Chapter 263 - Not an Other
Thoros of Myr rushed forward and dropped to his knees in the snow, the Hound's body stretched out before him.
He pressed both hands to the Hound's chest. Blood seeped through his fingers.
He closed his eyes. His lips moved. His voice was low, but the wind carried it clearly.
"R'hllor, return the flame to him. Return the breath to him. Return life to him."
Catelyn stood a few paces back, her grey-white face unreadable.
She watched Thoros chant, then looked at the men of the Brotherhood Without Banners. A sound scraped out of her throat, short and broken, like sandpaper dragged across raw wood.
"I say..." The words came in pieces, forced through something that no longer worked right. "...we rush them. Kill them all."
The Brotherhood men exchanged glances.
Someone standing behind Lady Stoneheart sighed. "R'hllor just declared him innocent."
Jon looked at the man. Broad through the shoulders, heavy brow, a face that pulled at something in his memory.
Robert Baratheon. The dead king.
The spacing of his eyes, the line of his nose, the set of his mouth, all of it echoing someone long buried.
Another voice came from the side. "the Imp is innocent. But the Mountain — his sins are his own. He deserves death regardless."
Jon recognized him. Harwin. Son of Winterfell's master of horse.
The argument swelled and filled the clearing. Nobody noticed Catelyn slip past Thoros.
She had the short dagger in her fist, blade forward, moving toward Tyrion Lannister. Each step crushed a fine, brittle sound into the frozen snow.
Jon moved first. He stepped between them.
"My lady. Let me handle this."
A beat of silence.
"My father taught me to value honor. I am Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. My word carries here."
Tyrion stood behind Jon, face tight. His gaze crossed Jon's shoulder and found Catelyn's grey-white eyes.
"You want me dead that badly?"
Lady Stoneheart pressed her left hand to her throat.
"You are a Lannister." The words ground out of her, broken and slow. "All Lannisters should burn in hell." Her right hand tightened on the dagger.
"Yes." Tyrion's face twisted. The fury in his voice had been sitting there a long time, waiting. "My brother threw Bran from the tower. My father planned the Red Wedding."
"And I married your precious daughter Sansa. Ah." Something vicious moved through his expression. "What a beautiful girl."
"I could have taken her on our wedding night."
Catelyn stepped forward. The dagger came up.
Tormund flashed in from the side, caught her wrist, and wrenched. The dagger spun free, hit the snow, and drove point-first into the frozen earth.
Only then did the Mountain lower his greatsword and plant it in the ground.
Catelyn's arm was locked in Tormund's grip. She couldn't break it. She stared at Tyrion, those grey-white eyes full of rage and grief and something past both.
"Go to hell."
"He already has."
The Hound's voice.
Every head turned.
Sandor Clegane pushed himself up out of the snow.
He moved slowly, heavily. One hand found Thoros's shoulder and gripped it to keep himself upright. When he had his legs under him, he let go. His palm left a dark smear of blood across Thoros's red robe.
The crowd lurched backward like a field of wheat hit by a sudden wind.
The free folk cried out. Someone stumbled and went down hard into the snow, scrambled back up wearing the kind of pallor that only comes from seeing something that shouldn't exist.
"Others." Someone was shouting it. Someone else had their fingers wrapped around the charm at their throat.
The Hound had stopped breathing. They had all seen it. The blood had spread dark and wide into the snow around him, and now, in the grey-blue light, it was still wet.
Panic moved through the free folk fast.
The crowd split, men and women in torn furs shoving each other back, stumbling over one another to get clear.
Tormund didn't move. He looked at the Hound, then looked at Jon.
"What are you running from," he called to the retreating free folk. "It's not the first time you've seen a dead man stand up."
He knew the Hound hadn't become an Other. He had watched Jon Snow come back. The way to tell was simple, check the eyes. If they hadn't turned blue, the man was still a man.
Across the crowd, the Mountain stood without moving, the eyes behind his helmet locked on the Hound.
Jon stepped forward. "Finish what you came to do," he said to Tyrion. "Then go."
Tyrion said nothing.
He turned and walked to the stake where the wight was bound.
The stitched-together thing was still fighting its restraints, both heads pulling in opposite directions, mouths working out a low, garbled clicking.
Tyrion stopped before the stake and touched the torch to the kindling piled at its base.
Dry pine took the flame instantly. Fire climbed the post. It hit the oil-soaked cloth and the whole bundle exploded into hard yellow light. The wight was swallowed in a single breath.
Both mouths opened at once. The sounds they made layered on top of each other, garbled, hoarse, threaded through with the wet crack and pop of flesh burning down to nothing.
Tormund watched the fire rise.
"The Night King raises the dead. The Lord of Light raises the dead." He didn't look away from the flames. "What's the difference?"
Thoros answered.
"Those the Lord of Light brings back — their souls come with them. They are truly alive. They still feel cold. Still feel pain. Still bleed."
"Those the Night King raises — they keep their memories, yes. But that's all they keep. Everything else is already gone."
Jon stood nearby and said nothing.
He understood what Thoros meant better than almost anyone here.
The fire kept burning.
The wight twisted and twisted inside it.
The light moved across every face in the clearing, across Catelyn's grey-white face, across the Mountain's visor, across the wound at the Hound's shoulder and neck.
Tyrion turned and came back to Jon's side. "May I go?"
Jon looked at him. Then nodded. "Take your people."
Tyrion walked. Toward the coast, away from all of it.
The Mountain fell in behind him. Then Bronn. Then the last Lannister knight.
➤ Next: Only a Snow, Not a Stark