Chapter 140

On the third night of their travel through the frozen lands of the True North, they found themselves surrounded by a whole flock of Ravens cawing at them from the frozen trees.

In the silent forest, the cacophony of noise had an eerie edge to it that made his men jittery and him uncomfortable.

Ygritte took out her bow and was about to a shot at the ravens before he stopped her and told her to lower the bow.

She reluctantly obeyed and he gazed back at the ravens in the trees and let out a sigh.

"Enough with the dramatics." He said, using wandless Sonorous magic to make his voice heard among the crowing of so many ravens "I did not ask for your help so that you could send your birds and disturb my sleep. Either keep them silent or I'll find the White walker on my own."

At once the ravens stopped crowing and the forest became silent as a grave once again.

"Good." He said and then most of the crows got up and flew away in the distance, leaving only a dozen or so in the trees that continued to gaze at him.

To any man, such a sight would still be uncomfortable but he had spent enough time with wargs so being stared by like by dozens of birds did not disturb him anymore.

"Get back to your tents." He told the men "We'll continue our journey next morning."

The men grumbled and went back to their tents even as two remained on watch.

Ygritte came up to him after all of them had left and asked "Who was that?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Varamyr is the best warg you have. And he can only control a hundred sparrows at his best. And only when they're near him." She then looked at the ravens who were still staring at them "Those were easily more than 200 ravens. And the warg is nowhere in sight. Who is the person controlling those ravens Domeric?" she asked.

"An old friend." He replied, not wanting to reveal the presence of Bloodraven when the old guy wanted to remain in the shadows.

Hiding things from his subordinates made him feel like Dumbledore but this secret was not his to divulge.

"This old friend has a name?" Ygritte asked.

"He did. Once." He replied in a tone that signified the end of this conversation.

Ygritte frowned but nodded and left.

He let out a sigh and looked at the ravens once again.

It was going to be a long night.

—————

For the next week, he and his group followed the ravens away from the Thenn Territory and deeper into the unknown and unnamed forest.

When he had first started this expedition, he had not expected that it would take so much time for him to search for the White Walker.

Bloodraven had informed him that he lost his connections with his ravens whenever they were near a White Walker so he himself did not know their exact location. Plus, the White walkers were always moving quickly from one place to another and the only way that Bloodraven was even able to keep up with them was thanks to the footprints left behind by the Wights.

Footprints that were lost to him whenever it snowed. And it snowed quite often in the True North.

He was just thankful that he had brought enough food with him to last them half a year and had left Aunt Barbrey in charge.

It was only a few hours later, when the sun was about to set in the distance that the ravens leading them suddenly dispersed and flew away and the feeling of magic around him started to distort that he realized that they had finally found their White Walker.

And then they were ambushed.