[Look To The Stars] Chapter 72: A Crack in the World (Patreon)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all rights for character, plots and settings belong to GRRM and George Lucas/Disney. I have no ownership.

A/N: Sorry about the absence! Had a few personal issues that I had to take care of but chapters should return to normal scheduling. Hope you enjoy this chapter, took Sarah Conner as the inspiration for the first pov 👀

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Year 299 AC/8 ABY

Wolfswood, The North

Still as a statue, the child perched cross-legged on the deck, watching. Mara's fingers tightened around the familiar leather grip of her holstered blaster, eyes narrowed on the unexpected presence.

A question burned in her mind. How?

"How did you boarded my ship without a sound." Mara asked, both a question and a demand.

"I just followed Sansa. And the door was open." Arya’s chin came up, defiant.

A presence that size, that close—she should have felt it. But nothing, not a flicker. Either the Force is toying with her or this girl is unlike anything she's encountered.

"Alright, smartass. Now answer why."

“Smart...ass? I'm not letting my stupid brother and sister alone with a madwoman who should be locked up!”

"I am not!" "Shut up! You're stupider!" The other two siblings immediately shot back at their sister.

"Enough!" Mara said, exasperated. "You're children, not soldiers. I shouldn't even be taking you, but since we're already here, if you see or feel something I need to know, tell me. I'll handle the rest."

Arya’s gaze flicked to Bran’s scowl, to the blinking lights, then back. The girl’s casual shrug made Mara pinch the bridge of her nose. Mara pulled down the narrow fold-out restraint behind the command chair. It was a mechanic’s sling, built for a technician during turbulence. “Get in. Strap yourself down.”

Smaller than Sansa and wiry, Arya rose silent and fluid and slipped into the sling. Mara leaned past her, secured the harness clasp with a click, and studied the girl's face. Her shaky Force senses gave her only absence, no flicker of emotion or presence.

She checked Bran and Sansa next. Bran was strapped securely into the navigator's seat. Sansa was huddled in the co-pilot's seat, her harness fastened but loose. Mara tightened it until it sat properly across the girl's chest.

"Have any of you flown before?" Mara asked.

Bran and Sansa shook their heads.

She already knew that. These young ones knew nothing of ships like this one, especially not from this pre-industrial world, so Mara prepared them for what was to come.

Mara pointed to the harnesses. “This latch keeps you in the seat. The red lights belong to me. If you need something, speak before touching a control.”

Arya looked toward the glowing panels. “What if something breaks?”

“Then brace yourselves," she said. "The harness will keep you safe... and I see your eyes. The controls are not for you to touch."

On the main display, the red pulse glyph still throbbed, accusing her without a word. She moved to the console; her fingers danced over the glowing keys. The display revealed an Imperial identity tag. No sign of a recipient or response confirmed the outbound signal she hadn’t sent.

Mara pushed the unresolved fragments aside, focusing solely on the immediate threat.

“Why did the bells make you nervous?” Sansa asked.

Mara looked at her.

Nervous?

“When they rang,”Sansa continued. “I felt your hesitance.”

Not nervous. Alert. The correction came automatically. It did nothing to slow her pulse.

“You're imagining it.” Mara's tone stayed neutral. “Untrained Force-sensitives pick up impressions they can't read yet. That's all this is.”

Sansa’s brow furrowed and mumbled. “It still felt like nervousness.”

These children are becoming a problem.

She stepped toward Arya, pulled a small metallic disc from a compartment, and pressed it into the girl’s palm. “This tells me where you are. Keep it on you at all times. Do you understand?”

Arya gripped the device tightly. “I understand.” But her questions pressed on. “Like Master Luke and Robb, do you have a fire sword? Will you use it against the Ironborn?”

Mara paused, thrown by Arya's question. Interesting—Skywalker had already given his senior pupil a lightsaber. "I had one, once," she said, not knowing why she was being so open with these children. "It was lost long before I came here. The blaster will have to do and we'll put it to the test soon enough."

She slid into the pilot’s seat, the familiar contours embracing her, and checked the cabin seal, ramp, landing struts, repulsor coils, power, and navigation. Then she opened the emergency locker beneath the console and removed a compact field-med case. Inside were sealant mesh, coagulant, pain blockers, and a diagnostic wand—enough to stabilize a few wounded people until a healer arrived. The Fire had no troop bay.

Mara checked Arya's harness once more, then turned to Bran. "Brief them on everything."

Bran swallowed, his face pale against the glow of the controls. "We are going after the... Ironborn. I saw them attacking the Stony Shore, burning villages and killing people. Mara can help us get there right now and chase them away while Father is away."

Sansa gasped. "That's what you tried to tell Mother earlier. Why would you not tell—" She stopped, realizing how their mother would have reacted.

“Ah. But you still have to tell her you freed Mara,” Sansa said. “I will not tell her for you.”

The strange boy nodded firmly. "I will."

Mara held up a hand, silencing them. The children's promises and limits could wait.

She faced the cockpit once more, her eyes taking in the three young faces before her. "Enough chatter. We are not here for a pleasant ride. This is an operation and I am in command."

The iced-repulsor warning cleared. The ramp hissed shut, sealing them in as the vibration of the repulsor coils deepened through the deck.

"Brace." she said.

The ship lifted off, weight shifting in a powerful surge. Sansa seized the harness as a scream tore from her throat, swallowed at once. "We're falling!" "Flying," Bran corrected, voice already filled with wonder. "Faster!" Arya whooped, her delight sharp and unmistakable. "Go faster!"

Mara climbed hard to clear the Wolfswood canopy before turning west. The horizon rolled beneath them.

“Does it always tilt like this?" Sansa's polite tone gave way to a child's alarm. "Mother have mercy, I feel sick!"

"Look!" Bran exclaimed, pressing his face to the viewport as the dark canopy of the Wolfswood dropped away. "I climbed no higher than those trees. Now we’re above the birds!"

Arya laughed. "Forget the trees, the sea! I want to see the sea!"

The children's reaction wasn't exactly what she had hoped for, but seeing their delight still brought a small smile to her face.

“You like hearing us scream,” Sansa said, eyes squeezed shut.

"Ha. You'll learn to seize joy wherever you find it," Mara replied with a chuckle. She leveled the ship and set a course towards the western coast and shot off. The new screams was music to her ears.

*****

In less than an hour, the sea unfolded beneath them, a slate expanse whipped into froth where the longships had run aground. Mara skimmed the Fire low over the waves, eyes fixed on the black hulls tilted on the shore beneath their heavy sails as smoke billowed from the settlement Bran had glimpsed.

“We’re here,” Mara said. “Scanning.”

Her fingers moved across the console. Orange and red marks bloomed over the shoreline. Thin lines crawled inland from the ships, marking movement through the smoke.

“What is 'scanning'?” Bran asked.

“...The ship is looking for people. Bodies, heat, and movement.”

Arya leaned toward the viewport. “Can it tell which are raiders?”

“No. It shows me where people are. I have to decide what the rest means.”

Mara enlarged the feed. Smoke obscured the details, but the sensors painted a clearer picture of orange heat signatures clustered near the burning huts. Frantic movement flickered across the screen as bodies collided and fell. Mara adjusted the magnification until the grainy image resolved into iron-clad figures driving a smaller group before them. Blades rose and fell with no captives held in the cluster and only active aggression on display.

“I have the targets, taking them out,” she said, her finger stabbing the console to lock the cluster. She paused, looking at the three children and their expectant faces. “I don’t know what Skywalker taught you or shown you, but this won’t be pretty. Consider yourselves warned.”

She set the targeting reticle, and locked on. The Fire shuddered beneath Mara’s hand as green light punched through the rain and smoke, striking the beach in the middle of the raiders.

The effect was brutal and immediate. Sand exploded. The raid froze. Men at the center vanished into the glare, while those at the edge sprawled across the shore, their armor smoldering. Heat signatures winked out in a burst of superheated plasma.

Ironborn on the decks turned their faces toward the sky. One pointed his axe at Jade’s Fire, another dropped his weapon and ran for the surf. Along the settlement, smallfolk fell into the mud or dragged their children beneath carts and overturned boats, now more afraid of the ship then the raiders. The first strike had broken the raiders’ advance, but terror had flattened every distinction on the beach. Victim and attacker alike were running, and most were running toward the same twelve ships.

Her targeting array swept over the longships, revealing decks and holds crammed with heat signatures. In some, the display could only count the living bodies, unable to distinguish between raiders on the benches and captives chained beneath. Smoke and wet timber obscured any remaining separation.

A single longship lay isolated from the rest, with no sign of movement either on deck or below. Empty — the one hull she could spend freely, and every raider on the beach would watch it burn. Mara locked onto the stern. The cannon roared, and the stern exploded in a burst of flame that raced through the split planks before the keel settled at an awkward angle in the surf scattering the men fleeing towards it.

Bran looked along the remaining ships. “But they can still escape in those.”

“Not for long.”

Mara dialed back the cannon's output. The holds were packed, but she could still target several sterns. She aimed for the steering oars and rudders, focusing on the vulnerable wood that would fracture without endangering the captives inside.

