped off, all wet with blood.
A sudden silence descended over the party.
The men looked at the antler uneasily, and no one dared to speak, even Bran could sense their fear, though he did not understand.
His father tossed the antler to the side and cleansed his hands in the snow.
"I'm surprised she lived long enough to whelp," he said. His voice broke the spell.
"Maybe she didn't," Jory said. "I've heard tales... maybe the bitch was already dead when the pups came."
"Born with the dead," Another man put in. "Worse luck."
"No matter," said Hullen. "They be dead soon enough too."
Bran gave a wordless cry of dismay.
"The sooner the better," Theon agreed as he drew his sword. "Give the beast here, Bran."
The little thing squirmed against him, as if it heard and understood.
"No!" Bran cried out fiercely. "It's mine."
"Put away your sword, Greyjoy," Robb said, he sounded as commanding as their father, his brother does that sometimes and every time it scares Bran a little. "We will keep these pups."
"You cannot do that, my Lord," said Harwin, who was Hullen's son.
"It be a mercy to kill them," Hullen said.
Bran looked to his father for rescue, but got only a frown, a furrowed brow.
"Hullen speaks truly, son. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation."
"No!" He could feel tears welling in his eyes, and he looked away.
He did not want to cry in front of his father.
Robb replied calmly.
"They'll live, Father, " he said. "I promise you, a direwolf is no weak animal, they'll live, for it is not in their nature to forfeit their lives against cold and starvation, they are brave creatures."
Their father let out a gruff sigh as he stood in doubt.
"Lord Stark," Jon said while Bran
looked at him with desperate hope.
"There are five pups," He told Father. "Three male, two female."
"What of it, Jon?"
"You have five trueborn children," Jon said.
"Three sons, two daughters, the direwolf is
the sigil of your House, your children were meant to have these pups, my lord."
Bran saw his father's face change, saw the other men exchange glances.
He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment.
Bran understood what his brother had done.
The count had come right only because Jon had omitted himself, he had included the girls, included even Rickon but not himself.
Their father understood as well.
"You want no pup for yourself, Jon?" he asked softly.
"He will too." Robb answered, making their father arch his brows as he pointed at something in the bushes.
"There," Bran said. "He must have crawled away from the others,"
"Or been driven away," their father said, looking at the sixth pup.
His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning.
Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would have opened his eyes while the others were still blind.
"An albino," Theon said with wry amusement. "This one will die even faster than the others."
Robb and Jon both gave their father's ward a long, chilling look.
"I think not, Greyjoy," Jon said coldly. "This one belongs to me."