“Big enough for you?” Snowflakes speckled Tormund’s broad face, melting in his hair and beard.  The giants swayed slowly atop the mammoths as they rode past two by two. Jon’s garron shied, frightened by such strangeness, but whether it was the mammoths or their riders that scared him it was hard to say. Even Ghost backed off a step, baring his teeth in a silent snarl². The direwolf was big, but the mammoths were a deal bigger, and there were many and more of them.  Jon took the horse in hand and held him still, so he could count the giants emerging from the blowing snow and pale mists that swirled³ along the Milkwater. He was well beyond fifty when Tormund said something and he lost the count. There must be hundreds. No matter how many went past, they just seemed to keep coming.  In Old Nan’s stories, giants were outsized men who lived in colossal⁴ castles, fought with huge swords, and walked about in boots a boy could hide in. These were something else, more bearlike than human, and as wooly⁵ as the mammoths they rode. Seated, it was hard to say how big they truly were, Ten feet tall maybe, or twelve, Jon thought. Maybe fourteen, but no taller. Their sloping chests might have passed for those of men, but their arms hung down too far, and their lower torsos looked half again as wide as their upper. Their legs were shorter than their arms, but very thick, and they wore no boots at all; their feet were broad splayed things, hard and horny and black. Neckless, their huge heavy heads thrust forward from between their shoulder blades, and their faces were squashed and brutal⁶. Rats’ eyes no larger than beads⁷ were almost lost within folds of horny flesh, but they snuffled constantly, smelling as much as they saw.  They’re not wearing skins, Jon realized. That’s hair. Shaggy pelts⁹ covered their bodies, thick below the waist, sparser

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