Chapter 5

Next morning, Sasuke opened his eyes already knowing they would be having company soon. He could sense a group of men coming toward their direction from the south. Men as well as horses. 

Sasuke was never the best sensor. He depended mostly on Kakashi when a kid, then Orochimaru or one of his underlings during his time with the man, and finally Karin. 

But after gaining his Hashirama arm, Sasuke’s senses had grown sharper than ever before. Despite the four men approaching not having chakra, the wind was blowing from their direction and carrying their scent. 

From the knowledge he got from Tork the wildling, it wasn’t hard to figure out it was most likely men of the Night’s Watch. The people on this side of the Wall had a hard time raising animals like those of the south. The climate didn’t really make for good grazing fields and pastures.

He was about to wake the others when he noticed Dacey already staring up at him with one eye open. She looked at him in that way children did when they wanted something from you.

“Can you promise me you’ll take me home?” she asked.

For a second, Sasuke was taken aback by the earnestness in her voice. He doubted there was anything in this world that could stop him from doing something if he put his mind to it, but he didn’t go around giving promises for everyone.

“No.”

The girl pouted, and for a moment it looked like she was about to cry. Only for a sly smile to form on her face. “Please,” she started in her thin, childish voice. “Please, please, please, please.”

Sasuke stared down at her in horror. She continued to repeat the word, over and over until even the kids and Tilda woke up confused around them.

“Please, please, please…”

The tiny voice scratched at his ears like the nails of a chicken. Sasuke groaned. This was hell. A thousand times worse than fighting Kaguya. 

Maybe Itachi was right in killing their whole clan after all. If this is what children did to get what they wanted, wholesale slaughter sounded like a sensible solution. He narrowed his eyes at the girl, using the full might of his Uchiha scowl to intimidate her.

No reaction. She just kept going as if he wasn’t even there. “Please, please, please…”

Finally, after a full two minutes of torture, Sasuke couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Stop!”

The girl paused, looking at him expectantly. Her mouth was half-open as if threatening to continue with his torment. And were her eyes glinting in amusement?

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke said, “If you promise never to speak to me again, yes, I’ll take you home.”

Dacey scrunched her eyes as if deep in thought. Then she nodded her head.

“I promise to speak an appropriate amount for a child, but no more and no less,” she said.

“No negotiation,” Sasuke said. 

She smiled. “Please, please—”

“Fine,” he cut in. “I’ll take you home. Now get up, all of you. There’s people coming.”

That seemed to shock them all into compliance, even Dacey. They all clambered up to their feet, Tilda helping the youngest kids getting themselves sorted out. 

He turned away with a sigh. If this was what the Sage meant by helping others, Sasuke didn’t think he would get too far. His plan had been to leave the rescued kids with the Night’s Watch and continue his travels heading south. 

That was good enough, wasn’t it? 

Then again, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to stop by Bear Island. It wasn’t as if he had a fixed goal, at this point. He had to learn to live, wasn’t that the point? To see where life, with all its whims and twists, took him.

Soon the last of their fire was snuffed out by handfuls of snow and everyone that had to relieve themselves had done so. And right on time, too, as Sasuke heard the dull thudding sound of hooves stomping over snow.

The children heard it too. One of the boys shivered as he spoke, “Is it more wildlings?”

Dacey shook her head. “I don’t think wildlings have horses.”

A few minutes later four riders rode through the forest toward them at a slow canter. Sasuke figured it was to avoid injuring the animals. There wasn’t exactly a ton of foliage or undergrowth given the temperature, but the forest floor was thick with jutting roots and animal holes.

Upon finally seeing their group, the four riders pulled up on the reins. Hands went to sword hilts, and even from a distance Sasuke could see their eyes hardening as if expecting confrontation. 

One of them spoke with the others, and they must have noticed it was only one man, a young woman, and four children. They started to move closer again.

“The Night’s Watch,” the boy murmured with awe in his voice as they approached.

