Hodor returned alone with both arms full of deadwood and broken branches. Jojen Reed took his flint and knife and set about lighting a fire while Meera boned the fish she’d caught at the last stream they’d crossed. Bran wondered how many years had passed since there had last been a supper cooked in the kitchens of the Nightfort. He wondered who had cooked it too, though maybe it was better not to know.
When the flames were blazing nicely Meera put the fish on. At least it’s not a meat pie. The Rat Cook had cooked the son of the Andal king in a big pie with onions, carrots, mushrooms, lots of pepper and salt, a rasher of bacon, and a dark red Dornish wine. Then he served him to his father, who praised the taste and had a second slice. Afterward the gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only cat his own young. He had roamed the Nightfort ever since, devouring his children, but stil his hunger was not sated. “It was not for murder that the gods cursed him,” Old Nan said, “nor for serving the Andal king his son in a pie. A man has a right to vengeance. But he slew a guest beneath his roof, and that the gods cannot forgive.”
“We should sleep,” Jojen said solemnly, after they were full. The fire was burning low. He stirred it with a stick. “Perhaps I’ll have another green dream to show us the way.” Hodor was already curled up and snoring lightly. From time to time he thrashed beneath his cloak, and whimpered something that might have been “Hodor.” Bran wriggled closer to the fire.
The warmth felt good, and the soft crackling of flames soothed him, but sleep would not come.
Outside the wind was sending armies of dead leaves marching across the courtyards to scratch faintly at the doors and windows. The sounds made him think of Old Nan’s stories. He could almost hear the ghostly sentinels calling to each other atop the Wall and winding their ghostly warhorns. Pale moonlight slanted down through the hole in the Dorne, painting the branches of the weirwood as they strained up toward the roof. It looked as if the tree was trying to catch the moon and drag it down into the wel . Old gods, Bran prayed, if you hear me, don’t send a dream tonight. Or if you do, make it a good dream. The gods made no answer.
Bran made himself close his eyes. Maybe he even slept some, or maybe he was just drowsing, floating the way you do when you are half awake and half asleep, trying not to think about Mad Axe or the Rat Cook or the thing that came in the night.
Then he heard the noise.
His eyes opened. What was that? He held his breath. Did I dream it? Was I having a stupid nightmare? He didn’t want to wake Meera and Jojen for a bad dream, but... there... a soft scuffling sound, far off... Leaves, it’s leaves rattling off the walls outside and rustling together...
or the wind, it could be the wind... The sound wasn’t coming from outside, though. Bran felt the hairs on his arm start to rise. The sound’s inside, it’s in here with us, and it’s getting louder. He pushed himself up onto an elbow, listening. There was wind, and blowing leaves as well, but this was something else. Footsteps. Someone was coming this way. Something was coming this way.
It wasn’t the sentinels, he knew. The sentinels never left the Wall. But there might be other ghosts in the Nightfort, ones even more terrible. He remembered what Old Nan had said of Mad Axe, how he took his boots off and prowled the castle halls barefoot in the dark, with never a sound to tell you where he was except for the drops of blood that fell from his axe and his elbows and the end of his wet red beard. Or maybe it wasn’t Mad Axe at al , maybe it was the thing that came in the night. The ‘prentice boys all saw it, Old Nan said, but afterward when they told their Lord Commander every description had been different. And three died within the year, and the fourth went mad, and a hundred years later when the thing had come again, the ‘prentice boys were seen shambling along behind it, al in chains.
That was only a story, though. He was just scaring himself. There was no thing that comes in the night, Maester Luwin had said so. If there had ever been such a thing, it was gone from the world now, like giants and dragons. It’s nothing, Bran thought.
But the sounds were louder now.
It’s coming from the well, he realized. That made him even more afraid. Something was coming up from under the ground, coming up out of the dark. Hodor woke it up. He woke it up with that stupid piece of slate, and now it’s coming. It was hard to hear over Hodor’s snores and the thumping of his own heart. Was that the sound blood made dripping from an axe? Or was it the faint, far-off rattling of ghostly chains? Bran listened harder. Footsteps. It was definitely footsteps, each one a little louder than the one before. He couldn’t tel how many, though. The wel made the sounds echo. He didn’t hear any dripping, or chains either, but there was something else... a high thin whimpering sound, like someone in pain, and heavy muffled breathing. But the footsteps were loudest. The footsteps were coming closer.
Bran was too frightened to shout. The fire had burned down to a few faint embers and his friends were al asleep. He almost slipped his skin and reached out for his wolf, but Summer might be miles away. He couldn’t leave his friends helpless in the dark to face whatever was coming up out of the wel . I told them not to come here, he thought miserably. I told them there were ghosts. I told them that we should go to Castle Black.