The Fire's next pass spat bolts that shattered oars and tore rudders loose, spinning them into the shallows. Raiders slammed against the rails while captives froze in place. Mara adjusted her grip, keeping the bodies upright as she dragged the hull above the tide. Where she found exposed steering gear, she broke it. Where people crowded every firing angle, she used the tractor beam and grounded the hull.

By the third ship, the Ironborn had realized their vessels were now useless. Some abandoned the decks and fled inland, while others seized captives and held knives beneath their jaws, trusting living bodies where timber had failed them.

When she finished, one longship burned and the other eleven were crippled, grounded, or turned broadside to the surf. None could put to sea.

The third ship from the left remained the immediate problem. Mara could keep the hull grounded, but with prisoners crowded against its rails and others disappearing into the hold, her targeting display was a single mass of human heat. She could do nothing from the air about the knives.

Sansa leaned forward against her harness. “They’re using the small folk as shields! How cruel and cowardly!”

Mara dismissed the firing reticle and marked a landing lane behind the shingle ridge. “They are nothing more than pirates. And pirates are not known for their honor.”

Mara brought Jade’s Fire down behind a shingle ridge and opened the ramp.

Wet ash and burned flesh tainted the smoke as it poured through the open ramp, filling the cabin with its repulsive stench. Beyond the ridge, men's shouts rang out through the rain.

Mara released her harness and stood.

“All three of you stay aboard. And don't touch anything. I'll be done with these fools soon enough, and that will be the end of our deal--”

You will kill Luke Skywalker.

A cold, absolute command tore through her skull and sent Mara to her knees. She threw a hand out to brace herself against the wall, gasping as her lungs seized under the weight of a phantom grip. This was the old conditioning at work, a dead man’s voice rising from the grave to meet the surge of combat adrenaline and the raw power radiating from the children.

"Lady Mara!" "What wrong?" The girls asked in concern.

She forced the old echo down, locking the Emperor's ghost behind a wall of durasteel discipline. She controlled her own actions, not a voice. She blinked the afterimage of throne-room lightning from her eyes and forced herself upright, deliberately masking the tremor in her grip as she pushed off the wall. When she stood straight, Bran was watching her with a comprehension she did not want from him.

“It’s nothing you can help with,” she said.

“It's clearly something,” Arya said as she strained against the harness, unable to open the locking mechanism. "There are folks inside those ships and we could help bring them out. So..." She struggled with the harness some more. "HOW DO I GET OUT OF THIS!"

“You don't.” Mara checked the charge on her blaster and secured the field case inside the cabin for later. “You have power, but none of you can control it. I cannot fight the raiders and keep three children alive at the same time.”

Bran leaned forward against his restraint. “We would obey you.”

The boy believed that. Arya had already begun studying the open ramp, while Sansa looked from Mara to the smoke beyond the hatch and understood enough to be afraid.

“You will have the chance to prove it by remaining here.”

The ramp started retracting as Mara's foot hit the wet shingle, her thumb finding the remote on her wrist. She paused, waiting for the closing tone, before proceeding to cross the ridge.

From the top of the ridge, the whole field spread out below her. The sea to the west was grey under the rain, with twelve wrecked longships lined up along the shore. The one burning marked the southern end of the line. North of that, the rest had been either driven onto their sides or run aground above the tide line, their decks packed with raiders and captives. Between the ships and the village was open beach, strewn with overturned boats, drying racks, fishing nets, and bodies.

The settlement was still ablaze beyond the northernmost ships. Ironborn moved among the huts, driving villagers towards the shore while others scoured the houses for anything they could carry. Mara had prevented their escape but had not ended the raid.

Her route was clear. She would begin at the southern end of the beach, release the captives as she advanced along the ships, and then turn inland through the settlement. Anyone capable of fighting could reclaim an Ironborn weapon and follow.

A bareheaded Ironborn spotted her above him. He shouted a warning to his fellow pirates and charged up the slope with his sword raised over one shoulder.

Following the Falcon and finding Skywalker had been a simple enough mission, even with the command clawing at her mind. Now she had three children aboard her ship and a nameless village to defend. She had landed without an order, and the absence of one still disturbed her more than it should have.

Mara drew her blaster and shot him through the chest.

The bolt threw him onto his back and sent his sword tumbling into the surf. A second man beside an overturned boat had already nocked an arrow. Mara saw the bend of his bow, shifted before he released, and fired as the shaft passed through the space where she had stood. He collapsed against the hull behind him.

The screams of prisoners cut through the wind, rising from the nearest longship. Three Ironborn dragged captives between the beached hulls, knives shining at their throats. One pressed a boy against his mail, hoisting him until the child's feet could barely find purchase on the stones.

