5. The Wall [S08E03]

“I have done all I can,” said Samwell Tarly, his eyes in Jon’s direction, yet highly conscious of the beast besides. “Dragonbone is as strong as steel, and it heals quickly. All the wound needs now is exercise.”

At Jon’s earnest request, Sam had attended to the dragon from day to dusk. He knew it was, by far and away, their strongest weapon in the coming war, but that did not stop him from being petrified. “They are fickle, capricious beasts,” Sam pleaded, when Jon had told him what was to be done. “If a flake falls on it the wrong way, it may in anger eat the fat man in front of him.”

But Jon would have none of it. At most, he offered to stand with Sam as he treated the dragon, but that was it. Initially, Rhaegal growled and snapped at the sight of him, but it reduced in regularity as days passed. No sudden movements, Sam repeated to himself, as his hands shivered only partly from the cold.

When he was done, Jon and Sam set to removing the feeble chains that held the dragon. Samwell insisted on it. “Rhaegal needs to spread its wings to heal quicker. He will be smart enough to know not to fly north of the Wall. Don’t worry,” he ended, smiling, “I’m not saying this because I want to be as far away from it as possible!”

Jon let loose an involuntary chuckle, for what seemed the first time in years. “I’ve missed you, Sam,” he said, as Rhaegal flew away. “Best let lose all that wit before there’s no time to,” he ended, in a tone of rue.

“There will be enough time,” Sam replied earnestly, continuing with a stream of encouragements. “We have a thousand men at Castle Black right now – that’s many more than the time we faced Mance Rayder! Soon, six-thousand of your northern army will join us from Barrowton, and Queen Daenerys promised you a thousand-and-twenty men of the Reach, did she not?” Sam’s voice grew stronger as he saw Jon’s eyes lighten. “Edd even managed to mine the dragonglass at Skagos. We now have weapons of obsidian. And if all that were not enough, Jon, we have a dragon!”

“So do they,” Jon replied, but in lesser duller tones than before. The message seemed to find the right ears. Sam persisted. “I could have fled from Oldtown with Gilly,” he said, “but we came back because we know that we will survive this. Me, the most petrified person in this castle, thinks there is a chance!” Sam did not know how much he believed what he said, but now was no time for total honesty.

The horn tooted. For a second, Sam fretted that the Walkers were at the Wall, cruelly undercutting his sanguinity, but it was not so. “From the south,” Jon said, as he moved to the tall doors at the rear of Castle Black’s yard.

When the doors opened, Sam saw two men he did not recognize. “Greetings,” the one on the left said, before Jon could ask who went there. An ugly black eyepatch dominated a heavily scarred face.

*

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