Another child threw both hands up in the air and shouted, “Here! We’re here!”

One of the men came closer than the others and dismounted. He looked to be in his late thirties, hair dark but already peppered with white held in a heavy braid. In Sasuke’s eyes, the man had the bearings of a serious warrior, tall and sharp and watchful.

The man looked over their group carefully. He spent longer watching Sasuke, gaze fixed on the sword at his hip, but his eyes seemed to soften once they passed over the children.

“You the folk taken from Bear Island?” he asked in a rough voice.

The children fell into happy sobs, nodding their heads. Tilda had tears in her eyes too, but they all kept quiet and looked to the little girl in their mix. 

“Yes, we are from Bear Island,” Dacey Mormont said. She drew herself up, as if she knew the expectation the others had of her. “We were taken from Fair Creek three weeks ago. They took us across the Bay of Ice, up the Frozen Shore and through the Skirling Pass, then turned south.” She swallowed. “I’m not so sure where we are now.”

A semblance of a smile made its way to the man’s face. “You would be Lady Dacey Mormont, then?” 

She nodded, proud for putting up a good showing of herself. 

“Good. I’m Qhorin, a ranger of the Night’s Watch,” he said. “Your grand-uncle will be happy to see you.” 

Then he turned to Sasuke and his eyes narrowed. 

xxx

Qhorin

“Now, then.” Qhorin turned to look at the man in front of the children. 

His eyes took note of everything: the cut of his clothes, the plain but well-kept sheath of his sword, the clean-shaven boyish but handsome face. The man was an enigma, something Qhorin had never encountered in his near decade of service with the Night’s Watch.

“Who might you be, boy?” he asked, intentionally prodding.

“Don’t look like no wildling I’ve ever seen,” Rorik said, coming closer on his horse. 

On the other side, Daven dismounted and nodded at the words. “If he’s a wildling then I’m the king of the Seven Kingdoms. I say his some essosi merchant them’ wildings took.”

“I am neither,” the strange man said.

Qhorin stared at him, trying to get his measure. His face was a blank mask seemingly devoid of any emotion. He hadn’t even twitched when Qhorin called him a boy, nor when the men spoke about him as if he wasn’t there.

Not a man easily provoked, then. 

“Not a wildling,” Qhorin allowed. “But despite dressing in our colors, you are no man of the Night’s Watch. Tell me, then, what are you doing here?”

The man’s black eyes narrowed. “My comings and goings are none of your concern.”

Rorik took that as a challenge. The browny ranger scowled and drew his sword in a single smooth movement. Though not the smartest, Qhorin had to admit Rorik was one of the best blades in the Watch, especially amongst the commonborn men. 

“We’re brothers of the Night’s Watch, stranger. A fish farts on this side of the Wall and it’s our concern, ya get?”

Despite the threat of a sword, the man didn’t even blink. In fact, he didn’t even turn to acknowledge Rorik, just kept his gaze fixed on Qhorin.

Qhorin felt a churn in his stomach. He’d been a ranger for years now, practically growing up on the Watch. After so many skirmishes and close encounters, he’d learned to listen to his gut. It was usually right and had saved his arse many a time.

Problem was, his gut wasn’t telling him shit right now. Nothing beyond a single word. 

Caution. 

The man was dangerous, he could tell. But there was something beyond that. A wariness coiling around him. The feeling a man might get when he encounters a new animal.

Was it friendly? Venomous? Predator or prey?

In his more rational mind, the man sounded more like a lordling than anything. But then, how would a man dressed like that end up on the wrong side of the Wall? 

And even if he was an Essosi that ended up shipwrecked here, which Qhorin thought he might have the look of a man from those far away lands, he was on the completely opposite side of the map for that to make sense. They were south of the Fist of the First Man, not by the Antlers or Storrold’s Point.

Enigma indeed.