The raider retreated towards the listing ship, keeping the boy between himself and Mara. Only his head and the edge of one shoulder remained exposed. Mara moved sideways, forcing him to turn with her. His knife shifted from the child’s throat for less than a second.

Her shot struck beneath his eye.

The raider’s head snapped back as his grip opened. The boy fell to his knees, staring at Mara with his mouth agape as the dead man collapsed behind him.

“Close the jaw and run to the women,” Mara ordered.

The boy crawled a few paces before finding his feet and running toward the bound prisoners.

Another pirate emerged from behind a stack of broken oars, the edge of his axe dark with blood the rain had not yet washed away. Mara brought her weapon around. The man stopped so abruptly that his boots slid across the shingle, then released the axe and began raising his hands.

Beneath the pirate's feet lay a woman with the back of her skull split open, a child's body half-covered by her skirts, one small hand buried in the wet stones. The pirate's gaze tracked Mara's, then he spoke rapidly.

"It wasn't--"

Mara shot him in the head before his hands reached his shoulders.

Stepping over the fallen Ironborn, she scanned the netting stretched between the grounded longships, watching water run along the ropes and drops fall from the lead weights as wind ruffled the fabric, obscuring the narrow spaces between them. Her gaze lingered on those gaps and the prisoners being herded north.

The scrape of a boot on shingle reached her a beat too late, nearly lost beneath the surf and the groaning hulls. Mara turned and found an Ironborn within striking distance, his axe already raised. But he didn't get a chance to strike her as his forward leg wrenched sideways, preventing the blow. He struck the shingle shoulder-first, and the axe landed beside Mara’s boot.

The man rolled towards it and reached for the haft. Mara fired into his back, ending the motion several inches short of his target.

She kept the blaster upon him while examining the ground around his boots. No rope crossed his path, and nothing among the loose nets could have pulled his leg sideways with such force.

An unsettling feeling crept over Mara as she turned her gaze toward the ridge.

There, Bran stood beyond the outcrop, one arm extended toward the dead man, his feet spread across the uneven stones and his body leaning forward with the effort. When he realized she had seen him, he just gave her a little wave as if he hadn't stepped onto a battlefield.

She had left him restrained inside a sealed ship. Now he stood within bowshot of men who had murdered children on the beach, shaking so badly that his knees threatened to fold.

Mara crossed the distance, anger and gratefulness swirling within her.

“How did you get out? Why are you outside?!”

“Arya made me,” Bran said. “She slipped beneath the door while we were watching you. I only meant to fetch her back, I promise!”

Something shone in his closed hand. Mara took Arya’s locator disc from him.

“She left it beneath the little seat,” he continued. “Sansa tried to stop us, but Arya had already gone over the ridge.”

“Can you find her?”

Bran looked north along the beach. “Not when she hides herself.”

A deep sigh swirled inside Mara as she closed her fingers around the locator and looked toward Jade’s Fire. Two Ironborn had moved into the open ground between the ridge and the ship, neither close to a captive. She put a bolt through each before either understood he had been seen.

Bran’s alarm momentarily caught her attention, but she dismissed it, thumbing the remote to lower Jade’s Fire’s ramp.

“Go back aboard,” she told Bran. “I will bring Arya.”

His attention remained fixed upon the longships. “I only wished to help.”

“I know and you did. Now, go back to Sansa.”

Bran began crossing the open ground, but a movement caught her eye to his left. An Ironborn emerged with a short axe, his focus locked on the vulnerable boy.

Mara shot him from the ridge.

Bran winced as he kept moving toward the ship, Sansa appearing at the top of the ramp to catch his arm and pull him into the cabin. Mara closed the ramp remotely, holding off from turning north until the hatch sealed.

A small figure moved beneath the stern of the third ship from the southern end. Mara descended the seaward side of the ridge and crossed the beach towards it, at a walk that did not pause for the raider who rose from behind a broken steering oar. The deck above stood abandoned, its knife-men gone north with the captives they could drag. Arya crouched beside a low hatch cut into the hull, working Needle through the rope wound around its wooden bar. The cord had swollen in the rain until it was nearly as thick as her wrist.

"People are captive inside," Arya murmured, as if explaining her actions. "I heard them sobbing."

Rather than debate, Mara grasped the bar and yanked. The soaked wood resisted until she planted a boot on the hull and leaned into it, the bar snapping free and splinters flying across the rocky shore.

Arya opened the hatch.

The hold reeked of bilge water, stale fish, blood, and the terror emanating from the packed bodies beneath the deck, some bound at the wrists, others secured by ropes looped through the benches or around their ankles.

They recoiled from the daylight and when they saw Mara's blaster and unfamiliar clothing, several drew farther into the hold. Arya went down among them and knelt beside the nearest prisoner, saying, "I am Arya Stark. We have come to take you away from the ironmen."

