All Dwarves Are Not Created Equal (VI)

The first thing Luwin saw once past the neatly arranged snow huts of the Winterfell guards was Lomys lying in the snow. He waved but didn't otherwise move. Waiting to either stop feeling pain or to start shivering, Luwin knew. That was well ahead from where he himself was in Lord Stark's honing regimen. Luwin still couldn't believe it but the Reachman had somehow honed himself faster than all of them. So much for his weak constitution! Well, except Mullin but he was a freak of nature. He'd learned skiing in one hour, was bathing naked in the snow by the third day, started swimming in ice-cold rivers and lakes by the end of the first sennight of travel, and now he'd taken to sparring against all of Lord Stark's retinue every time they stopped somewhere. In fact, he was doing that right now. Seemed to have gone from beating a third to just over half of them in a row, now. At their own weapons. They were none of them greenhorns either. Little wonder Rhodry was staring at him with stars in his eyes from the side.

For his part, Luwin was more surprised they were out in that blizzard. It wasn't the worst blizzard they'd travelled through, certainly nothing on the one that prevented them from moving on the previous day. But it was still bad enough to bite the skin and make Luwin glad they hadn't left by ship. Winter storms were not good places to be.

Despite knowing well the reason for their haste, though, Luwin was privately glad for the delay. Their way of travel didn't agree with him. They weren't traveling on horses but in carriage houses pulled by dogs. Well, some of them were. Even with three sledhouses and all the guards on skis, they only barely managed to all fit in the beginning, and only because they slept in shifts and a third or so of Luwin's fellow acolytes had already learned to ski by the time Marwyn rescued him. Luwin had only ever read of wildlings using such things, and they were just normal sleds pulled along by hounds in crude harnesses. Most of his misgivings about them dissipated early on, admittedly, when he realized they were making better time than a horse in midsummer. He still wished for a spot of rest or at least a horse to doze on from time to time, though, instead of spending more time on those skis than anywhere else. But Lord Stark had commanded them all to learn their use swiftly, then made them switch between sledhouse and ski travel as they sped northward, sometimes without a single stop for days save however little it took to eat rations while the dogs napped and fed.

Skis. For all that he was among the worst at riding them, they were clever contraptions, Luwin had to admit. Made him wonder why no one had come up with them previously. Even the bear paws they used on their stops weren't really bear paws as he remembered them. A man might actually be able to work and even fight in them. The tracks in the beaten snow at the center of camp certainly looked as if a lot of sparring had been done with them on very recently.

Alas, for all that they'd made good time through the Reach, the winter weather grew worse the further up the Riverlands they went, until the mother of all Blizzards caught up to them just after Acorn Hall. Which they had bypassed entirely, like Honeyholt, Horn Hill, Highgarden itself and every other hold and settlement worth a name. That was how they ended up camping within the circle of thirty weirwood stumps at High Heart, high up on the summit.

Not seeing anyone else about of those he knew, Luwin made for the largest communal snow hut that had been erected for him and the other acolytes.

Snow huts. Everyone with more than air in their head knew about snow protecting crops and plants between fall and spring. Despite that, though, it had never before occurred to him what that might be turned towards. But now, after resting half a dozen times in a huddle of bodies half again as spacious as all sledhouses put together, Luwin was starting to wonder what other old idea might serve being put to new use.

Snow houses probably wouldn't make the best long-term dwellings. Anything resembling a permanent outposts would need to be made out of something lasting like stone or wood, perhaps on stilts like a fire lookout tower to keep it out of the snow? The huts were very good for travel and emergencies, however, and Luwin wouldn't be surprised if moving villages started cropping up during winter times. 'Permanent' camps and fisheries moving ever onward as snow huts were built and rebuilt in the wake of hunting trails and fishing spots. There certainly seemed variations to the design, based on its purpose and the weather at time of making.

Luwin inspected the construction as he approached. The access tunnel was smaller and deeper into the snow than usual, but having to crawl for a few meters was a small price to pay for being protected from the gale. Opposite from the entrance, there was an actual smokeshaft, from where smoke raggedly sputtered before being dispersed by the heavy wind. It still amazed him that fire could blaze so merrily in a hearth of ice, even now. No that the hut actually needed it. Even that first night, by the time Frenken girded his loins and lit a fire on account of being the closest, the air had grown to be damn near toasty by Luwin's standards. Despite being built large enough for them all to sit in a circle around their dinner pot, the hut had grown warm enough to lounge around in from their body heat alone. The only issue with the huts had been that Hother couldn't stand upright, unless he was right in the middle. But a cursory glance indicated that wouldn't be an issue this time.

