Song of A Northern Sorcerer

Darkness started closing in on the edges of Jon's sight as he struggled against the hand around his throat. 'No…' he thought weakly, trying to breath and failing as the fight started to leave his body. 'I – I can't…not like this…Father…Robb…Sansa…Arya…someone…please…help…'

A scream unlike any Jon had ever heard in his life echoed throughout the forest. The Wildling holding onto Jon let go, letting Jon fall limply to the ground, pain shooting through his leg as he landed on it and his lungs burning as he gasped desperately for breath. "What the fuck was that?" one of the wildlings, this one wielding a club of sorts, asked as the group turned and started looking around the area.

The wildling with rotten teeth stared at the other wildlings. "Where the fuck be Tummer?"

The other wildlings looked at one another before searching around frantically. "Fuck." The bow-wielding one, Ida, cursed as she notched an arrow. "He be…he was right the fuck behind us. What got him? Shadowcat? Direwolf?"

"There be no direwolves south of da wall," another said, his voice as shaky as Jon felt. "Shadowcat, maybe?"

"No," the wildling with rotten teeth growled. "Listen. No birds. No animals. Nothin. There be someone else out there."

Turning back to Jon. Without saying a word, the wildling lifted his boot and stepped down hard onto Jon's leg, breaking the shaft of the arrow off and driving the tip deeper into his leg. "Noo!" Jon screamed in agony as he tried to sit up, only to have the wildling press down harder on his leg.

"Shut the fuck up, little rabbit!" The wildling yelled, a mad tint in his eye. "Who else be with you in these woods?"

Fighting against the pain in his legs, Jon felt tears of pain roll down his face as he cried in pain. "Please…no one! I swear by the old gods! I'm alone! I swear!"

"He be fuckin lyin." Another spat. "Kneelers wouldn't let a kid like him out on his fuckin own. Someone else is with him!"

The boot left his leg, but before he could feel any relief, Jon was roughly pulled upwards by the rotten toothed wildling. "I have the boy kneeler!" The wildling yelled as he put Jon's own knife to his throat. "Come out now or I spill his blood on the snow!"

Silence answered the rotten toothed man as the rest of the wildlings began backing up so that they were all back to back and facing outwards towards the forest. "Fuck…" the wildling woman spat, her arrow pulled back and ready. "I don't fuckin like this…something ain't right."

A flash of black followed by the cracking of a twig caught Jon's and the wildling's attention, making all of them turn as one. Blinking, Jon thought at first that his eyes were playing tricks on him. But even after blinking…the figure didn't disappear. Standing less than a few paces away from them was a man…Well, at least Jon thought he was a man. He was covered from head to foot in black robes and armor. He could see the metal coverings on his boots. And his hands and forearms were covered in gauntlets that extended past his fingers slightly making it look like he almost had claws. The open cloak he wore exposed his chest, showing off a black steel chest plate of some sort. And his face was covered by the strangest visor he'd ever seen with the black hood pulled up over the back of his head. 'Its…one piece. No eye slits. How…How can he see?'

"Who the fuck be you?" the wilding holding Jon demanded, the knife pressing hard enough against his skin that Jon could feel his warm blood trickling down his neck.

The newcomer didn't say anything. He just stood there staring at them. At least, Jon believed he was staring at them. It was impossible to tell just where he was looking with that visor covering his face. After several long moments, his head turned towards Jon. He didn't know how he knew, but Jon could almost feel the man's eyes on him. The moment their eyes met, Jon felt the breath in his lungs freeze. There was something…terrifying about the man's gaze. As if he were looking upon the eyes of death itself! But as quick as the moment came, it passed as the man's head turned off Jon and back to the wildlings holding him.

"Eight of you to capture one young boy. Either he is quite the accomplished warrior or, and far more likely, the lot of you are merely incompetent beyond belief."

His voice sounded so strange, distorted. Jon had heard men talking in their helmets before and knew that the visor on a helmet made a man sound different. But this…this was something completely different.

"Fuck you!" the wildling holding Jon shouted, jostling Jon and removing the knife from his throat so he could point it towards the mysterious man. "Who the fuck be you? Some southern kneeler knight here to save the boy?"