The footfal s sounded heavy to Bran, slow, ponderous, scraping against the stone. It must be huge. Mad Axe had been a big man in Old Nan’s story, and the thing that came in the night had been monstrous. Back in Winterfell, Sansa had told him that the demons of the dark couldn’t touch him if he hid beneath his blanket. He almost did that now, before he remembered that he was a prince, and almost a man grown.
Bran wriggled across the floor, dragging his dead legs behind him until he could reach out and touch Meera on the foot. She woke at once. He had never known anyone to wake as quick as Meera Reed, or to be so alert so fast. Bran pressed a finger to his mouth so she’d know not to speak. She heard the sound at once, he could see that on her face; the echoing footfal s, the faint whimpering, the heavy breathing.
Meera rose to her feet without a word and reclaimed her weapons. With her three-pronged frog spear in her right hand and the folds of her net dangling from her left, she slipped barefoot toward the wel . Jojen dozed on, oblivious, while Hodor muttered and thrashed in restless sleep.
She kept to the shadows as she moved, stepped around the shaft of moonlight as quiet as a cat.
Bran was watching her al the while, and even he could barely see the faint sheen of her spear. I can’t let her fight the thing alone, he thought. Summer was far away, but. .
. . he slipped his skin, and reached for Hodor.
It was not like sliding into Summer. That was so easy now that Bran hardly thought about it.
This was harder, like trying to pull a left boot on your right foot. It fit al wrong, and the boot was scared too, the boot didn’t know what was happening, the boot was pushing the foot away.
He tasted vomit in the back of Hodor’s throat, and that was almost enough to make him flee.
Instead he squirmed and shoved, sat up, gathered his legs under him - his huge strong legs - and rose. I’m standing. He took a step. I’m walking. It was such a strange feeling that he almost fell.
He could see himself on the cold stone floor, a little broken thing, but he wasn’t broken now. He grabbed Hodor’s longsword. The breathing was as loud as a blacksmith’s bellows.
From the wel came a wail, a piercing creech that went through him like a knife. A huge black shape heaved itself up into the darkness and lurched toward the moonlight, and the fear rose up in Bran so thick that before he could even think of drawing Hodor’s sword the way he’d meant to, he found himself back on the floor again with Hodor roaring “Hodor hodor HODOR,” the way he had in the lake tower whenever the lightning flashed. But the thing that came in the night was screaming too, and thrashing wildly in the folds of Meera’s net. Bran saw her spear dart out of the darkness to snap at it, and the thing staggered and fell, struggling with the net. The wailing was still coming from the well, even louder now. On the floor the black thing flopped and fought, screeching, “No, no, don’t, please, DON’T...”
Meera stood over him, the moonlight shining silver off the prongs of her frog spear. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“I’m SAM,” the black thing sobbed. “Sam, Sam, I’m Sam, let me out, you stabbed me...” He rol ed through the puddle of moonlight, flailing and flopping in the tangles of Meera’s net.
Hodor was still shouting, “Hodor hodor hodor.”
It was Jojen who fed the sticks to the fire and blew on them until the flames leapt up crackling.
Then there was light, and Bran saw the pale thin-faced girl by the lip of the wel , all bundled up in furs and skins beneath an enormous black cloak, trying to shush the screaming baby in her arms. The thing on the floor was pushing an arm through the net to reach his knife, but the loops wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t any monster beast, or even Mad Axe drenched in gore; only a big fat man dressed up in black wool, black fur, black leather, and black mail. “He’s a black brother,” said Bran. “Meera, he’s from the Night’s Watch.”
“Hodor?” Hodor squatted down on his haunches to peer at the man in the net. “Hodor,” he said again, hooting.
“The Night’s Watch, yes.” The fat man was still breathing like a bel ows. “I’m a brother of the Watch.” He had one cord under his chins, forcing his head up, and others digging deep into his cheeks. “I’m a crow, please. Let me out of this.”
Bran was suddenly uncertain. “Are you the three-eyed crow?” He can’t be the three-eyed crow
“I don’t think so.” The fat man rol ed his eyes, but there were only two of them. “I’m only Sam.
Samwell Tarly. Let me out, it’s hurting me.” He began to struggle again.
Meera made a disgusted sound. “Stop flopping around. If you tear my net I’ll throw you back down the wel . Just lie still and I’ll untangle you.”
“Who are you?” Jojen asked the girl with the baby.
“Gilly,” she said. “For the gillyflower. He’s Sam. We never meant to scare you.” She rocked her baby and murmured at it, and finally it stopped crying.
Meera was untangling the fat brother. Jojen went to the wel and peered down. “Where did you come from?”
“From Craster’s,” the girl said. “Are you the one?”
Jojen turned to look at her. “The one?”
“He said that Sam wasn’t the one,” she explained. “There was someone else, he said. The one he was sent to find.”
“Who said?” Bran demanded.
“Coldhands,” Gilly answered softly.