The nearest woman continued staring at Mara but Arya word's seemed to get through to her. "Stark?"

“Yes,” Arya added. “Now let's get you out of here.”

That explanation did not appear to comfort anyone seeing as the Stark in question is a nine-year-old girl, but Arya had already begun cutting the woman’s bonds. The younger girl beside her watched thin sword move through the rope and eventually offered her own wrists.

Mara turned back towards the northern ships. Raiders were moving away from her position, carrying prisoners with them or seeking cover among the boats. She killed two who crossed open ground and forced a third behind the hull of the next vessel.

The first freed woman emerged from the hatch with the younger girl pressed against her side. Mara pointed towards the ridge.

“Take the children behind up the ridge. Anyone who can fight should collect the weapons from the dead.”

The woman looked down at the dead Ironborn scattered across the beach, then towards the burning settlement. “Thank you for saving us, m'lady. But my husband and my girls were among the houses when the Ironborn took me. I do not know what became of them.”

"If they are alive, they will be found. Move!"

More captives climbed from the hold as Arya freed them. A broad-shouldered fisherman retrieved a fallen axe, tested its weight, placed himself between the women and the ships, while two other men followed his example: one found a spear beside the dead archer, the other took a round shield and sword from the man Mara had killed near the oars.

Mara indicated the Ironborn sheltering behind the next hull. “Keep everyone behind this ship until I deal with him.”

Fear and exhaustion gripped the men, but weapons and the beach brought them focus. Mara advanced north to the bow of the lead ship, her blaster at the ready. The concealed raider broke cover in a desperate bid for the settlement. Her shot dropped him before he'd made it halfway, and she did not pause to confirm the kill, continuing her sweep along the waterline.

Behind her, the freed fishermen brought the remaining prisoners out of the first hold. Those unable to fight went towards the ridge with the children, while the others followed Mara at a distance.

With the route to the ridge secured, Mara opened a comms channel back to the ship.

“Sansa, I’m lowering the ramp. Bring the silver medical case to the inside of the ridge. The wounded will come to you there.”

Sansa answered after a pause. “Is Bran to remain aboard?”

“Yes. I can only handle one of you at a time. Do not let him follow you.”

“...I shall not.”

Mara lowered the ramp remotely and watched Sansa emerge, the girl carrying the field case with both arms as she crossed toward the ridge. Mara waited until she reached cover to seal the ship again. As the armed villagers watched her approach, Mara placed the case on the stones and opened it to show Sansa the contents.

“The blue packets contain sealant mesh. Put it over any wound that will not stop bleeding and press until it tightens. Use the white injector only if someone cannot remain still from the pain.”

Sansa studied each item before looking towards the growing line of wounded people. “And if I do not know what is wrong with them?”

“Keep them warm and wait for me. The case can tell me more when I return.”

An older woman limped toward them with blood running down one leg, and Sansa took her arm to help her sit behind the stones.

“This is a healing box,” Sansa said, her voice gaining strength once Mara gave a sharp nod of approval. She looked back to the woman’s wound. “The bandages are not like ours, but they will stop the blood.”

Mara carved a path north through the surf and ridge, gutting each beached hull and its perimeter, slaying any Ironborn that lingered. Once the area was hers, she beckoned the villagers forward, ordering them to open holds and cut bindings. As the freed folk streamed back to Sansa, they stripped the fallen of their steel, forging a line of armed survivors in Mara’s wake.

The Ironborn tried to use prisoners as shields when they could. Mara changed position rather than fire through them, finding new angles between the gaps in the hulls and the overturned boats. One raider backed toward the surf with a knife beneath a woman’s chin, but a fisherman threw a broken oar at his legs. When the man stumbled, Mara shot him above the woman’s shoulder. Another raider tried to climb onto a grounded deck to loose arrows from behind the mast, but the raised position only exposed him to a shot from the beach.

By the final longship, the prisoners no longer awaited Mara's arrival. Freed villagers moved from hull to hull behind her, opening hatches and cutting bindings while those with weapons guarded the path toward the ridge. The raid had begun with the Ironborn driving the settlement toward the sea. Now, the movement had reversed. The remaining raiders withdrew toward the burning houses.

Mara followed the path beside the drying shed as it curved inland. Smoke blanketed the settlement, but the fire had not consumed every building. The southern drying racks and three thatched huts were ablaze, while the northern homes and low stone storehouses stayed intact under their wet turf roofs.