The man's head tilted to the side as he just continued to stand there. "Kneeler? Can't say that I've heard that term before. But, given its general meaning…Nope, still have no clue what you mean by that. And as for being a Knight? I doubt you would understand, but I wouldn't be caught dead becoming a Knight. Too restricting for my tastes. But as for who I am, my name is Darth Nox. Although considering that we are quite the distance away from my home, and you lot will never understand the underlying meaning behind my title, you can just call me Nox."

"Who the fuck cares who this fuckin kneeler is!" Another wilding woman screamed, stepping forward and lowering her spear threateningly towards the mysterious knight. "I want to know where the fuck Tummer be!"

The mysteriously knight merely titled his head. "Which half do you want? His upper body is that way," he said, pointing across his body to his left before moving his thumb to the right, "and his lower half is that way."

"Fuckin bastar-"

"Don't Hilda," the wildling holding Jon shouted. "The fuckin kneeler is just tryin to rile ya up. And if Tummer be dead, then he be dead. You'll just have to find a new cock to please ya."

"Well he fuckin did just that!" The woman wildling yelled, jabbing her spear at the strange man. "What we waitin for? There be more of us then him! Let's just kill this fucker and be done with it?"

Instead of being scared, the masked knight just…laughed. "Amusing. You think that just because you outnumber me means that the advantage is yours? How incredibly short sighted of you. Do you not recognize the sensations running through you all? The cold tingling running down your back. Do you know what that is? Or perhaps the shaking of your hands? Or maybe that warm sensation running down that one's legs. Do you know just what that is? Let me help you: it's fear. It's because your body knows right now that you stand before death itself. Even if your minds are too feeble to comprehend just what that means."

Despite his situation, being held at knifepoint by wildlings that were threatening to make a meal out of him, Jon couldn't help but feel awestruck at the mysterious man standing before them. He didn't look to be carrying any type of weapon that Jon could see, no sword nor spear nor bow. Yet still he stood his ground. 'This…This is what a true knight is. Just like that knight from the tales that Sansa always begs for!'

"Ah, fuck this!" The wildling holding Jon shouted, throwing him off to the side as if Jon was little more than a doll to be discarded. "Let's kill this fucker and eat his cor—"

In the time it took Jon to turn over on the ground, the mysterious knight had somehow managed to cross the distance between himself and the wildlings and had driven his fist right into the much larger man's gut. What Jon couldn't understand, beside just how the man had managed to move so fast, was how he managed to throw the much larger wildling back at least two lengths of men and into a nearby tree so hard that the tree actually cracked and fell over from the impact!

The wildlings, despite the suddenness of the attack, were quick to recover as the next closest one to the mysterious knight cried out and charged at the man's back with his spear lowered and ready to run him through.

"Watch out!" Jon yelled.

His warning though wasn't needed as just before the spear reached the dark stranger, he turned and dodged the attack. A strange hiss, much like the sound of a heated blade in a forge hitting water, came from the stranger and next Jon knew the strange knight was wielding glowing red sword that looked as if it were made of fire! The blade cut clean through the wildling's chest, cutting the man clean in two.

The quick death of two of their members, not to mention the sudden appearance of a sword made of fire, brought the wildlings up short. "Fuckin…How did he kill them so quick! And what the fuck is that…thing!"

"Who cares?" Another wildling, this one holding a rusty and poorly kept sword. "We kill him, we take that…sword of his! Come on! He can't take us all at once! Let's kill this fucker!"

For a moment, just a moment, Jon felt despair as the six remaining wildlings all charged at the dark stranger. He was his only hope of surviving this. But that despair was short-lived as the mysterious knight jumped up and flipped clear over the head of the nearest wildling, his fire-sword cleanly removing the man's head from his shoulders as he did. As soon as his feet touched the ground, the stranger was moving again, sliding to the side to avoid a spear thrust and stabbing the attacking wildling though the chest with his fire-sword.