Qhorin lifted a hand to stop Rorik. “No one matching your description passed through any of our gates recently. I would know,” he addressed the man. “If you’re not a wildling, then what are you?”

The man smirked, the first expression he’d seen from him. “An Uchiha.”

Qhorin raised an eyebrow. The word certainly sounded Essosi to his ears. 

Before the men could get offended at the man’s obscure answers again, Lady Mormont intervened.

“Stop being mysterious.” The girl huffed. “I’m not sure where he’s from, but he saved us from the wildlings yesterday. Killed all of them by himself in less than a minute.” Her voice held a tone of reverence to it, Qhorin noted.

Beside her, the oldest one, a girl in her teens spoke up. “It’s true, ser. He… he saved me from what they were going to do to me and did as the lady said.” The kids bobbed their heads in agreement.

Rorik scoffed. “He did, yeah? The letter we got from Bear Island said there were around ten men that attacked the village. A small raid, aye, but more than one man can handle. You need not repeat whatever lies he told you, m’lady.” 

The last ranger with him, Bain, rode up on his garron. “I can go check,” he said in that quiet voice of his. “If they travelled on foot, it shouldn’t take more than a half a day there and back.”

Before Qhorin could decide, the man spoke up. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

He tilted his head. “Why not, stranger?” 

“Afraid we’ll find something you won’t like?” Rorik gave him a nasty grin.

Again, the man looked to Qhorin instead of Rorik. He shrugged. “Go if you must. But one of the men had left the clearing before I arrived. He watched us from a distance last night and might be waiting in ambush, or checking his companion’s corpses.”

Lady Mormont gasped. “He did? Was that what you were looking at last night?”

The man nodded. “A man and some hounds to the northeast of the clearing.”

Hounds, Qhorin thought. A wildling roaming with animals like this usually meant one thing. A warg. A memory suddenly made its way to the forefront of his mind. A warg, yes, unless…

“Could you describe the man for me, my lady?” Qhorin asked.

“One of the wildlings called him Lant, I think, and he wears bones tied to his chest,” Lady Dacey said. “He’s not a big man, but the others respected and feared him enough to follow him.” 

Qhorin nodded. Not a warg, then, but perhaps someone worse. 

“He’s with Ygon Oldfather’s clan,” he told them. “Trying to make a name for himself, recently. I almost caught him last summer when he tried to cross the gorge with a Wull girl. Killed three of his men and the bastard killed the girl when she started fighting back.”

“Should I go?” Bain asked again. “I might be able to track him.”

Qhorin waved a hand. “Leave it.” 

It didn’t matter to him whether the man had truly killed the wildlings or not. It wasn’t worth risking the lives of one of his men for something like that, even if Jeor and the Mormonts would be glad to see the heads of the wildlings who took one of their daughters.

“We’ll all head back for now.” He looked around to his men. “Dismount and help the children and the Lady up on your horses. There’s a small hamlet we can stop by to resupply a half day’s walk to the southeast. They’re no friends of the Watch, but nor are they our enemies either.”

Finally, he turned to the Uchi-ha man. “You’re welcome to come with us, stranger, or leave as you will.”

xxx

It was late in the day when they arrived at what Sasuke could only call the most miserable place he’d ever seen. On a small clearing beneath a towering white tree, a sprawl of miserable tents made of animal-hide housed a dozen or so miserable families who received them with a mixture of politeness, suspicion, and misery.

Qhorin took an offering of rabbit meat that looked half-rotten, half-frosted over from a tall, greying man that seemed to be some kind of leader to these people. Everyone ate some without complaining, even the children.

When it came to his turn, Sasuke refused. The old man, who introduced himself as Belk, glared at him, his wrinkled face twisting with disdain. 

“You’d refuse guest right?” He sounded affronted.

Dacey nudged him. “It’s tradition,” she whispered. “Just take some.”

He looked at her, then looked again at the so-called meat. He’d rather eat Naruto’s cooking than whatever that was.

