The warg stopped beneath a tree and sniffed1, his grey-brown fur dappled by shadow. A sigh of piney wind brought the man-scent3 to him, over fainter smells that spoke4 of fox and hare, seal and stag, even wolf. Those were man-smells too, the warg knew; the stink5 of old skins, dead and sour, near drowned beneath the stronger scents6 of smoke and blood and rot. Only man stripped the skins from other beasts and wore their hides and hair.
Wargs have no fear of man, as wolves do. Hate and hunger coiled in his belly7, and he gave a low growl8, calling to his one-eyed brother, to his small sly sister. As he raced through the trees, his packmates followed hard on his heels. They had caught the scent as well. As he ran, he saw through their eyes too and glimpsed himself ahead. The breath of the pack puffed11 warm and white from long grey jaws12. Ice had frozen between their paws, hard as stone, but the hunt was on now, the prey13 ahead. Flesh, the warg thought, meat.
A man alone was a feeble thing. Big and strong, with good sharp eyes, but dull of ear and deaf to smells. Deer and elk14 and even hares were faster, bears and boars fiercer in a fight. But men in packs were dangerous. As the wolves closed on the prey, the warg heard the wailing15 of a pup, the crust of last night’s snow breaking under clumsy man-paws, the rattle16 of hardskins and the long grey claws men carried.
Swords, a voice inside him whispered, spears.
The trees had grown icy teeth, snarling17 down from the bare brown branches. One Eye ripped through the undergrowth, spraying snow. His packmates followed. Up a hill and down the slope beyond, until the wood opened before them and the men were there. One was female. The fur-wrapped bundle she clutched was her pup. Leave her for last, the voice whispered, the males are the danger. They were roaring at each other as men did, but the warg could smell their terror. One had a wooden tooth as tall as he was. He flung it, but his hand was shaking and the tooth sailed high.
Then the pack was on them.
His one-eyed brother knocked the tooth-thrower back into a snowdrift and tore his throat out as he struggled. His sister slipped behind the other male and took him from the rear. That left the female and her pup for him.
She had a tooth too, a little one made of bone, but she dropped it when the warg’s jaws closed around her leg. As she fell, she wrapped both arms around her noisy pup. Underneath19 her furs the female was just skin and bones, but her dugs were full of milk. The sweetest meat was on the pup. The wolf saved the choicest parts for his brother. All around the carcasses, the frozen snow turned pink and red as the pack filled its bellies20.
Leagues away, in a one-room hut of mud and straw with a thatched roof and a smoke hole and a floor of hard-packed earth, Varamyr shivered and coughed and licked his lips. His eyes were red, his lips cracked, his throat dry and parched21, but the taste of blood and fat filled his mouth, even as his swollen22 belly cried for nourishment23. A child’s flesh, he thought, remembering Bump. Human meat. Had he sunk so low as to hunger after human meat? He could almost hear Haggon growling24 at him. “Men may eat the flesh of beasts and beasts the flesh of men, but the man who eats the flesh of man is an abomination.”
Abomination. That had always been Haggon’s favorite word. Abomination, abomination, abomination. To eat of human meat was abomination, to mate as wolf with wolf was abomination, and to seize the body of another man was the worst abomination of all. Haggon was weak, afraid of his own power. He died weeping and alone when I ripped his second life from him. Varamyr had devoured25 his heart himself. He taught me much and more, and the last thing I learned from him was the taste of human flesh.
That was as a wolf, though. He had never eaten the meat of men with human teeth. He would not grudge26 his pack their feast, however. The wolves were as famished27 as he was, gaunt and cold and hungry, and the prey … two men and a woman, a babe in arms, fleeing from defeat to death. They would have perished soon in any case, from exposure or starvation. This way was better, quicker. A mercy.
“A mercy,” he said aloud. His throat was raw, but it felt good to hear a human voice, even his own. The air smelled of mold and damp, the ground was cold and hard, and his fire was giving off more smoke than heat. He moved as close to the flames as he dared, coughing and shivering by turns, his side throbbing28 where his wound had opened. Blood had soaked his breeches to the knee and dried into a hard brown crust.