The fight, if it could even be called that, Jon considered it more of a slaughter, was over in the amount of time it took Jon to sit upright on the ground. The stranger almost seemed to know exactly where and when each wildling was about to strike. The stranger also moved like water! One moment he'd been in one place and the next moment he'd be bending or twisting out of the way of a weapon and countering without a moment's hesitation. By the time Jon had fully managed to sit upright, the only wildling left still standing was the bow-wielding woman, she had an arrow drawn and pointed at him. But Jon could see that her arms were shaking so heavily that he doubted her aim would be true, even from the distance on only few paces. When the stranger turned towards her, the wildling threw her bow to the ground and collapsed. "Mercy! Please mi'lord! Mercy! I beg of you!"

The hiss of water on hot steel sounded again as the sword of fire disappeared, leaving only a strange hilt in the mysterious knight's hand. "Why?"

The almost detached way he'd asked the simple question made Jon turn to him. And the fact that he was still holding onto the hilt of the fire sword in his hand made Jon somewhat uneasy. 'He…He is going to accept her surrender…right? Father always said that there was no honor in slaying a surrendered foe…He's not going to hurt her…is he? She's surrendered and she has no weapon on her! There's no reason to do anything to her!'

The wildling woman slowly raised her head, her eyes wide and pleading. "Please, mi'lord…show mercy! I – I'll let you steal me! I won't fight back! I swear! I'll…I be yours…however and wherever ye want me! Please mi'lord…just show mercy."

The stranger didn't say anything. He just stood there, staring at the pleading woman, his face impossible to read behind his strange mask. Jon could hear his own heart beating in his chest as he waited to see what the knight would do. 'He can't…He can't kill her! He just…He can't…He's a warrior! A…A noble man. They don't…They don't kill those that have surrendered…even if they're wildlings.'

Jon wasn't sure just how long the two stared at one another, all but ignoring him. But after a long time, the stranger finally moved as he squatted down in front of the woman. "Tell me." He rumbled in the strange distorted tone. "The farmhouse that you and this lot came across a week pass. Did you show them mercy? Did you show the father mercy as you cut him to pieces and cooked him one piece at a time? Did you show the mother and daughter mercy as your male counterparts raped them repeatedly while you and other woman in your group simply laughed as they cried and begged for mercy? Tell me: did you show them mercy? And if you're willing to be mine and do whatever I want, then tell me: why are you holding a dagger under your body waiting for the chance to run me through?"

Blinking, Jon's eyes flickered from the stranger to the groveling woman. The wildling blinked and then her face morphed from the pleading look to a snarl as she lunged at the stranger. The dagger he hadn't even seen suddenly in her hand and going straight for the stranger's throat. The hiss echoed throughout the forest again as the sword of fire came to life once more. The blade appearing seeming out of nowhere and cutting the woman's arm off at the elbow.

"That," the stranger said calmly, rising to his feet and holding the tip of the fire-sword at the screaming wildling's head. "was your last chance. Had you shown even an ounce of remorse or not tried to kill me. I honestly might've considered your plea. But now…now, I won't. Just be glad that a child is nearby and conscious. Otherwise…this would last a lot longer."

Without a moment's hesitation, the stranger swiped his blade through the air, cleaving clean through the woman's neck and separating her head from her shoulders and ending her screaming.

Jon couldn't take his eyes off the head on the ground. It wasn't his first time seeing a beheading. His father had taken himself and Robb to the execution of a Night's Watch deserter less than a moon's turn ago. Perhaps it was because it was a woman instead of a man. Or perhaps it was because of the suddenness of her shift from pleading for her life to trying to kill the stranger. Or perhaps it was the dispassionate way the stranger had killed her without giving her the chance to say her last words. But for some reason…the whole scene just seemed more…brutal then when his father executed the deserter from the Night's Watch.

Hearing the unmistakable hissing noise again, Jon forced his eyes off the lifeless head lying on the ground to the strange standing just before him. "I apologize for the brutality, young one. But there was no time to shield you from this sight. But for now, sleep."

Jon wanted to say that he wasn't tired, that he had a hundred questions for the stranger. But for some reason upon his command, Jon's mind went dark as his eyes grew heavy. 'But…I'm not even tired…' was the last thought that went through his mind before darkness clouded his vision as the ground rushed up to meet him.