Jon walked to the edge of the Wall and gazed down upon the killing ground where Mance Rayder’s host had died. He wondered where Mance was now. Did he ever find you, little sister? Or were you just a ploy he used so I would set him free?

It had been so long since he had last seen Arya. What would she look like now? Would he even know her? Arya Underfoot. Her face was always dirty. Would she still have that little sword he’d had Mikken forge for her? Stick them with the pointy end, he’d told her. Wisdom for her wedding night if half of what he heard of Ramsay Snow was true. Bring her home, Mance. I saved your son from Melisandre, and now I am about to save four thousand of your free folk. You owe me this one little girl.

In the haunted forest to the north, the shadows of the afternoon crept through the trees. The western sky was a blaze of red, but to the east the first stars were peeking out. Jon Snow flexed the fingers of his sword hand, remembering all he’d lost. Sam, you sweet fat fool, you played me a cruel jape when you made me lord commander. A lord commander has no friends.

“Lord Snow?” said Leathers. “The cage is coming up.”

“I hear it.” Jon moved back from the edge.

First to make the ascent were the clan chiefs Flint and Norrey, clad in fur and iron. The Norrey looked like some old fox—wrinkled and slight of build, but sly-eyed and spry. Torghen Flint was half a head shorter but must weigh twice as much—a stout gruff man with gnarled, red-knuckled hands as big as hams, leaning heavily on a blackthorn cane as he limped across the ice. Bowen Marsh came next, bundled up in a bearskin. After him Othell Yarwyck. Then Septon Cellador, half in his cups.

“Walk with me,” Jon told them. They walked west along the Wall, down gravel-strewn paths toward the setting sun. When they had come fifty yards from the warming shed, he said, “You know why I’ve summoned you. Three days hence at dawn the gate will open, to allow Tormund and his people through the Wall. There is much we need to do in preparation.”

Silence greeted his pronouncement. Then Othell Yarwyck said, “Lord Commander, there are thousands of—”

“—scrawny wildlings, bone weary, hungry, far from home.” Jon pointed at the lights of their campfires. “There they are. Four thousand, Tormund claims.”

“Three thousand, I make them, by the fires.” Bowen Marsh lived for counts and measures. “More than twice that number at Hardhome with the woods witch, we are told. And Ser Denys writes of great camps in the mountains beyond the Shadow Tower …”

Jon did not deny it. “Tormund says the Weeper means to try the Bridge of Skulls again.”

The Old Pomegranate touched his scar. He had gotten it defending the Bridge of Skulls the last time the Weeping Man had tried to cut his way across the Gorge. “Surely the lord commander cannot mean to allow that … that demon through as well?”

“Not gladly.” Jon had not forgotten the heads the Weeping Man had left him, with bloody holes where their eyes had been. Black Jack Bulwer, Hairy Hal, Garth Greyfeather. I cannot avenge them, but I will not forget their names. “But yes, my lord, him as well. We cannot pick and choose amongst the free folk, saying this one may pass, this one may not. Peace means peace for all.”

The Norrey hawked and spat. “As well make peace with wolves and carrion crows.”

“It’s peaceful in my dungeons,” grumbled Old Flint. “Give the Weeping Man to me.”

“How many rangers has the Weeper killed?” asked Othell Yarwyck. “How many women has he raped or killed or stolen?”

“Three of mine own ilk,” said Old Flint. “And he blinds the girls he does not take.”

“When a man takes the black, his crimes are forgiven,” Jon reminded them. “If we want the free folk to fight beside us, we must pardon their past crimes as we would for our own.”

“The Weeper will not say the words,” insisted Yarwyck. “He will not wear the cloak. Even other raiders do not trust him.”

“You need not trust a man to use him.” Else how could I make use of all of you? “We need the Weeper, and others like him. Who knows the wild better than a wildling? Who knows our foes better than a man who has fought them?”

“All the Weeper knows is rape and murder,” said Yarwyck.

“Once past the Wall, the wildlings will have thrice our numbers,” said Bowen Marsh. “And that is only Tormund’s band. Add the Weeper’s men and those at Hardhome, and they will have the strength to end the Night’s Watch in a single night.”

“Numbers alone do not win a war. You have not seen them. Half of them are dead on their feet.”

“I would sooner have them dead in the ground,” said Yarwyck. “If it please my lord.”

“It does not please me.” Jon’s voice was as cold as the wind snapping at their cloaks. “There are children in that camp, hundreds of them, thousands. Women as well.”

“Spearwives.”

“Some. Along with mothers and grandmothers, widows and maids … would you condemn them all to die, my lord?”

“Brothers should not squabble,” Septon Cellador said. “Let us kneel and pray to the Crone to light our way to wisdom.”

“Lord Snow,” said The Norrey, “where do you mean to put these wild-lings o’ yours? Not on my lands, I hope.”

“Aye,” declared Old Flint. “You want them in the Gift, that’s your folly, but see they don’t wander off or I’ll send you back their heads. Winter is nigh, I want no more mouths to feed.”

“The wildlings will remain upon the Wall,” Jon assured them. “Most will be housed in one of our abandoned castles.” The Watch now had garrisons at Icemark, Long Barrow, Sable Hall, Greyguard, and Deep Lake, all badly undermanned, but ten castles still stood empty and abandoned. “Men with wives and children, all orphan girls and any orphan boys below the age of ten, old women, widowed mothers, any woman who does not care to fight. The spearwives we’ll send to Long Barrow to join their sisters, single men to the other forts we’ve reopened. Those who take the black will remain here, or be posted to Eastwatch or the Shadow Tower. Tormund will take Oakenshield as his seat, to keep him close at hand.”

Bowen Marsh sighed. “If they do not slay us with their swords, they will do so with their mouths. Pray, how does the lord commander propose to feed Tormund and his thousands?”

Jon had anticipated that question. “Through Eastwatch. We will bring in food by ship, as much as might be required. From the riverlands and the stormlands and the Vale of Arryn, from Dorne and the Reach, across the narrow sea from the Free Cities.”

“And this food will be paid for … how, if I may ask?”

With gold, from the Iron Bank of Braavos, Jon might have replied. Instead he said, “I have agreed that the free folk may keep their furs and pelts. They will need those for warmth when winter comes. All other wealth they must surrender. Gold and silver, amber, gemstones, carvings, anything of value. We will ship it all across the narrow sea to be sold in the Free Cities.”

“All the wealth o’ the wildlings,” said The Norrey. “That should buy you a bushel o’ barleycorn. Two bushels, might be.”

“Lord Commander, why not demand that the wildlings give up their arms as well?” asked Clydas.

Leathers laughed at that. “You want the free folk to fight beside you against the common foe. How are we to do that without arms? Would you have us throw snowballs at the wights? Or will you give us sticks to hit them with?”

The arms most wildlings carry are little more than sticks, thought Jon. Wooden clubs, stone axes, mauls, spears with fire-hardened points, knives of bone and stone and dragonglass, wicker shields, bone armor, boiled leather. The Thenns worked bronze, and raiders like the Weeper carried stolen steel and iron swords looted off some corpse … but even those were oft of ancient vintage, dinted from years of hard use and spotted with rust.