He turned to Belk. “Will you attack me?” 

The old man gave him the same searching gaze the men of the Night’s Watch had shot his way, as if he was a mystery to be deciphered. “Nay, I won’t harm a man beneath my roof ‘less he harms me and mine first.”

Sasuke felt like pointing out he didn’t really have a roof and only a collection of hunting trophies made into tents. Instead, he replied, “Then I will do the same.”

Belk grunted as if to say that was good enough and led them to a slightly bigger tent in the middle of the settlement. The wildlings that lived here all watched as their group walked past them. 

There weren’t many of them, mostly young women, children, and a few men of age. The men of the Night's Watch got cautious looks, but Sasuke knew exactly how sacred they took guest rights from the knowledge he gained.

He wasn’t against fitting into the new world he found himself, but he put a boundary on eating whatever that was.

Unlike the so-called crows, Tilda and the children got waves from the wildling’s own children even though they were dressed differently and clearly didn’t belong. He even caught a few women throwing sympathetic looks toward them, as if they knew why they were there.

Sasuke felt his opinion on the supposedly free folk soften a bit. Clearly, not all of the wildlings were like the ones he encountered before. These were just poor hungry people doing the best they could in a terrible situation.  

His own reception was different. Despite his dark clothing, which he knew was a staple for the men of the Watch, they were still distinct enough they could tell he wasn’t a crow. A few children pointed at him, the women whispered and talked, and the men seemed to size him up as a potential enemy.

Sasuke didn’t care. If there was something he was used to, it was people gaping openly at him like a circus animal. He was the last Uchiha after all.

Inside the tent, Sasuke, the children, and Qhorin sat on tree trunks around a small fire along with the old men and his family. Before he could introduce them, the leader of the Watchmen sent the rest of his men to tend to their horses and keep an eye out on things outside. 

The men grumbled, eager for a chance to rest and warm up around a fire, but Qhorin seemed to have them well in hand. 

“Thank you for inviting us into your home,” the Night’s Watchman said after they left.

Belk nodded. “Aye, it’s the thing to do. Days’re getting colder, even for you crows.” Then he gestured to a woman that must have been a decade younger than him and still beautiful with long, dark blond hair. “This is my wife, Calle, and my daughters, Dalla and Val.”

The daughters were mini copies of their mother. Honey blond hair and chubby cheeks hidden behind layers of leather and fur. The oldest, Dalla, looked younger still than the Mormont girl, six or seven at most. Val seemed a couple of years younger than her sister.

Dalla seemed to have found something to stare at in his face. “You don’t look like a crow,” she finally said. Her mother made to shush her, but her father only barked out a laugh.

“She’s not wrong, is she?” Belk measured him with a look. “Don’t look like one of the free folk either.”

Sasuke put his hands up to the fire and took a moment before answering with a simple, “So I’ve heard.”

There was silence after his words. For a moment, only the crackling of fire and the soft snoring of children could be heard within the tent. Then the youngest, Val, spoke up.

“Why you wearing that?” She pointed a tiny finger at his feet.

Sasuke looked down at the sandals he was wearing, then noticed everyone else was doing the same. Qhorin’s eyebrows were slowly climbing up his face, while the wildling couple was looking at him as if he was the stupidest person in the world.

“Because it’s what I have,” he answered.

Calle snorted. “There are better ways to lose a toe if that’s what you want, stranger.” Her husband gained a smile at her words. 

“How have you been walking this whole time without complaining, Sasuke?” Dacey asked, scandalized. 

Tilda was looking at him with stars in her eyes. “And m’lord still gave me his cloak,” she muttered to herself, hugging the cloak closer to her chest.

Sasuke felt a headache coming in. The last time some girls got obsessed with his feet back in the Academy he had to ask Sarutobi for an Anbu escort. He did not want a repeat of that.

Chapter 6

“I may have some extra socks in my bag, Uchiha,” Qhorin said. 

