Union

(I'm telling you, that boy is a child of the forest!)

(The children of the forest disappeared millennia ago, Stiv, stop talking nonsense and eat, hunger must be getting to you).

(Affecting?! You saw it yourself Dalbridge, that's no way for a child to behave).

(Maybe young Blake looks a bit sickly, but he could have been sick when he was younger).

(Hahaha, I've never heard of a disease, either south of the wall or north of it, that makes boys look like ghosts, besides, the last time I came with Qhorin to this place, that boy was half his height, now some diseases make people grow up too?)

Dean put his ear close to the wall of the hut to hear better, it wasn't difficult since they were shouting, but everyone inside had gone silent.

(Qhorin, is it true what Stiv says?)

An ancient voice was heard.

(I'm afraid so, Lord Mormont, Blake was half his height the last time we visited this place, maybe even less).

The place was silent again for a few seconds.

(Let's leave this damned place first thing in the morning, and never come back, no good will come of messing with spirits or children of the forest, I assure you!)

(Stiv, stop yelling already, they might be listening to us.)

Dean jerked his ear away from the hut and got up quietly to run straight to the center of the tribe, where Blake was.

Dean walked to a stand where Blake, Cam, his brother Wren, and a dozen tribal warriors stood in front of a campfire.

"Don't tell me they found you out?"

Wren looked at his brother who was arriving out of breath and shouted back.

"No, I don't think they did."

Dean gasped a couple of times as he sat up.

"Did you hear something?"

Blake asked the most important question. He had sent Dean out with the food for the Night's Watch and told him after he gave it to them not to wander off, and try to listen to what they said, the best time to talk was when eating in front of a campfire.

"Yeah, they said Blake was a son of the woods, and some of them looked so scared they wanted to leave as soon as possible."

Dean said the last part with a smile, and many of the warriors chuckled upon hearing it.

"Those black crows are just a pack of cowards, we should have killed them all when they entered the tribe and kept their armor and horses!"

Clay, a tall, lanky warrior, finished his laughter and said, showing yellow, uneven teeth.

"Cowards or not, if Blake had listened to you, in a few days we'd be fighting hundreds of black crows."

Wren stopped the warrior's laughter and said seriously.

"What, are you afraid to fight Wren? No true man among the Free folk is afraid of a crow!"

Clay confronted Wren as he approached getting face to face with him.

"You think I'm a coward Clay? You want to check me out now?!"

Wren held his spear undaunted, and the tribesmen began to distance themselves to watch the spectacle.

"That's enough."

Blake didn't let the problem escalate and intervened by stopping the fight.

"Clay, you are no longer a hunter with a handful of men who can kill the black crows and disappear into the Haunted forest, you are now part of the black axe tribe, everyone's fate here is intertwined, remember that well."

Blake was sitting on a wooden stump, he was carving a figure in his hands, and when he spoke to Clay, he pointed at him with his knife.

"Wren is right, no matter how brave or strong we may be, we can't fight all the Night's Watch at once. They are not stupid, they should have sent one of their men to report back before entering the tribe. If we attack them, it wouldn't take more than a week for an army of hundreds of Night's Watch to arrive, riding on horseback, with armor and steel weapons to slaughter us all. At that point, we will all die, and perhaps it will be the cowards who manage to escape."

Blake whittled the piece of wood again, and said the last part slowly, causing Clay to click his tongue and cross his arms.

"So what do you suggest we do, boy, keep feeding them our food until they decide to leave?"

Cam said the words Blake read from the faces of all the warriors in front of him.

"Don't rush, the black crows will probably leave tomorrow, for now, Wron and Cam will keep an eye on them, don't get too close so they don't feel pressured. We need to maintain trade with Shadow Tower, that's the top priority, got it?"

Blake looked at the faces of all the warriors for a few seconds, implying that the orders were absolute.

"The rest of you take care of your business. Dean, accompany me to see the idiots who lured the crows into the tribe."

All the warriors dispersed, and Blake led the way to a hut a little way off.

"Blake, the idiot hasn't stopped yelling since you locked him up, although it looks like he got tired a couple of hours ago when they put those two girls in, maybe he's having fun."

Outside the hut stood an old man, he had completely white hair, and carried a bronze-tipped spear in his hands.

Blake nodded to the old man and opened the door to the hut.

It was a prison, or something like it, where Blake locked up the savages when they broke tribal rules or caused trouble in the Magnar's absence, at least until Oswin arrived and decided whether to kill them or expel them from the tribe.

Blake saw inside and knew why the man they had locked up this morning had stopped screaming. He was lying on his side with his neck broken.

"I imagine he's trying to attack them."

Inside were the two spearwomen who had asked for shelter at dusk. Blake had ordered them locked up, out of sight of the Night's Watch, in case they might recognize them.

"Demon, let us go!"

The red-haired spear-woman tried to pounce on Blake as soon as he opened the door.

"Take one more step and I'll put a spear through your neck!"

Dean stopped her by pointing his spear at the redhead's neck, threatening to kill her if she didn't calm down.

