A Feast for Dragons

would sing of his deeds and pretty girls would
kiss him.
When I am grown I will be the King-Beyond-the-Wall
,
Lump had promised himself. He never had, but he had come close. Varamyr
Sixskins was a name men feared. He rode to battle on the back of a snow bear
thirteen feet tall, kept three wolves and a shadowcat in thrall, and sat at the
right hand of Mance Rayder.
It was Mance who brought me
to
this place. I should not have listened. I should have slipped inside my bear
and torn him to pieces
.
    Before Mance, Varamyr Sixskins had been a lord of sorts. He
lived alone in a hall of moss and mud and hewn logs that had once been
Haggon’s, attended by his beasts. A dozen villages did him homage in bread and
salt and cider, offering him fruit from their orchards and vegetables from
their gardens. His meat he got himself. Whenever he desired a woman he sent his
shadowcat to stalk her, and whatever girl he’d cast his eye upon would follow
meekly to his bed. Some came weeping, aye, but still they came. Varamyr gave
them his seed, took a hank of their hair to remember them by, and sent them
back. From time to time, some village hero would come with spear in hand to
slay the beastling and save a sister or a lover or a daughter. Those he killed,
but he never harmed the women. Some he even blessed with children.
Runts.
Small, puny things, like Lump, and not one with the gift
.
    Fear drove him to his feet, reeling. Holding his side to
staunch the seep of blood from his wound, Varamyr lurched to the door and swept
aside the ragged skin that covered it to face a wall of white.
Snow
.
No wonder it had grown so dark and smoky inside. The falling snow had buried
the hut.
    When Varamyr pushed at it, the snow crumbled and gave way,
still soft and wet. Outside, the night was white as death; pale thin clouds
danced attendance on a silver moon, while a thousand stars watched coldly. He
could see the humped shapes of other huts buried beneath drifts of snow, and
beyond them the pale shadow of a weirwood armored in ice. To the south and west
the hills were a vast white wilderness where nothing moved except the blowing
snow. “Thistle,” Varamyr called feebly, wondering how far she could have gone.
“Thistle.
Woman. Where are you?”
    Far away, a wolf gave howl.
    A shiver went through Varamyr. He knew that howl as well as
Lump had once known his mother’s voice.
One Eye
. He was the
oldest of his three, the biggest, the fiercest. Stalker was leaner, quicker,
younger, Sly more cunning, but both went in fear of One Eye. The old wolf was
fearless, relentless, savage.
    Varamyr had lost control of his other beasts in the agony of
the eagle’s death. His shadowcat had raced into the woods, whilst his snow bear
turned her claws on those around her, ripping apart four men before falling to
a spear. She would have slain Varamyr had he come within her reach. The bear hated
him, had raged each time he wore her skin or climbed upon her back.
    His wolves, though …
    My brothers. My pack
. Many a cold night he
had slept with his wolves, their shaggy bodies piled up around him to help keep
him warm.
When I die they will feast upon my flesh and leave only bones
to greet the thaw come spring
. The thought was queerly comforting. His
wolves had often foraged for him as they roamed; it seemed only fitting that he
should feed them in the end. He might well begin his second life tearing at the
warm dead flesh of his own corpse.
    Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so
close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog’s skin was like
putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to
accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye
could see. Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf,
but no man could truly
tame
a wolf. “Wolves and women wed for
life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of
you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
    Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared.
Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey;
wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears,
boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins
you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the
worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth.