A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Jon VII
The dead rangers come back in the night: a wight with black hands and blue eyes; Jon's torch and Ghost's teeth save the Old Bear.
The chapter retold
Beyond the Wall on a ranging, two of the party's own dead ÔÇö men who died on this very expedition ÔÇö rise in the black of night and attack the sleeping camp, cold-handed and blue-eyed in exactly the manner the prologue warned the whole book about, though almost no one at Castle Black believed it. Jon, quicker than the panicking men around him, seizes a burning torch and drives the wight back long enough to save Lord Commander Mormont's life, with Ghost's teeth finishing what the fire started.
The chapter is the book's second and far more immediate proof ÔÇö after the wordless prologue chapters ago ÔÇö that the threat beyond the Wall is not superstition Old Nan tells to frighten children, but a real and present danger that the Night's Watch, undermanned and disbelieved by the rest of the realm, is nearly the only institution left prepared to face at all. Jon's quick thinking here does more to earn Mormont's trust than any amount of formal training could, and it starts to explain why the posting to steward, which stung him so badly earlier, is turning into exactly the kind of proximity to real danger and real decisions that a ranger's life alone would never have offered him.
This movement: The Wolf Calls the Banners
- The Stark household is slaughtered; Arya escapes through the Red Keep's cellars with Needle; Sansa pleads for her father's life.
- Robb calls the banners; the Greatjon learns about direwolves and fingers; the host marches for the Neck.
- Catelyn wins the Twins' bridge from Walder Frey at the price of marriage promises.
- Beyond the Wall, dead men rise in Castle Black itself; Jon's torch and Ghost save the Old Bear.