He stopped at the mouth of the tunnel door and hesitated. He didn't feel ready to sleep just yet.

He decided to walk the rest of the way to the edge of the camp and sit downwind from the weirwood stump farthest out, taking advantage of the break in the wind to gaze out into the distance. Even with the gale and blizzard, High Heart was a place beholden with surprising visibility. He took to practicing the breathing Lord Stark had taught them that first time.

"Your tolerance of the cold is beyond atrocious and will serve you worse and worse the farther north we get," Lord Stark had told them as he stood before them clad in trousers and nothing else. His head, his arms, his chest and back, even his feet were bare. "You will join my men in their daily conditioning. Follow my and their instructions and you will be swimming in frozen streams by the time we reach Winterfell."

It had sounded like a mad fancy but no one dared contradict him. Time stood him witness in good stead soon enough too. Luwin would have taken up the first half of the routine regardless though. The breathing they were taught made him feel tingly all over from toe to head. He always felt incredibly relaxed afterwards as well. It was that calm and ease of mind and body both that he craved now. If it took him falling as deathly still as the husk of High heart around him, he'd do it. He'd do it and do it again until he found that core of warmth in his chest and behind his eyes that the stars always called and the glass candle kindled.

High Heart. A hill so lofty that from atop it Luwin felt as though he could see half the world. Around its brow stood a ring of huge pale stumps, all that remained of a circle of once-mighty weirwoods. Luwin's time hadn't been his own for most of the past two days, but he'd still gotten around to counting them all. There were thirty-one, some so wide that a child could have used them for a bed.

High Heart had been sacred to the children of the forest, guardsman Tom had told them, and some of their magic lingered here still. "No harm can ever come to those as sleep here," he'd said for the benefit of Rhodry and Wendamyr and the others among them without history links who didn't already know. Luwin didn't doubt the claim. The hill was so high and the surrounding lands so flat that no enemy could approach unseen.

The other thing Tom had told them about the place didn't turn out to be quite as true. The smallfolk hereabouts supposedly shunned the place. It was said to be haunted by the ghosts of the children of the forest who had died here when the Andal king named Erreg the Kinslayer had cut down their grove. Luwin knew about the children of the forest, and about the Andals of course, but if there was anything to this talk of ghosts, it must have taken a holiday. He'd stopped counting all the smallfolk that came up to request an audience with Lord Rickard after the first dozen., and that had been yesterday.

The memory mingled in his mind's eye with others of similar bent, of reachmen or rivermen gathered in numbers to petition the Lord Warden of the North each time he called a stop. Not their own lords or high lords, but the ruler of a different kingdom entirely. Luwin and the rest had been wary of inquiring into what might have been kingly business, or the next thing over. Fortunately, Hother was there to tell them when they were being idiots and explained. It turned out that Rickard Stark was making stops in the exact same places he'd stopped on the way south. Places several days or more removed from their lords' holds. Modest places but well travelled. Inns where he dined and drank and talked with the smallfolk. Hamlets where he'd spread word of good work and pay for any people of the Old Way who had the grit to uproot themselves and head on North come spring.

By now Luwin had stopped breathing entirely, which was the only reason his ears picked up the traipsing of feet upon the snow. He opened his eyes and looked towards the source. There was a small pale shape creeping between the huts, thin white hair flying wild as she leaned upon a gnarled cane. The woman could not have been more than three feet tall. The guards gave her long glances from suspicious to unnerved, but didn't send her away. Their torchlight made her eyes gleam as red as blood in the twilight. She looked like a ghost as she approached him.

The dwarf woman sat down next to him uninvited. She squinted at him with eyes like hot coals. "I've dreamed of you, blind seer. You and many things besides. Would you like to know what?"

