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Robb Returns by The Dark Scribbler

Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: K+, English, Fantasy & Adventure, Eddard S./Ned, Robb S., Theon G., Domeric B., Words: 627k+, Favs: 6k+, Follows: 6k+, Published: Jul 16, 2015 Updated: Sep 287,744Chapter 57

Apologies for the delay on this. It was hard to write as I have been exhausted most of the time, as my wife was unable to even get to the toilet without help after having an operation on her foot. Sleep has been interrupted a lot. However, she now has a boot and life is starting to return to quasi-normalcy. Onwards and upwards!

Tyrion

A positive flurry of ravens had been sent out in recent hours, and if words contained power then those ravens would be at Riverrun days early and with singed feathers.

He had checked that Emmon and the rest of his men – he had become accustomed to seeing them as his men by now – had been well taken care of. They had indeed. Stark's hospitality was most generous. And the meal he had just eaten had been passing good as well.

So now he headed back to Lord Stark's solar, a cup of rather good wine in one hand and with a head filled with questions. Arriving there he was relieved to see that the door was open. He knocked politely and then entered at the gruff 'Come!' from within.

Lord Stark was sitting at his desk, with books all around him and a look of fierce determination on his face. Oddly enough he did not look that surprised to see Tyrion walk in. Not even after he then closed the door.

"What can I help you with, Lord Tyrion?"

Tyrion walked to the map and stared up at it. "Your map of the North is a very good one, Lord Stark. Very detailed. Very impressive. Especially…" he waved a hand upwards. "The area North of the Wall. More detailed than any other map of the area that I have ever seen."

Lord Stark leant back in his chair and then shot Tyrion a look that made him intensely uncomfortable. "I had information from a very… well-informed… source."

"Really?" He found a chair and then sat, before frowning at the map. "There are far more settlements there than I had thought."

"Aye." Lord Stark's eyes glittered. "Wildlings, Lord Tyrion. Thousands of them. Far more than we ever imagined. And the map shows where the northernmost villages used to be. No more. They've been abandoned. They're moving South."

He stroked his chin and then took another sip of wine. "Moving South. Interesting. Is it because they've heard The Call?"

Lord Stark's look intensified still further, something that he hadn't previously thought was possible. "Did you hear The Call?"

"No," he conceded reluctantly. "But I felt… something. I think I was asleep when you sent out whatever it was. But I have talked to a lot of people who did hear it. Clearly enough to allow me to quote it to you now: 'The Others come. The Stark calls for aid. You are needed.' Lord Stark, it was even heard in the Iron Islands. Where they are now killing each other, because of this Call."

This startled the Lord of the North, who sat up a little. "Killing each other? We heard word of unrest in the islands… but why should they kill each other?"

"Apparently Damphair Greyjoy denies this Call and is killing those Ironbborn who speak about sending aid to Winterfell – and to the Wall. Odd, is it not?"

Lord Stark muttered something under his breath in a language that might have been the Old Tongue, before looking back at the desk. "More Greyjoy idiocy," he finally muttered out loud. "And Balon allows this? His hatred for the North runs deeper than we knew."

Tyrion took another sip of wine. Interesting. Perhaps it was time to be totally unlike Father. It would be refreshing to imagine his reaction.

"Lord Stark, do you know why my father sent me to Winterfell?"

Another intense look, followed by a wry smile. "You said that you were just delivering some books from Casterly Rock. Knowing your father though… there had to be something more. Let me guess – he thinks that all this talk of the Others is a new gambit in the Game of Thrones that he's so obsessed with?"

He felt his eyebrows twitch upwards with surprise at Lord Starks' astuteness. Father had always talked about Lord Stark with a certain degree of contempt. 'The honourable Lord Stark, a man who put honour ahead of good sense,' Father had once said of him. 'Honourable idiot morelike.' Hmmm. It seemed that there was more to Lord Stark than met the eye.

"Yes," he admitted. "My father sent me to find out what you were up to. Then I heard talk of this Call. And then I saw preparation for war. Winter too. And then I noticed that this is not the last time that the North has prepared for – and fought – such a war. Lord Stark, I have seen the crags that litter the North – those that can be seen from the King's Road at least. And the signs of the old signal network. Oh – and there were these." He pulled out the little pouch and passed it over to Lord Stark, who opened it with a frown. The moment that the saw the obsidian arrowheads inside his face went blank.

"You're a very observant man, Tyrion Lannister," he said quietly as he replaced the contents carefully. Then he placed the bag to one side, before reaching out and taking a small leather pouch of his own from his desk, before tossing it over to Tyrion. "What do you observe from that?"

Tyrion opened it with a frown of his own. Oh look. "Obsidian arrowheads. You seem to know what these mean, then? Why use this stone? Does it have a special quality?"

"It does indeed. We think that it kills Others. The First Men called it 'Glytterglass' and it seems that they often sent it to Winterfell when it was discovered."

Tyrion went very still. "Did you say 'Glytterglass?"

"Aye. Obsidian – some call it Dragonglass too. But the old days it was known as Glytterglass."

All of a sudden he wanted to close his eyes and place his head on the table. Oh, Father would not like this at all. Instead he smiled sardonically and sipped some more wine. "There is a room in Casterly Rock, Lord Stark. An old one, deep underground. It has runes carved on the walls. Most are illegible. But a few words can be read. One of them is 'Glytterglass'."

