A Dance with Dragons ÔÇö Jon XI
Tormund's thousands pass the Wall in a long cold line, giants and mammoths and all; Jon counts eight thousand mouths, three thousand spears ÔÇö and one letter from Hardhome that curdles the blood.
The chapter retold
TormundÔÇÖs host finally crosses through the Wall, a slow, cold parade of thousands ÔÇö spearwives and children, giants leading mammoths, old men who remember a version of the free folk that predates Mance RayderÔÇÖs crown ÔÇö and Jon counts them as they pass with the flat, exhausted precision of a man who knows exactly how thin his margins have gotten: eight thousand mouths to feed against three thousand spears he can actually field. A letter arrives from Hardhome in the middle of the counting, and whatever it says curdles the moment entirely.
The chapter delivers, at last, the payoff of JonÔÇÖs whole wildling policy ÔÇö thousands of lives saved, an alliance made real rather than theoretical ÔÇö while simultaneously undercutting any sense of triumph with the letterÔÇÖs unspecified horror, a device the book uses expertly to keep dread ahead of relief. Whatever happened at Hardhome, itÔÇÖs bad enough that even Jon, hardened by a bookÔÇÖs worth of grim news, needs the chapter to end before the reader learns exactly what it says.
This movement: The Harpy's Bargain
- Dany weds Hizdahr zo Loraq to still the knives; the fighting pits reopen with a queen presiding.
- In Daznak's Pit the locusts are poisoned and the crowd screams ÔÇö for Drogon, descended on the sand. Dany mounts him and is gone.
- Quentyn Martell tries to steal a dragon with a whip and burns for the family words.
- Barristan Selmy takes the city in hand, arrests Hizdahr, and readies Meereen for the Yunkish war outside the walls.