Thistle had warned him that might happen. “I sewed it up the best I could,” she’d said, “but you need to rest and let it mend, or the flesh will tear open again.”
Thistle had been the last of his companions, a spearwife tough as an old root, warty29, windburnt, and wrinkled. The others had deserted30 them along the way. One by one they fell behind or forged ahead, making for their old villages, or the Milkwater, or Hardhome, or a lonely death in the woods. Varamyr did not know, and could not care. I should have taken one of them when I had the chance. One of the twins, or the big man with the scarred face, or the youth with the red hair. He had been afraid, though. One of the others might have realized what was happening. Then they would have turned on him and killed him. And Haggon’s words had haunted him, and so the chance had passed.
After the battle there had been thousands of them struggling through the forest, hungry, frightened, fleeing the carnage that had descended31 on them at the Wall. Some had talked of returning to the homes that they’d abandoned, others of mounting a second assault upon the gate, but most were lost, with no notion of where to go or what to do. They had escaped the black-cloaked crows and the knights32 in their grey steel, but more relentless33 enemies stalked them now. Every day left more corpses35 by the trails. Some died of hunger, some of cold, some of sickness. Others were slain36 by those who had been their brothers-in-arms when they marched south with Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall.
Mance is fallen, the survivors37 told each other in despairing voices, Mance is taken, Mance is dead. “Harma’s dead and Mance is captured, the rest run off and left us,” Thistle had claimed, as she was sewing up his wound. “Tormund, the Weeper, Sixskins, all them brave raiders. Where are they now?”
She does not know me, Varamyr realized then, and why should she? Without his beasts he did not look like a great man. I was Varamyr Sixskins, who broke bread with Mance Rayder. He had named himself Varamyr when he was ten. A name fit for a lord, a name for songs, a mighty38 name, and fearsome. Yet he had run from the crows like a frightened rabbit. The terrible Lord Varamyr had gone craven, but he could not bear that she should know that, so he told the spearwife that his name was Haggon. Afterward39 he wondered why that name had come to his lips, of all those he might have chosen. I ate his heart and drank his blood, and still he haunts me.
One day, as they fled, a rider came galloping40 through the woods on a gaunt white horse, shouting that they all should make for the Milkwater, that the Weeper was gathering41 warriors43 to cross the Bridge of Skulls45 and take the Shadow Tower. Many followed him; more did not. Later, a dour46 warrior42 in fur and amber47 went from cookfire to cookfire, urging all the survivors to head north and take refuge in the valley of the Thenns. Why he thought they would be safe there when the Thenns themselves had fled the place Varamyr never learned, but hundreds followed him. Hundreds more went off with the woods witch who’d had a vision of a fleet of ships coming to carry the free folk south. “We must seek the sea,” cried Mother Mole48, and her followers49 turned east.
Varamyr might have been amongst them if only he’d been stronger. The sea was grey and cold and far away, though, and he knew that he would never live to see it. He was nine times dead and dying, and this would be his true death. A squirrel-skin cloak, he remembered, he knifed me for a squirrel-skin cloak.
Its owner had been dead, the back of her head smashed into red pulp50 flecked with bits of bone, but her cloak looked warm and thick. It was snowing, and Varamyr had lost his own cloaks at the Wall. His sleeping pelts51 and woolen52 smallclothes, his sheepskin boots and fur-lined gloves, his store of mead53 and hoarded54 food, the hanks of hair he took from the women he bedded, even the golden arm rings Mance had given him, all lost and left behind. I burned and I died and then I ran, half-mad with pain and terror. The memory still shamed him, but he had not been alone. Others had run as well, hundreds of them, thousands. The battle was lost. The knights had come, invincible55 in their steel, killing56 everyone who stayed to fight. It was run or die.
Death was not so easily outrun, however. So when Varamyr came upon the dead woman in the wood, he knelt to strip the cloak from her, and never saw the boy until he burst from hiding to drive the long bone knife into his side and rip the cloak out of his clutching fingers. “His mother,” Thistle told him later, after the boy had run off. “It were his mother’s cloak, and when he saw you robbing her …”
“She was dead,” Varamyr said, wincing57 as her bone needle pierced his flesh. “Someone smashed her head. Some crow.”
