A Feast for Dragons

Jon
expected. Elsewise they came in every shape and size and color. He saw tall
boys and short boys, brown-haired boys and black-haired boys, honey blonds and
strawberry blonds and redheads kissed by fire, like Ygritte. He saw boys with
scars, boys with limps, boys with pockmarked faces. Many of the older boys had
downy cheeks or wispy little mustachios, but there was one fellow with a beard
as thick as Tormund’s. Some dressed in fine soft furs, some in boiled leather
and oddments of armor, more in wool and sealskins, a few in rags. One was naked.
Many had weapons: sharpened spears, stone-headed mauls, knives made of bone or
stone or dragonglass, spiked clubs, tanglenets, even here and there a
rust-eaten old sword. The Hornfoot boys walked blithe and barefoot through the
snowdrifts. Other lads had bear-paws on their boots and walked on top of the
same drifts, never sinking through the crust. Six boys arrived on horses, two
on mules. A pair of brothers turned up with a goat. The biggest hostage was
six-and-a-half feet tall but had a baby’s face; the smallest was a runty boy
who claimed nine years but looked no more than six.
    Of special note were the sons of men of renown. Tormund took
care to point them out as they went by. “The boy there is the son of Soren
Shieldbreaker,” he said of one tall lad. “Him with the red hair, he’s Gerrick
Kingsblood’s get. Comes o’ the line o’ Raymun Redbeard, to hear him tell it.
The line o’ Redbeard’s little brother, you want it true.” Two boys looked
enough alike to be twins, but Tormund insisted they were cousins, born a year
apart. “One was sired by Harle the Huntsman, t’other by Harle the Handsome,
both on the same woman. Fathers hate each other. I was you, I’d send one to
Eastwatch and t’other to your Shadow Tower.”
    Other hostages were named as sons of Howd Wanderer, of
Brogg, of Devyn Sealskinner, Kyleg of the Wooden Ear, Morna White Mask, the
Great Walrus …
    “The Great Walrus? Truly?”
    “They have queer names along the Frozen Shore.”
    Three hostages were sons of Alfyn Crowkiller, an infamous
raider slain by Qhorin Halfhand. Or so Tormund insisted. “They do not look like
brothers,” Jon observed.
    “Half-brothers, born o’ different mothers. Alfyn’s member
was a wee thing, even smaller than yours, but he was never shy with where he
stuck it. Had a son in every village, that one.”
    Of a certain runty rat-faced boy, Tormund said, “That one’s
a whelp of Varamyr Sixskins. You remember Varamyr, Lord Crow?”
    He did. “The skinchanger.”
    “Aye, he was that. A vicious little runt besides. Dead now,
like as not. No one’s seen him since the battle.”
    Two of the boys were girls in disguise. When Jon saw them,
he dispatched Rory and Big Liddle to bring them to him. One came meekly enough,
the other kicking and biting.
This could end badly
. “Do these
two have famous fathers?”
    “Har! Them skinny things? Not likely. Picked by lot.”
    “They’re girls.”
    “Are they?” Tormund squinted at the pair of them from his
saddle. “Me and Lord Crow made a wager on which o’ you has the biggest member.
Pull them breeches down, give us a look.”
    One of the girls turned red. The other glared defiantly.
“You leave us alone, Tormund Giantstink. You let us go.”
    “
Har!
You win, crow. Not a cock between ’em.
The little one’s got her a set o’ balls, though. A spearwife in the making,
her.” He called to his own men. “Go find them something girly to put on before
Lord Snow wets his smallclothes.”
    “I’ll need two boys to take their places.”
    “How’s that?” Tormund scratched his beard. “A hostage is a
hostage, seems to me. That big sharp sword o’ yours can snick a girl’s head off
as easy as a boy’s. A father loves his daughters too. Well, most fathers.”
    It is not their fathers who concern me
. “Did
Mance ever sing of Brave Danny Flint?”
    “Not as I recall. Who was he?”
    “A girl who dressed up like a boy to take the black. Her
song is sad and pretty. What happened to her wasn’t.” In some versions of the
song, her ghost still walked the Nightfort. “I’ll send the girls to Long
Barrow.” The only men there were Iron Emmett and Dolorous Edd, both of whom he
trusted. That was not something he could say of all his brothers.
    The wildling understood. “Nasty birds, you crows.” He spat.
“Two more boys, then. You’ll have them.”
    When nine-and-ninety hostages had shuffled by