The Ironborn had abandoned their search for plunder. Split sacks lay strewn across the lane, spilling their contents into the mud—grain, iron tools, winter clothing. One group had fled north along the track, leaving the rest to retreat into the surviving buildings with their captives. Behind barred doors and narrow windows, they watched the shore, arrows ready to fly at any villager who dared cross the open lane.

The woman with the missing husband and children caught up to Mara, who carried the dead man's sword. Smoke and rain had streaked her face black, and one sleeve hung open where a blade had cut the cloth. A few steps into the settlement, she stopped.

Beside a shattered drying frame lay a man with one side of his tunic charred and his skull split by an axe.

“No!”

She went down beside him and caught his shoulder, heedless of the blood and ash staining her hands. When she tried to turn him, his head moved loosely against the stones. She released him at once and sat back upon her heels.

“He said he would keep them hidden.” Her fingers closed around the burned cloth at his sleeve. “He told me to run when they came through the door. He said he would find the girls.”

The sound she made was harsher than weeping. Bent over her husband's body, she stayed still as villagers moved by, recognizing him and looking away. Mara let her have a moment to collect herself before crouching down beside her.

“Your daughters may still be alive. Where would your husband have taken them?”

The woman raised her head and looked towards the surviving buildings, struggling to see through the smoke. “The net house, perhaps. There is stone there, and no thatch to burn. Or the fish shed. I do not know.”

“Call their names,” Mara said. “If they can hear you, they may answer.”

The woman took up the sword again and forced herself to stand. Her first attempt produced scarcely any sound. She wiped her mouth against her sleeve, faced the northern storehouses, and shouted both daughters’ names.

“Mother!” A scream tore from one of the sheds, followed by a man's shout from within. The child's cry ended abruptly amid the sound of scuffling.

The woman turned towards the net house. “That was my youngest!”

Mara scanned the low stone building, noting how its turf roof remained untouched by the fire while a broken fishing boat leaned against one wall, narrowing the passage beside it. An Ironborn watched the lane through the half-open doorway, keeping most of his body behind the sheltering stone.

The child's answer had confirmed what mattered: at least one daughter remained alive inside, though Mara could not count them through the stone walls.

Mara looked towards the armed villagers who had followed her from the beach. “Two of you go with her. Stay out of sight and wait beside the rear door. Do not enter while the raiders hold the children.”

The woman took two fishermen and led them around behind the adjoining huts. Mara kept to the main lane, where anyone watching from the net house could see her advancing towards them. An Ironborn appeared at the corner, bow drawn. Mara's blaster fired before he could release the arrow, the bolt hurling him into the stone.

The rear door opened slowly, and an Ironborn backed into the passage with one arm locked across a girl’s chest and his knife pressed beneath her jaw. He held her head beside his own, keeping his body hidden behind hers, while a second raider followed close enough to share the same cover. A thin line of blood appeared beneath the blade.

“Cast down the magic bow,” the captor called, turning with Mara whenever she changed position. “Else the girl dies.”

Mara kept the blaster trained upon them. “Let her go and I will let you walk away.”

Neither man believed her, nor should they have. Mara could hit the knife hand, but death might close its grip before releasing it, while the girl’s head blocked any shot at the captor’s face.

Her focus stayed locked on the knife, blind to Arya's emergence from between the fish shed and net house. The girl came up behind her captor, driving Needle beneath his mail with both hands. The Ironborn cried out as his grip on the knife loosened, his reach behind himself to defend against this new threat. Arya dropped into the mud and crawled toward her mother, passing beneath the raider's legs. Only then did Mara fire, her shot hitting the man's chest and throwing him backward against the stone wall.

One of the waiting fishermen drove a stolen spear into the second raider's side, pinning him against the net house as he turned to face Arya with his axe raised. Meanwhile, the last Ironborn at the front door abandoned his post and fled into the lane. Mara tracked his movement through the smoke and killed him before he could reach the northern huts.

The woman dropped her stolen sword and pulled both daughters close, pressing one hand over the shallow cut beneath the younger girl’s jaw. Arya remained beside the rear door, blood streaking her fingers as she stared at Needle where it lay beneath the dead man.

“He would have killed her,” Recognizing this was Arya's first time attacking anything, Mara retrieved the sword and offered it hilt-first. “Go to Sansa. Take them with you.”

"Hmm... I'll see if Sansa needs help." The girl replied, almost in a daze and walked away.

Resistance pockets dotted the northern end of the settlement. Mara picked them off one by one from a distance as her gaze swept the scene for any hint of movement. Villagers kept the Ironborn off balance, flitting between shadows to block the raiders' lines of retreat. Those who broke cleanly for the woods died in the open while those who took cover were snared one by one as the smoke swirled thicker. At the settlement's northern edge, the last organized group of Ironborn attempted to break inland, still carrying axes, shields, and bundles taken from the houses. No prisoners remained among them.

Mara followed them beyond the final hut and shot the last man before he reached the coastal track.

When she returned to the settlement, armed men guarded the paths leading north and south. Women and older children carried water to the burning roofs, while others searched the ships and houses for anyone still trapped.

Several Ironborn had escaped inland before Mara completed the sweep, leaving no living raiders on the beach or among the huts. She would deal with them from the air once the children were aboard.

Mara returned along the inland path towards the ridge. The villagers had laid their wounded in rows sheltered from the rain, leaving space between them for Sansa to move. The girl knelt beside the fisherman struck by the spear. Sealant mesh covered the wound below his ribs, but blood continued seeping around its edges. His sister held one hand. Sansa held the other.

“He was speaking before,” Sansa told Mara. “He said his sister’s name, and then he...”

Mara passed the diagnostic wand over him. The display found no heartbeat. “He’s dead.”

Sansa pressed both hands over the sealant mesh, her gaze fixed on the fisherman’s face. “No, no. I held it like you showed me and the bleeding has stopped.” She waited for some sign of change, but none came. “Can the healing box wake him? Or the Force? Can I do nothing?!”

Mara crouched and gently drew Sansa’s hands away from the wound. “No. You did what you could, but the spear went too deep.”

The fisherman’s sister bent over their joined hands. Sansa stayed beside her, transfixed by the blood drying across her fingers. Mara did not order her away. Instead, she moved among the other wounded, sealing what injuries she could while Sansa remained with the dead man and his sister.

The fisherman's hand twitched.

Sansa leaned toward him. "He's waking—"

And his eyes opened on nothing, a pale and wrong shade of blue. His fingers closed around her wrist hard enough to tear a cry from her. Mara wrenched Sansa free and put herself between them; the dead man's sister scrambled back on her own.

The dead man rose with the sealed wound still spread across his side, his movements stiff and without balance. Mara shot the corpse through the chest. The bolt threw it backwards, but it began moving again before it had settled upon the stones. Its fingers dug into the shingle as it tried to drag itself towards the living.

The villagers flinched back. Some raised stolen Ironborn weapons, yet none dared approach.

What the hell... Mara thought, her mind reeling.

Mara increased the blaster’s output and fired into the body until its clothing and the sealant mesh caught fire. The corpse continued crawling for several seconds before the flames took hold. At last it collapsed and remained still.

No one spoke while it burned.

Mara looked across the dead scattered between the ridge, ships, and settlement. There were too many to watch individually, and she no longer knew how long they would remain dead.

“All of you, listen fast! Gather every body,” she told the armed villagers. “Grather everbody, Ironborn and your own, and burn them before another one rises. Burn them now!”

A grey-haired fisherman stared at the flames. “Our dead are given to the sea.”

“Not today!”

The man looked towards the corpse and called for torches. The villagers began gathering the dead with boat hooks and lengths of rope. Sansa remained beside Mara, one hand gripped around the wrist the dead man had seized.

When the pyre was burning strongly, Mara opened Jade’s Fire with her wrist control and ordered the girls aboard. Bran waited within the hatch. Arya looked back towards the captives she had helped free, while Sansa passed her brother without raising her eyes. Mara followed them inside and sealed the ship.

Bran's initial remark upon entering the ship offered little comfort to Mara.

"Something is wrong, very, very wrong with the Wall."

--------------------------------------------------------

Shadow Tower, The Wall

The field beneath Shadow Tower bore the scars of a vanished host, its trampled snow frozen into grey ruts, abandoned fire pits smoking among heaps of broken harness. Days after Luke and Robb had flown south, the road into the Gift was dark with Free Folk moving towards the castles promised to them. Those still camped beneath the Wall were the sick, the wounded, and the families waiting for space upon the last supply wagons.

Benjen found Denys Mallister beside the pyre, where three bodies lay on timber. Mance and Tormund flanked him. A little apart, the Weeper cleaned his axe, scraping away old blood, as the four men debated the carts left at Shadow Tower.

“The ice fell twice in the night,” Denys pointed towards the blue-white fragments scattered beneath the Wall. “I want the ground cleared before another piece comes down.”

Mance watched two women carry a wounded man from the healer’s shelter. “Some of them will die where they lie if we take the tents from over them. We have used every sound wagon.”

“Twelve more beside the west storehouse,” Tormund told them. “Six with horses. Put men in the straps for the rest and they’ll curse us all the way south, but they’ll pull.”

“Those wagons contain the greater part of our grain.” Denys drew his cloak more tightly around himself. “Once the host leaves here, we shall have little means of recovering anything abandoned.”