“No crow. Hornfoot men. I saw it.” Her needle pulled the gash58 in his side closed. “Savages, and who’s left to tame them?” No one. If Mance is dead, the free folk are doomed60. The Thenns, giants, and the Hornfoot men, the cave-dwellers with their filed teeth, and the men of the western shore with their chariots of bone … all of them were doomed as well. Even the crows. They might not know it yet, but those black-cloaked bastards61 would perish with the rest. The enemy was coming.
Haggon’s rough voice echoed in his head. “You will die a dozen deaths, boy, and every one will hurt … but when your true death comes, you will live again. The second life is simpler and sweeter, they say.”
Varamyr Sixskins would know the truth of that soon enough. He could taste his true death in the smoke that hung acrid62 in the air, feel it in the heat beneath his fingers when he slipped a hand under his clothes to touch his wound. The chill was in him too, though, deep down in his bones. This time it would be cold that killed him.
His last death had been by fire. I burned. At first, in his confusion, he thought some archer63 on the Wall had pierced him with a flaming arrow … but the fire had been inside him, consuming him. And the pain …
Varamyr had died nine times before. He had died once from a spear thrust, once with a bear’s teeth in his throat, and once in a wash of blood as he brought forth64 a stillborn cub65. He died his first death when he was only six, as his father’s axe66 crashed through his skull44. Even that had not been so agonizing67 as the fire in his guts68, crackling along his wings, devouring69 him. When he tried to fly from it, his terror fanned the flames and made them burn hotter. One moment he had been soaring above the Wall, his eagle’s eyes marking the movements of the men below. Then the flames had turned his heart into a blackened cinder70 and sent his spirit screaming back into his own skin, and for a little while he’d gone mad. Even the memory was enough to make him shudder71.
That was when he noticed that his fire had gone out.
Only a grey-and-black tangle72 of charred73 wood remained, with a few embers glowing in the ashes. There’s still smoke, it just needs wood. Gritting74 his teeth against the pain, Varamyr crept to the pile of broken branches Thistle had gathered before she went off hunting, and tossed a few sticks onto the ashes. “Catch,” he croaked75. “Burn.” He blew upon the embers and said a wordless prayer to the nameless gods of wood and hill and field.
The gods gave no answer. After a while, the smoke ceased to rise as well. Already the little hut was growing colder. Varamyr had no flint, no tinder, no dry kindling76. He would never get the fire burning again, not by himself. “Thistle,” he called out, his voice hoarse77 and edged with pain. “Thistle!”
Her chin was pointed78 and her nose flat, and she had a mole on one cheek with four dark hairs growing from it. An ugly face, and hard, yet he would have given much to glimpse it in the door of the hut. I should have taken her before she left. How long had she been gone? Two days? Three? Varamyr was uncertain. It was dark inside the hut, and he had been drifting in and out of sleep, never quite sure if it was day or night outside. “Wait,” she’d said. “I will be back with food.” So like a fool he’d waited, dreaming of Haggon and Bump and all the wrongs he had done in his long life, but days and nights had passed and Thistle had not returned. She won’t be coming back. Varamyr wondered if he had given himself away. Could she tell what he was thinking just from looking at him, or had he muttered in his fever dream?
Abomination, he heard Haggon saying. It was almost as if he were here, in this very room. “She is just some ugly spearwife,” Varamyr told him. “I am a great man. I am Varamyr, the warg, the skinchanger, it is not right that she should live and I should die.” No one answered. There was no one there. Thistle was gone. She had abandoned him, the same as all the rest.
His own mother had abandoned him as well. She cried for Bump, but she never cried for me. The morning his father pulled him out of bed to deliver him to Haggon, she would not even look at him. He had shrieked79 and kicked as he was dragged into the woods, until his father slapped him and told him to be quiet. “You belong with your own kind,” was all he said when he flung him down at Haggon’s feet.
He was not wrong, Varamyr thought, shivering. Haggon taught me much and more. He taught me how to hunt and fish, how to butcher a carcass and bone a fish, how to find my way through the woods. And he taught me the way of the warg and the secrets of the skinchanger, though my gift was stronger than his own.