Luwin stared at the dwarf woman, forgetting to breathe. Of course, that wasn't so great a feat these days. The first few times under Lord Stark's direction cured him nicely of his amazement over how long he could go without pulling in air. Knowing what was waiting for him was motivation like no other to practice as long and as often as possible. He still couldn't believe he spent his mornings stripping naked. Taking buckets of ice-cold water to the face. Outside. In winter. And then they were just told to bury themselves in the snow and stay there until their skin stopped hurting. Frenken had almost died of frostbite in the beginning, when he tried exposure without enough preparation despite Lord Stark's commands. One would think his antimony link would've stood him in better stead. He refused to participate in the training afterwards and Lord Stark indulged him. But then the cold began to sink into their bones the further North they went. And Lomys, somehow, managed to toughed up faster than all but Hother and Mullin so Frenken came around as well he should when-

"Are you alive in there?' the dwarf woman asked, knocking him on the head with her gnarled cane. It was made of wood as white as bone. Weirwood, Luwin thought. "Has the chill gotten you? I've seen many men freeze in winter. Everyone talks about snows dozens of feet deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than a shadowcat, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it. It's easier just to sit down or go to sleep. They say you don't feel any pain toward the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade, and then it's like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Peaceful. Like you!"

"… Who are you?" Luwin asked, but still did not breathe in. The tips of his toes and fingers barely tingled.

"Goodness!" the dwarf woman. "You live! Do you make all the ladies wait? Is that what they teach you in those bookish halls, those greyrobes? Or is this how the young court nowadays? Mayhap I can expect a kiss?"

Luwin reared back in disgusted horror.

The little woman cackled at the sight he made. "Aye, a sloppy kiss, a bit of tongue. Ah, but has been too long, too long. Your mouth will taste of mint and mine of bones. I am too old."

"… A maester is sworn to celibacy."

"But you're no maester yet and you'll be a strange sort indeed when you get 'round to it, won't you? I've dreamed of you, child. I saw you gaze into winter's mists borne forth by strings made of red fire. I saw you walk beneath warm stars in lockstep with the son of the burned woman and the corpse cutter. I saw the god of whales too, the king that was promised, who learned the truth of his begetting only to kneel and bow his uncrowned head. And I dreamed of a she-wolf with eyes made of flint. She's deathly sick, but you already know that don't you? In the hall of wolves the mother lies weak and fevered with her pack scattered to the winds. A starry void is her only company, stretching far around her and seeping deep into the dreams of winter's court. I can't see past those stars any more than I can see my own nose, but then again, I've not gone all that deep to snoop. Not like you will. I saw you, blind seer. I saw you gaze past fields and mountains and the cage around the pale court's heart to spy the black wolf's business. I saw you stare through flame and glass while fire and blood looked over your shoulder. I saw you snoop and I saw you burn."

A shiver trailed down Luwin's back. It had nothing to do with the cold. A moonturn past he might have called it a mad fancy. Not now. "I have no idea what you're talking about." Which was half a lie. "You need to speak to my master." Which wasn't.

"Your master?" the woman scoffed. "That snarling lump? He's the second I told what I just told. The Ice Wolf paid double for my news and just as well for my dreams, he did. Then paid me more to stick around and share with all the rest of you youngsters. So here I am. Queer man, that Ice Wolf. Handsome too, and that beard! Gold and silver and steel wrapped in silk. Oh, if he weren't wed and I'd been just nine centuries younger… Oh well, dreams for a younger lass those be. I've done what I was bid. You were the last one left, so I'll be on my way. Unless you'd like to escort little old me on home? What am I saying, you're not half that gallant, more's the pity."

By the gods, was everyone going to moon over Lord Stark's dashing looks? It was enough to unman a man. And what's this about living a thousand years? Luwin stared at her. "You're very strange."

"You'll be strange too when you're as old as me. My hair comes out in handfuls and no one's kissed me for a thousand years. It's hard to be so old, yet here I linger, just as the Old Gods linger, shrunken and feeble but not yet dead. This place belongs to them still, you know. You should heed that if you come by again. They don't look kindly on those flames your master likes to gaze into. Or maybe not so much likes, now. They won't look kindly on whoever lit that fire either, mark my words. The oak recalls the acorn, the acorn dreams the oak, the stump lives in them both. And they remember when the First Men came with fire in their fists just as well as they remember the Andal brother killer and his axes of cold steel."

The small woman turned around and left while humming some unknown tune, disappearing down the hill into the blizzard like a ghost. Luwin wondered if perhaps she was mad after all. The nearest settlement wasn't exactly within spitting distance, this was no weather to be traveling in.

He was still sitting there and gazing out into the blizzard when Hother found him. "What are you thinking!?" The big man scolded him, hauling him off the ground, bundling him up in his own cloak over his and marching him back to their hut. "The breathin's for when it's nice and warm, you can't take no warmth with you if there's none of it to begin with! You weren't even doing no exercises either!"

Luwin felt fine but knew better than to protest the man's fussing.