Benjen surveyed the camp. Further south, men hastily dismantled tents while the wounded huddled outside the healer’s shelter, blankets clutched around their shoulders.

“Empty six wagons. Load the grain onto the others and carry what will fit.”

The Weeper spat into the snow. “A man with two sound arms can drag himself. My fighters have hauled old women and cripples--"

The sound from the Wall began before the Weeper could finish his words.

Benjen had heard the ice shift in winter and groan beneath the first warmth of spring, but this sound came from some deeper place. The ground trembled beneath his feet as frost whispered across the stone and the chains within the tunnel clashed against one another.

Every horse and animal in the camp began screaming. But it wasn't just the animals, as screams broke out through out the camps.

The first corpse tumbled from the pyre onto its shoulder, pulling itself up as its burial cloth snagged on the timber. The other two rose after it. One, half its face eaten away by fever, fixed her remaining blue eye upon the living.

The pyre keeper remained rooted nearest, torch gripped tight, just gawking.

“Fool! Use the fire!” Benjen drew his sword as the dead man seized the keeper and dragged him backwards against the timber. They fell together, the wight's teeth sinking into his cheek before Benjen hacked at it, cleaving it in two. The halves went on clawing at the snow until Mance's torch found the timber beneath them.

Mance snatched up the fallen torch and thrust it among the split timber. “Leave everything! Put the wounded on the wagons and make for the road!”

Tormund pushed through the crowd around the shelter, driving them south with his arms and the flat of his blade. "The dead can breach the Wall! Take the little ones and move, you deaf fools!"

Denys drew his own blade to lead the charge. “Brothers, upon me. Keep the fire between the dead and the road.”

The corpse of a woman lunged for her daughter. Benjen seized the hide from the dead legs and wrenching hard, he tore the body down before its hands could lock onto the living. His blade pinned it through the spine to the frozen ground, fingernails still scoring the snow, until a brother came running with a torch.

More cries rose among the tents.

The newly dead were waking wherever they lay. A man with a bandaged belly tore through the side of the healer’s shelter while two children fled, their father striking him across the neck with a wood axe. The corpse merely turned back until a spearwife drove a spear through its spine while another burned it.

Smoke rolled low across the camp as the wind gained strength. Benjen watched dark figures move between the tents, their eyes gleaming with a cold blue light whenever they turned toward the fires.

“Bring the torches along the road. Keep them from the wagons!”

Mance carried the order to his chiefs. Free Folk fighters bent their line around the wounded and yielded ground as the families passed behind them, while Denys held the Watch beside the burning yard where the recent dead had been gathered.

The Weeper broke from the flank as two wights emerged through the smoke. His axe took the first through the knee and split the second from shoulder to breast, but both fell only to keep coming for him.

“Back to the fire!” Benjen’s warning vanished beneath the tumult.

The Weeper hacked at the corpse clinging to his leg until the other rose behind him and fastened its hands upon his cloak. Its teeth closed upon his throat, and he disappeared beneath the dead.

The Wall groaned again.

A seam opened across its southern face. Ice sheared away above the tunnel and fell through the roof of the outer winch house, driving snow and shattered timber across the yard. Men went down beneath the wreckage, and one of the gate chains snapped with a crack that carried above the screaming.

The surviving chain jerked hard against the stone until the winch finally caught. The gate settled at a crooked angle across the tunnel mouth and left only a narrow gap beneath the heavy timbers.

Benjen returned to the camp as the dead were forced back to the burning ground. They crawled among the pyres with their clothing aflame until the fire fully engulfed them. The cries among the tents diminished while the last shelters were searched and the wounded carried onto the road.

Tormund stood over the Weeper with his beard red from frozen blood and a sleeve torn where dead fingers had gripped him. The Weeper’s ruined throat moved as his eyes opened blue beneath wet strands of hair.

Tormund watched him struggle onto one elbow, then lowered a torch into his lap. “Even if he was a cunt, he died a warrior.”

The fire took hold of the Weeper’s furs. Tormund waited until the body stopped thrashing, then turned to help carry the wounded.

“Count the living first,” Benjen ordered. “Every corpse goes onto the fire.”

A black brother gestured from the lift cage and called for Benjen to come up. The iron box had survived the fall but it shuddered against the ice all through the ascent. When Benjen climbed onto the height the wind caught his cloak and filled his mouth with snow.

A white curtain swallowed the hills and highest pines as black cloud rolled above the forest, covering half the northern sky. The thin blue light that remained was all the daylight there was.

Denys stepped from the cage behind him. His white beard whipped across the silver eagle fastening his cloak. “The north watch cannot outrun that.”

“No, not just the North. The realm cannot outrun this. Sound the horns, we are heading south.”