Years later he had tried to find his parents, to tell them that their Lump had become the great Varamyr Sixskins, but both of them were dead and burned. Gone into the trees and streams, gone into the rocks and earth. Gone to dirt and ashes. That was what the woods witch told his mother, the day Bump died. Lump did not want to be a clod of earth. The boy had dreamed of a day when bards81 would sing of his deeds and pretty girls would kiss him. When I am grown I will be the King-Beyond-the-Wall, Lump had promised himself. He never had, but he had come close. Varamyr Sixskins was a name men feared. He rode to battle on the back of a snow bear thirteen feet tall, kept three wolves and a shadowcat in thrall82, and sat at the right hand of Mance Rayder. It was Mance who brought me to this place. I should not have listened. I should have slipped inside my bear and torn him to pieces.
Before Mance, Varamyr Sixskins had been a lord of sorts. He lived alone in a hall of moss83 and mud and hewn logs that had once been Haggon’s, attended by his beasts. A dozen villages did him homage84 in bread and salt and cider, offering him fruit from their orchards85 and vegetables from their gardens. His meat he got himself. Whenever he desired a woman he sent his shadowcat to stalk her, and whatever girl he’d cast his eye upon would follow meekly86 to his bed. Some came weeping, aye, but still they came. Varamyr gave them his seed, took a hank of their hair to remember them by, and sent them back. From time to time, some village hero would come with spear in hand to slay87 the beastling and save a sister or a lover or a daughter. Those he killed, but he never harmed the women. Some he even blessed with children. Runts. Small, puny88 things, like Lump, and not one with the gift.
Fear drove him to his feet, reeling. Holding his side to staunch the seep89 of blood from his wound, Varamyr lurched to the door and swept aside the ragged80 skin that covered it to face a wall of white. Snow. No wonder it had grown so dark and smoky inside. The falling snow had buried the hut.
When Varamyr pushed at it, the snow crumbled90 and gave way, still soft and wet. Outside, the night was white as death; pale thin clouds danced attendance on a silver moon, while a thousand stars watched coldly. He could see the humped shapes of other huts buried beneath drifts of snow, and beyond them the pale shadow of a weirwood armored in ice. To the south and west the hills were a vast white wilderness91 where nothing moved except the blowing snow. “Thistle,” Varamyr called feebly, wondering how far she could have gone. “Thistle. Woman. Where are you?”
Far away, a wolf gave howl.
A shiver went through Varamyr. He knew that howl as well as Lump had once known his mother’s voice. One Eye. He was the oldest of his three, the biggest, the fiercest. Stalker was leaner, quicker, younger, Sly more cunning, but both went in fear of One Eye. The old wolf was fearless, relentless, savage59.
Varamyr had lost control of his other beasts in the agony of the eagle’s death. His shadowcat had raced into the woods, whilst his snow bear turned her claws on those around her, ripping apart four men before falling to a spear. She would have slain Varamyr had he come within her reach. The bear hated him, had raged each time he wore her skin or climbed upon her back.
His wolves, though …
My brothers. My pack. Many a cold night he had slept with his wolves, their shaggy bodies piled up around him to help keep him warm. When I die they will feast upon my flesh and leave only bones to greet the thaw92 come spring. The thought was queerly comforting. His wolves had often foraged93 for him as they roamed; it seemed only fitting that he should feed them in the end. He might well begin his second life tearing at the warm dead flesh of his own corpse34.
Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog’s skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened94 by wear. As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see. Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf. “Wolves and women wed10 for life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers96, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again. I know skinchangers who’ve tried hawks97, owls98, ravens99. Even in their own skins, they sit moony, staring up at the bloody100 blue.”
Not all skinchangers felt the same, however. Once, when Lump was ten, Haggon had taken him to a gathering of such. The wargs were the most numerous in that company, the wolf-brothers, but the boy had found the others stranger and more fascinating. Borroq looked so much like his boar that all he lacked was tusks101, Orell had his eagle, Briar her shadowcat (the moment he saw them, Lump wanted a shadowcat of his own), the goat woman Grisella …
None of them had been as strong as Varamyr Sixskins, though, not even Haggon, tall and grim with his hands as hard as stone. The hunter died weeping after Varamyr took Greyskin from him, driving him out to claim the beast for his own. No second life for you, old man. Varamyr Threeskins, he’d called himself back then. Greyskin made four, though the old wolf was frail102 and almost toothless and soon followed Haggon into death.
