He was not a tall man, Tormund Giantsbane, but the gods had given him a broad chest and massive belly¹. Mance Rayder had named him Tormund Horn-Blower for the power of his lungs, and was wont² to say that Tormund could laugh the snow off mountaintops. In his wroth, his bellows³ reminded Jon of a mammoth⁴ trumpeting⁵.

That day Tormund bellowed⁶ often and loudly. He roared, he shouted, he slammed his fist against the table so hard that a flagon of water overturned and spilled. A horn of mead⁷ was never far from his hand, so the spittle he sprayed when making threats was sweet with honey. He called Jon Snow a craven, a liar⁹, and a turncloak, cursed him for a black-hearted buggering kneeler, a robber, and a carrion¹⁰ crow, accused him of wanting to fuck the free folk up the arse. Twice he flung his drinking horn at Jon’s head, though only after he had emptied it. Tormund was not the sort of man to waste good mead. Jon let it all wash over him. He never raised his own voice nor answered threat with threat, but neither did he give more ground than he had come prepared to give.

Finally, as the shadows of the afternoon grew long outside the tent, Tormund Giantsbane—Tall-Talker, Horn-Blower, and Breaker of Ice, Tormund Thunderfist, Husband to Bears, Mead-King of Ruddy Hall, Speaker to Gods and Father of Hosts—thrust out his hand. “Done then, and may the gods forgive me. There’s a hundred mothers never will, I know.”

Jon clasped the offered hand. The words of his oath rang through his head. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the

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