Mirth – and something more – sparkled in Lord Stark's eyes. "Really?" He stood and poured a goblet of wine for himself, before topping up Tyrion's own goblet. "Does your father know?"

"More than likely. Interesting. That means that the Casterlys were sending obsidian to Winterfell. I wonder how Father will fit that into his ponderings over your activities."

Lord Stark shrugged. "Your father was Hand to the Mad King. It was his job to try and work out if people were playing their thrice-damned Game of Thrones. He had to work out if mere shadows were actual threats, and if apparent threats were mere shadows."

He leant back in his chair again, until his own face was half in shadow. "The threat beyond The Wall is real however. We face an enemy that we have not fought for tens of centuries. An enemy that we know little of. I am told that you are a clever man, Tyrion Lannister. Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall, sat where you sit now not too long ago and said that the Others were the reason why the Wildlings were fleeing South. South to the Wall. Did you know that he said that he can call on a hundred thousand Wildlings? I see you unconvinced, but look again at the map. All those villages. So, then. What is your initial impression of the situation we – all of Westeros – face?"

Tyrion stared at Lord Stark and then looked back at the map. Ah. His eyes swept across the map and then at the Wall. It was such a thin line. He really wished that he could see it right now. Measure its height. Its width. The measure of the men on the Wall. Their hearts. Their courage.

"If the Wildlings truly believe that the Others are coming, and if this Rayder fellow really does have 100,000 wildlings at his command then the Night's Watch is in deep trouble."

"It's worse than that. With every Wildling that dies there's a corpse left behind. And we know that the Others can raise the dead, which then become what we call wights."

For a moment rotten smell seemed to pass under Tyrion's nose as he remembered that damn dream. And the terror he'd felt in that dream. "The dead march on the North?"

"They do."

Ice ran up and down his spine for a moment. Then he drained his cup. "You seem very convinced about this Lord Stark."

"I have seen them. In a vision sent by the Old Gods."

Tyrion peered at Lord Stark He seemed sane, but his words… "I beg your pardon?"

"Tyrion Lannister, what do you think was responsible for The Call? It was magic. Things have been unearthed here in Winterfell. One of them sent out the call when an artefact from Last Hearth was placed in it. We have been discovering… things. Things like that mace."

He looked over to where Lord Stark was pointing. 'That mace' was a huge weapon that would no doubt gladden the heart of Robert Baratheon. It was also, by its appearance, a very old one. And a very odd one. It seemed to have bits of… obsidian in it. Ah. Connections clattered into place in his head and he pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. Damn it. He hated it when he was right about things that Father would say were mad.

"Lord Stark, I am growing convinced on this matter, but then I have seen much to convince me. That said, my father is the man that must be convinced, out of all the Lannisters. He is the one who has the power to send the kind of help to the Wall that the Westerlands can provide. My father will require proof of the Others. Proof of wights."

"I know," said Lord Stark quietly. "My brother, the First Ranger of the Night's Watch, is ranging North of the Wall now. He's on a dangerous mission, a mission I could not ask of anyone else. He seeks to bring me the hand of a wight. Will that convince Tywin Lannister?"

He was impressed, he had to admit it. "That would indeed impress my father. That is, along as such a thing could still be moving and not rotted to pieces. You must know how much warmer the Westerlands are than the North."

This brought another thin smile to the face of the Lord of Winterfell. He reached to one side and held up a small cage made of some metal. "The First Men, it seems, thought of that. A wight's hand will be preserved in that. It will be proof to send to the South – and to Casterly Rock."

Imaging Father's reaction to the moving hand of a dead man brought an instant smirk to his face. "Yes, that should be a sight to see. The great Tywin Lannister will probably spit out any wine he might be drinking possibly even show some emotion."

Lord Stark's eyebrow flickered upwards at the bitterness that permeated Tyrion's last words and he cursed internally. He shouldn't show how much anger he felt at Father's disdain and aloofness for him. Better to mask it with laughter than drown in bitterness.

Someone knocked on the door and they both looked at it. "Who is it?"

"Robb, Father. And Dacey. We need to talk to you."

"Enter."

The door opened to reveal Robb Stark, who escorted Dacey Surestone in. She had formality in her very stance and her every step. She also had a book in her hands. A very thick book. She looked at Tyrion for a moment, smiled slightly but then turned that very serious gaze onto her cousin, who stood as she approached.

"Lord Stark, the Surestone of Surestone is here to deliver the burden of knowledge to you. The Others return. The Stark has called for aid. Surestone has answered." And with that she solemnly handed the book over.

Lord Stark took the book and stared at it. "Thank you," he said with some emotion. Then he paused. "Dacey, what is this? My father had many secrets, ones that he told Brandon. But he did not tell me."

Dacey Surestone went white as a sheet for a moment and then she nodded. "Father was always afraid of that. You hold his life's work. He made a new copy of the old histories, transcribing every rune of the oldest ones and every description of things that are now lost. We Surestones have always been the archivists of the North."

This seemed to astonish both the Starks, who swapped one of those odd, intense, looks again. What was it they were hiding?

"So this is…"

"A history of the First Men."

The Starks stared at the book, as did Tyrion. Oh, he had to read that.

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