Varamyr could take any beast he wanted, bend them to his will, make their flesh his own. Dog or wolf, bear or badger95 …
Thistle, he thought.
Haggon would call it an abomination, the blackest sin of all, but Haggon was dead, devoured, and burned. Mance would have cursed him as well, but Mance was slain or captured. No one will ever know. I will be Thistle the spearwife, and Varamyr Sixskins will be dead. His gift would perish with his body, he expected. He would lose his wolves, and live out the rest of his days as some scrawny, warty woman … but he would live. If she comes back. If I am still strong enough to take her.
A wave of dizziness washed over Varamyr. He found himself upon his knees, his hands buried in a snowdrift. He scooped103 up a fistful of snow and filled his mouth with it, rubbing it through his beard and against his cracked lips, sucking down the moisture. The water was so cold that he could barely bring himself to swallow, and he realized once again how hot he was.
The snowmelt only made him hungrier. It was food his belly craved104, not water. The snow had stopped falling, but the wind was rising, filling the air with crystal, slashing105 at his face as he struggled through the drifts, the wound in his side opening and closing again. His breath made a ragged white cloud. When he reached the weirwood tree, he found a fallen branch just long enough to use as a crutch106. Leaning heavily upon it, he staggered toward the nearest hut. Perhaps the villagers had forgotten something when they fled … a sack of apples, some dried meat, anything to keep him alive until Thistle returned.
He was almost there when his crutch snapped beneath his weight, and his legs went out from under him.
How long he sprawled107 there with his blood reddening the snow Varamyr could not have said. The snow will bury me. It would be a peaceful death. They say you feel warm near the end, warm and sleepy. It would be good to feel warm again, though it made him sad to think that he would never see the green lands, the warm lands beyond the Wall that Mance used to sing about. “The world beyond the Wall is not for our kind,” Haggon used to say. “The free folk fear skinchangers, but they honor us as well. South of the Wall, the kneelers hunt us down and butcher us like pigs.”
You warned me, Varamyr thought, but it was you who showed me Eastwatch too. He could not have been more than ten. Haggon traded a dozen strings108 of amber and a sled piled high with pelts for six skins of wine, a block of salt, and a copper109 kettle. Eastwatch was a better place to trade than Castle Black; that was where the ships came, laden110 with goods from the fabled111 lands beyond the sea. The crows knew Haggon as a hunter and a friend to the Night’s Watch, and welcomed the news he brought of life beyond their Wall. Some knew him for a skinchanger too, but no one spoke of that. It was there at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea that the boy he’d been first began to dream of the warm south.
Varamyr could feel the snowflakes melting on his brow. This is not so bad as burning. Let me sleep and never wake, let me begin my second life. His wolves were close now. He could feel them. He would leave this feeble flesh behind, become one with them, hunting the night and howling at the moon. The warg would become a true wolf. Which, though?
Not Sly. Haggon would have called it abomination, but Varamyr had often slipped inside her skin as she was being mounted by One Eye. He did not want to spend his new life as a bitch, though, not unless he had no other choice. Stalker might suit him better, the younger male … though One Eye was larger and fiercer, and it was One Eye who took Sly whenever she went into heat.
“They say you forget,” Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death. “When the man’s flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains112.”
Varamyr knew the truth of that. When he claimed the eagle that had been Orell’s, he could feel the other skinchanger raging at his presence. Orell had been slain by the turncloak crow Jon Snow, and his hate for his killer113 had been so strong that Varamyr found himself hating the beastling boy as well. He had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy114 of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.
Varamyr could see the weirwood’s red eyes staring down at him from the white trunk. The gods are weighing me. A shiver went through him. He had done bad things, terrible things. He had stolen, killed, raped115. He had gorged116 on human flesh and lapped the blood of dying men as it gushed117 red and hot from their torn throats. He had stalked foes118 through the woods, fallen on them as they slept, clawed their entrails from their bellies and scattered119 them across the muddy earth. How sweet their meat had tasted. “That was the beast, not me,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “That was the gift you gave me.”