Blake waited for the spear woman to back off and nodded toward Dean to back off as well.

"If I let them out, the Night's Watch would already have their heads, and if you want to die you can, but do it far away and where it won't cause trouble."

Blake's words were cold and direct, as he felt nothing for these people who almost brought him into conflict with the Night's Watch.

He would have preferred to simply give them to the Night's Watch, but that would raise wisps of suspicion, wisps that would turn into a storm and fall on their heads at any moment, so he took no chances and decided to hide them, thus eliminating the root of the problem.

He was here now to decide whether it was better to silence them completely or to keep them within the tribe by giving them the shelter they had asked for in the beginning, because they were still strong young women, people he needed.

"Where is my husband? Did you kill him?"

Blake looked at the other spear woman, lying against the wall of the hut, and saw that she had one eye closed from which blood was pouring out.

Blake had said to lock them up, but they were thrown unarmed into the same hut where a savage was locked up awaiting Oswin's arrival. And though they had broken the savage's neck between the two, he had managed to wound one of them badly.

"He's not dead, for now, he was treated by our healer, but he's weak, and there's no telling if he'll make it through the night."

Blake watched as the muscular woman breathed a sigh of relief, and the redhead, though she seemed slightly relieved, was still looking at him with eyes full of rage.

"You brought the Night's Watch to our gates endangering everyone in the tribe. Had my father been here, he most likely would have killed you."

Blake spoke up putting tension back into both women.

"We didn't plan on bringing the Night's Watch here, we didn't know this tribe existed, we wanted to cross the Frostfangs to lose the black crows!"

The redhead started shouting explanations in fear of getting them killed, and though the other looked just as tense, she didn't have the strength to stand up and shout.

"It doesn't really matter, but now you have two choices, the first is to wait for my father to arrive and murder them, and the second is to become part of the tribe. Choose now."

Blake folded his arms, waiting for the answer. He had learned that savages only understood if they were treated harshly, it was no use being gentle with them, and the best he could do to protect them was to give firm orders without hesitation.

The spear-women looked at each other hesitantly, and Blake waited without pressing them.

"If we join, what do we have to do?"

Among the Free folk, there were fates worse than death, and the redhead asks with some fear present in her eyes.

"There are many tasks you can do within the tribe, since you are spear women you can hunt in the Haunted forest, fish in the Milkwater River, you can also help in the workshop, that's what most of the women and children do here."

Blake shifted his shoulders as he slowly explained.

"We don't have to do anything else?"

The redhead asked with still hesitation.

Blake understood what she meant, and spoke again.

"She already has a husband, if he survives, you can stay together, but you are alone, so you will take someone from the tribe as a husband and bear his children, naturally."

Blake looked over his shoulder at Dean, he was a handsome boy, with black hair and light eyes, he was no more than seventeen, but that age was already considered late to have your wife among the Free folk, so he nodded and spoke again to the redhead.

"It could be him, he's young, smart, and one of my most trusted men."

"What?!"

Dean gave an exaltation from surprise, causing Blake to turn his head.

"You don't like her?"

Dean looked at the boy who was playing matchmaker and showed no reaction in his face and voice, not knowing what to answer him, then looked at the red-haired spear woman and blushed up to his ears at the sight of everyone.

"Fine by me!"

Dean shouted and turned his head in embarrassment, it had been so sudden.

"You heard him, now what do they decide."

Blake looked back at the women and asked again. Talking like this would have been impossible for him a couple of years ago, but there wasn't much emotion left in him, and being in charge of the tribe he had dealt with several similar situations.

"I'll stay, but I need you to help me with this."

The muscular woman spoke from her spot.

Blake nodded, directing his gaze to the redhead only.

The redhead looked doubtful. She looked between Blake and Dean, but after a few seconds, she sighed giving her assent.

"My husband died at the hands of the Night's Watch while we were escaping Varamyr fiveskins."

Blake watched as the woman lay down wearily.

"I am Meha, this is Sagara, the man we brought is my father."

"He is with the healer, Sagara will be given a cabin and we will take your husband there, if he makes it through the night, you can live there together. You will stay with Dean."

Blake finished speaking and turned to the outside, looking sideways at Dean, who was still with his ears a little red.

For this reason, Blake needed the women, since they started accepting savages into the black axe tribe, they had forbidden the tradition of abducting women from other tribes, it was not practical and many men died in the raids, if you wanted a woman you had to look for her within the tribe.

Also, there were more men than women, since the settlements that Oswin had invited into the tribe, the survivors were mostly men.

Blake had worked as a matchmaker between the daughters of warriors and men old enough to have wives, and he had long been looking for one for Dean.

Dean was a trustworthy man, and he wanted to get him a pretty woman, at least without so many missing teeth and not so dumb. Although Meha was at least ten years older, she met the minimum requirements, now it would be his job what to do with her.

Glossary enhancement: https://mega.nz/file/6SQhkLAT#Q1HatcLMXIN8M3TpBqwLiYdcuDyBmG_wCh_ywnclyr4