Meera peeled back one end of her net, and the fat man managed to sit up. He was shaking, Bran saw, and still struggling to catch his breath. “He said there would be people,” he huffed. “People in the castle. I didn’t know you’d be right at the top of the steps, though. I didn’t know you’d throw a net on me or stab me in the stomach.” He touched his belly with a black-gloved hand.
“Am I bleeding? I can’t see.”
“It was just a poke to get you off your feet,” said Meera. “Here, let me have a look.” She went to one knee, and felt around his navel. “You’re wearing mail. I never got near your skin.”
“Well, it hurt all the same,” Sam complained.
“Are you real y a brother of the Night’s Watch?” Bran asked.
The fat man’s chins jiggled when he nodded. His skin looked pale and saggy. “Only a steward.
I took care of Lord Mormont’s ravens.” For a moment he looked like he was going to cry. “I lost them at the Fist, though. It was my fault. I got us lost too. I couldn’t even find the Wall. It’s a hundred leagues long and seven hundred feet high and I couldn’t find it!”
“Well, you’ve found it now,” said Meera. “Lift your rump off the ground, I want my net back.”
“How did you get through the Wall?” Jojen demanded as Sam struggled to his feet. “Does the wel lead to an underground river, is that where you came from? You’re not even wet...”
“There’s a gate,” said fat Sam. “A hidden gate, as old as the Wall itself. The Black Gate, he called it.”
The Reeds exchanged a look. “We’ll find this gate at the bottom of the wel ?” asked Jojen.
Sam shook his head. “You won’t. I have to take you.”
“Why?” Meera demanded. “If there’s a gate.. ”
“You won’t find it. If you did it wouldn’t open. Not for you. It’s the Black Gate.” Sam plucked at the faded black wool of his sleeve. “Only a man of the Night’s Watch can open it, he said. A Sworn Brother who has said his words.”
“He said.” Jojen frowned. “This... Coldhands?”
“That wasn’t his true name,” said Gilly, rocking. “We only called him that, Sam and me. His hands were cold as ice, but he saved us from the dead men, him and his ravens, and he brought us here on his elk.”
“His elk?” said Bran, wonderstruck.
“His elk?” said Meera, startled.
“His ravens?” said Jojen.
“Hodor?” said Hodor.
“Was he green?” Bran wanted to know. “Did he have antlers?”
The fat man was confused. “The elk?”
“Coldhands,” said Bran impatiently. “The green men ride on elks, Old Nan used to say.
Sometimes they have antlers too.”
“He wasn’t a green man. He wore blacks, like a brother of the Watch, but he was pale as a wight, with hands so cold that at first I was afraid. The wights have blue eyes, though, and they don’t have tongues, or they’ve forgotten how to use them.” The fat man turned to Jojen. “He’ll be waiting. We should go. Do you have anything warmer to wear? The Black Gate is cold, and the other side of the Wall is even colder. You -”
“Why didn’t he come with you?” Meera gestured toward Gilly and her babe. “They came with you, why not him? Why didn’t you bring him through this Black Gate too?”
“He... he can’t.”
“Why not?”
“The Wall. The Wall is more than just ice and stone, he said. There are spel s woven into it...
old ones, and strong. He cannot pass beyond the Wal .”
It grew very quiet in the castle kitchen then. Bran could hear the soft crackle of the flames, the wind stirring the leaves in the night, the creak of the skinny weirwood reaching for the moon.
Beyond the gates the monsters live, and the giants and the ghouls, he remembered Old Nan saying, but they cannot pass so long as the Wall stands strong. So go to sleep, my little Brandon, my baby boy. You needn’t fear. There are no monsters here.
“I am not the one you were told to bring,” Jojen Reed told fat Sam in his stained and baggy blacks. “He is.”
“Oh.” Sam looked down at him uncertainly. It might have been just then that he realized Bran was crippled. “I don’t... I’m not strong enough to carry you, I...”
“Hodor can carry me.” Bran pointed at his basket. “I ride in that, up on his back.” Sam was staring at him. “You’re Jon Snow’s brother. The one who fell. .”
“No,” said Jojen. “That boy is dead.”
“Don’t tell,” Bran warned. “Please.”
Sam looked confused for a moment, but finally he said, “I... I can keep a secret. Gilly too.” When he looked at her, the girl nodded. “Jon
“...Jon was my brother too. He was the best friend I ever had, but he went off with Qhorin Halfhand to scout the Frostfangs and never came back. We were waiting for him on the Fist when... when.. ”
“Jon’s here,” Bran said. “Summer saw him. He was with some wildlings, but they killed a man and Jon took his horse and escaped. I bet he went to Castle Black.” Sam turned big eyes on Meera. “You’re certain it was Jon? You saw him?”
“I’m Meera,” Meera said with a smile. “Summer is...”