The gods made no reply. His breath hung pale and misty120 in the air. He could feel ice forming in his beard. Varamyr Sixskins closed his eyes.
He dreamt an old dream of a hovel by the sea, three dogs whimpering, a woman’s tears.
Bump. She weeps for Bump, but she never wept for me.
Lump had been born a month before his proper time, and he was sick so often that no one expected him to live. His mother waited until he was almost four to give him a proper name, and by then it was too late. The whole village had taken to calling him Lump, the name his sister Meha had given him when he was still in their mother’s belly. Meha had given Bump his name as well, but Lump’s little brother had been born in his proper time, big and red and robust121, sucking greedily at Mother’s teats. She was going to name him after Father. Bump died, though. He died when he was two and I was six, three days before his nameday.
“Your little one is with the gods now,” the woods witch told his mother, as she wept. “He’ll never hurt again, never hunger, never cry. The gods have taken him down into the earth, into the trees. The gods are all around us, in the rocks and streams, in the birds and beasts. Your Bump has gone to join them. He’ll be the world and all that’s in it.”
The old woman’s words had gone through Lump like a knife. Bump sees. He is watching me. He knows. Lump could not hide from him, could not slip behind his mother’s skirts or run off with the dogs to escape his father’s fury. The dogs. Loptail, Sniff2, the Growler. They were good dogs. They were my friends.
When his father found the dogs sniffing122 round Bump’s body, he had no way of knowing which had done it, so he took his axe to all three. His hands shook so badly that it took two blows to silence Sniff and four to put the Growler down. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air, and the sounds the dying dogs had made were terrible to hear, yet Loptail still came when father called him. He was the oldest dog, and his training overcame his terror. By the time Lump slipped inside his skin it was too late.
No, Father, please, he tried to say, but dogs cannot speak the tongues of men, so all that emerged was a piteous whine123. The axe crashed into the middle of the old dog’s skull, and inside the hovel the boy let out a scream. That was how they knew. Two days later, his father dragged him into the woods. He brought his axe, so Lump thought he meant to put him down the same way he had done the dogs. Instead he’d given him to Haggon.
Varamyr woke suddenly, violently, his whole body shaking. “Get up,” a voice was screaming, “get up, we have to go. There are hundreds of them.” The snow had covered him with a stiff white blanket. So cold. When he tried to move, he found that his hand was frozen to the ground. He left some skin behind when he tore it loose. “Get up,” she screamed again, “they’re coming.”
Thistle had returned to him. She had him by the shoulders and was shaking him, shouting in his face. Varamyr could smell her breath and feel the warmth of it upon cheeks gone numb124 with cold. Now, he thought, do it now, or die.
He summoned all the strength still in him, leapt out of his own skin, and forced himself inside her.
Thistle arched her back and screamed.
Abomination. Was that her, or him, or Haggon? He never knew. His old flesh fell back into the snowdrift as her fingers loosened. The spearwife twisted violently, shrieking125. His shadowcat used to fight him wildly, and the snow bear had gone half-mad for a time, snapping at trees and rocks and empty air, but this was worse. “Get out, get out!” he heard her own mouth shouting. Her body staggered, fell, and rose again, her hands flailed126, her legs jerked this way and that in some grotesque127 dance as his spirit and her own fought for the flesh. She sucked down a mouthful of the frigid128 air, and Varamyr had half a heartbeat to glory in the taste of it and the strength of this young body before her teeth snapped together and filled his mouth with blood. She raised her hands to his face. He tried to push them down again, but the hands would not obey, and she was clawing at his eyes. Abomination, he remembered, drowning in blood and pain and madness. When he tried to scream, she spat129 their tongue out.
The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched130 feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl9 flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed131 blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting132. A hundred ravens took to the air, cawing as they felt him pass. A great elk trumpeted133, unsettling the children clinging to his back. A sleeping direwolf raised his head to snarl18 at empty air. Before their hearts could beat again he had passed on, searching for his own, for One Eye, Sly, and Stalker, for his pack. His wolves would save him, he told himself.
That was his last thought as a man.
