GOT: The Great — Chapter 278 - Skinchangers
Tormund's eyes had not left Drogo since the moment he first laid eyes on him.
From the instant the dragon touched down outside the gates of Castle Black, he had been watching.
He watched with the look of a man sizing up an unfamiliar beast, measuring, probing, deciding whether this thing was worth provoking or worth avoiding.
Drogo walked into the hall and sat down on a bench by the hearth. He stretched his legs out and angled his boot-tips toward the fire, letting the heat seep upward through the soles.
The brothers of the Night's Watch had all pressed themselves against the walls. Not one dared sit near him.
The knights of the Vale were the same, standing in a wide arc on the far side of the hearth, the snow on their armor melting slowly, pooling into small wet patches at their feet.
Jon sat down across from him with three or four paces of open floor between them, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together in front of him.
They were afraid to get close to a man who rode dragons.
Only Tormund paid none of that any mind.
He shouldered through the crowd and dropped himself down beside Drogo. The bench lurched under his weight, the wood letting out a protesting creak.
He propped his axe against his thigh, then turned his head. Those eyes, weathered half a lifetime in the wind and snow beyond the Wall, looked Drogo over without apology.
"I've been turning something over," Tormund said. "Among the Free Folk there are a rare few with a strange gift — their minds can enter an animal's body and control what it does. Can you do the same thing with your dragons?"
Jon put in a word from across the fire: "In the North, we call those people wargs."
Tormund glanced at Jon, his tone carrying the Free Folk's particular brand of bluntness:
"A warg can only enter the minds of wolves and dogs. A skinchanger can enter any animal. They're not the same thing."
Having made the correction, he turned back to Drogo and waited.
Drogo knew that the skinchanger ability ran most commonly in those of First Men blood, concentrated in the North and among the wildlings beyond the Wall.
And he knew more than either of them. One person in a thousand could become a skinchanger. One skinchanger in a thousand could become a greenseer.
He let them finish. He pulled his gaze from the fire and settled it on Tormund's face.
"I don't have a drop of First Men blood. How would I have that kind of ability? I'm Dothraki."
Tormund clicked his tongue. "Dogs are the easiest for a skinchanger to enter — they trust humans."
"Wolves are harder. It takes a long bond built over time."
"Birds are the most tempting." His expression went grave, as if trying to unsettle Drogo. "Skinchangers get lost in the feeling of flight. You should watch your dragons. They're exactly what a skinchanger would want."
Drogo snorted.
He reached toward the stack of firewood piled by the hearth, picked out a log of decent thickness, and tossed it into the fire. Sparks burst from the splitting wood.
"Cats resist even forced entry. And someone thinks they can take a dragon?"
He tilted his head and looked at Tormund, his eyes carrying a certainty that needed no elaboration.
"Any skinchanger's mind that goes in gets burned to ash on the spot. What's left behind is just a shell with nothing inside."
Tormund studied him, something more searching moving through his gaze. "You seem to know a great deal about skinchangers."
"More than know." Drogo said. "If the animal a skinchanger is riding gets killed, it inflicts severe mental trauma on the skinchanger themselves."
"Conversely, if a skinchanger's body is killed while their mind is inside an animal, the consciousness can go on living within that animal for a time. That's called the second life."
"But as time passes, the person's memories fade. Their humanity fades. In the end the consciousness dissolves entirely into the animal."
Tormund was a little put out. The man knew even more than he did? "I've seen skinchangers. More of them than you have."
Drogo added, half joking: "My dragons are the last thing I'm worried about. What I should worry about is the day some skinchanger decides to try and take my body."
A voice came from nearby. "Skinchangers have an unwritten code: while the mind is inside an animal, eating human flesh is forbidden; mating as a wolf with wolves is forbidden; and entering a human body is absolutely forbidden. That last one is the gravest taboo of all."
Drogo followed the voice with his eyes.
The speaker stood in the shadows at the edge of the hall, stocky, heavy-browed, flat-nosed, wearing an old leather jerkin of dull grey-brown, a patch of worn and polished fur draped over one shoulder.
"Who is he?" Drogo asked Jon.
Tormund answered. "That's Borroq. He runs with a wild boar — enormous thing."
Jon said: "That boar is twice the size of Ghost. Black bristles all over, and tusks as long as a grown man's arm."
Drogo looked at Borroq. "Some people have no use for a code like that. Do you know Varamyr?"
Borroq stepped out of the shadows, moved to the edge of the firelight, and stopped where the warmth touched him.
"I know him. One of the strongest skinchangers alive, three wolves, a snow bear, and a shadowcat."
Tormund added from the side: "He also controlled an eagle. Used it to scout Castle Black."
"But that eagle was burned alive by Melisandre, Stannis Baratheon's red priestess. It drove Varamyr out of his mind. After that, he disappeared."
He looked at Drogo. "You know this much about skinchangers, did Varamyr tell you himself? Did he fall into your hands?"
"Varamyr is dead," Drogo said. "In his final moments he tried to take a woman's body."
"She fought back hard. Drove him out of herself. Bit off her own tongue in the struggle."
He paused. "Varamyr went on living inside his wolf. One Eye."
"Are you telling us the kind of stories old nurses use to put lordlings' children to sleep?"
Bronze Yohn Royce walked over from the far end of the hall. Not long ago he had fought side by side with giants and mammoths in a battle he could still barely account for. Then at the gate he had been told that hundreds of thousands of wights were moving toward the Wall.
He had barely had time to catch his breath, and now he was listening to these people talk about minds crawling into the bodies of animals.
Every single thing was harder to believe than the last.
Drogo was fairly certain that if Yohn saw Catelyn Tully with her hood and veil off, he would find that even harder to believe.
Tormund turned his head toward Bronze Yohn. "You lot who carry honor on your lips, eavesdropping on us like that."
Bronze Yohn said flatly: "You were speaking at full volume. How is that our fault for listening?"
Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, spoke with level composure: "You're all welcome to stay at the Wall. The wight army will be here within days. Then you'll know for yourselves whether what we've told you is true or a fairy tale."
Yohn stood where he was, his gaze going briefly unfocused. He needed a moment to absorb the weight of everything that had landed on him at once.
A moment later, Drogo spoke: "With the Wall standing, the Others cannot cross. We rest tonight. At first light tomorrow, we move out and deal with Ramsay Bolton."
➤ Next: Knocking Out Jon Snow's Front Tooth