True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged134 into the icy waters of a frozen lake. Then he found himself rushing over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind him. Half the world was dark. One Eye, he knew. He bayed, and Sly and Stalker gave echo.
When they reached the crest135 the wolves paused. Thistle, he remembered, and a part of him grieved for what he had lost and another part for what he’d done. Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds136 of snow. Some wore brown and some wore black and some were naked, their flesh gone white as snow. A wind was sighing through the hills, heavy with their scents: dead flesh, dry blood, skins that stank137 of mold and rot and urine. Sly gave a growl and bared her teeth, her ruff bristling138. Not men. Not prey. Not these.
The things below moved, but did not live. One by one, they raised their heads toward the three wolves on the hill. The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened139 in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood. And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering140, lending her coarse features an eerie141 beauty they had never known in life.
She sees me.
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1
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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2
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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3
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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4
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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5
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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6
scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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7
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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8
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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9
owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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wed
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| v.娶，嫁，与…结婚 | |
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11
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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12
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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13
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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14
elk
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| n.麋鹿 | |
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15
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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16
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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17
snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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18
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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19
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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20
bellies
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| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
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21
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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22
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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23
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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24
growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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25
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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26
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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27
famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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29
warty
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| adj.有疣的，似疣的；瘤状 | |
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30
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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31
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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32
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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33
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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34
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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35
corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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36
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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37
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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38
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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39
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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40
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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41
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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42
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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43
warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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44
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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45
skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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46
dour
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| adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈 | |
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47
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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48
mole
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| n.胎块；痣；克分子 | |
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49
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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50
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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51
pelts
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| n. 皮毛，投掷, 疾行 vt. 剥去皮毛，（连续）投掷 vi. 猛击，大步走 | |
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52
woolen
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| adj.羊毛(制)的；毛纺的 | |
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53
mead
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| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
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54
hoarded
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| v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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56
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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57
wincing
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的现在分词 ) | |
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58
gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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59
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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60
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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61
bastards
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| 私生子( bastard的名词复数 )； 坏蛋； 讨厌的事物； 麻烦事 （认为别人走运或不幸时说）家伙 | |
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62
acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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63
archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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64
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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65
cub
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| n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人 | |
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66
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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67
agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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68
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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69
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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70
cinder
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| n.余烬，矿渣 | |
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71
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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72
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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73
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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74
gritting
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| v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的现在分词 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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75
croaked
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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76
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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77
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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78
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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79
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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80
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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81
bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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82
thrall
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| n.奴隶；奴隶制 | |
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83
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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84
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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85
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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86
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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87
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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88
puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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89
seep
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| v.渗出，渗漏；n.渗漏，小泉，水（油）坑 | |
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90
crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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91
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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92
thaw
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| v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和 | |
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93
foraged
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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94
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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95
badger
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| v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠 | |
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96
badgers
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| n.獾( badger的名词复数 )；獾皮；（大写）獾州人（美国威斯康星州人的别称）；毛鼻袋熊 | |
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97
hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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98
owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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99
ravens
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| n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 ) | |
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100
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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101
tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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102
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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103
scooped
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| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
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104
craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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105
slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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106
crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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107
sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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108
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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109
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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110
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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111
fabled
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| adj.寓言中的，虚构的 | |
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112
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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113
killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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115
raped
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| v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸 | |
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116
gorged
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| v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的过去式和过去分词 )；作呕 | |
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117
gushed
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| v.喷，涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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118
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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119
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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120
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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121
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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122
sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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123
whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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124
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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125
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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126
flailed
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| v.鞭打( flail的过去式和过去分词 )；用连枷脱粒；（臂或腿）无法控制地乱动；扫雷坦克 | |
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127
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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128
frigid
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| adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的 | |
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129
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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130
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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131
burrowed
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的过去式和过去分词 )；翻寻 | |
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exulting
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| vi. 欢欣鼓舞，狂喜 | |
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133
trumpeted
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| 大声说出或宣告（trumpet的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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134
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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136
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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137
stank
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| n. (英)坝，堰，池塘 动词stink的过去式 | |
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138
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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139
glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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140
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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141
eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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