Sasuke tried to hide the disgust on his face. The man was just being kind, after all.

“No, thank you,” he said.

With careful application of fire manipulation, he could keep himself warm for as long as he wanted. That didn’t mean he liked having snow on his toes, of course, but he would rather gouge both his eyes out than wear another man’s socks. 

From across the fire, Dalla’s eyes narrowed at him. “I don’t like you,” the girl said.

Feeling petty after his feet became the center of attention, Sasuke glared back. “I don’t like you either.”

Belk and Calle watched the exchange with amusement. After a second, Dalla’s eyes filled with tears. She pouted as if to hold back on crying, but soon she ran to her mother to bury her tear-stained face on her lap.

Dacey, who had been sitting next to him, tried to kick him on the shin. He moved his leg away before she even started moving. 

“Why did you do that?” she hissed.

He shrugged. “What? She started it.”

“She’s a child.”

“So are you, and I would’ve said the same thing.”

The girl huffed and turned away as if to show how upset she was. Sasuke almost felt like praying to one of these old and new gods. How beautiful would life be if people that got upset with him just stopped talking? 

After a moment, Belk turned to the black brother. “What brings you ‘round these parts, ranger?” 

Qhorin gestured with his head toward the children that had already nodded off to sleep. He didn’t have to say anything, but the grim set of his eyes told the entire story. 

Belk grunted. “I figured,” he said “It’s a foul thing, that. Custom or otherwise.” 

Beside her husband, Calle’s expression twisted in anguish for a brief second before she schooled her face and simply nodded. The moment seemed to pass by without anyone taking note, but Sasuke wasn’t an Uchiha and a shinobi for nothing. 

“I don’t think your people share the same view,” Qhorin said.

“They’re not my people,” the clan chief said, frowning.

“They’re just people,” Calle added, “and people are people everywhere.”

“I don’t think people south of the Wall kidnap women and children and forcefully take them to wife,” Qhorin said.

Calle glared at him. “Then you don’t think enough, crow.”

The ranger didn’t seem to have an answer to that and simply shrugged. The mood in the tent turned sour for a bit until the clan chief stood up from his seat.

“We don’t have much to give,” Belk said, “but we can spare some mead for you and milk for the children. And you can rest at our fire before you take your leave.”

“That would be appreciated, chief Belk.” Qhorin gave a slow nod to the man. “We won’t be staying for long. These kids have been away from home for a while now.”

After that, Belk left the tent to continue whatever his duties were outside, while Calle brought out nuts and dried meat for all of them as well as the promised drink. 

Again, Sasuke refused everything offered. This time, it wasn’t because it looked terrible, but it didn’t sit right with him to take from these people who already looked like they were struggling to feed themselves. 

He’d noticed that, despite the children looking relatively alright, all the adults looked skinny and gaunt. He suspected they were giving whatever they could spare to the children. A noble idea, to be sure, especially as they were willing to give out the little they had to other children in need.

But he wondered how long they would be able to keep that up. A hungry hunter can’t hunt for long, not when he becomes too weak to do it.

There was also the fact he’d seen too many women and children and not enough men. Considering what it took to survive in this land, he would imagine the ratios to be reversed, but that didn’t seem to be the case here.

“What do you plan to do now, Uchiha?” Qhorin asked, glancing at him as he sipped mead from some kind of horn. “I don’t imagine a man like you will wish to stay here with the wildlings?”

“Hn.” Considering, he looked down at the gaggle of children that had fallen asleep around the fire after they drank their milk. Even Dacey and Tilda had nodded off by now, the former curled near his legs. “I promised to take them back home,” he said. “After that…” he trailed off.

Qhorin waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, the man didn’t question him again, just joined him in quiet contemplation as the fire crackled and the noises of the people outside the tent occasionally drifted in. 

In his own mind, Sasuke tried to follow that train of thought. What to do after Bear Island? Should he return here? Had the Sage sent him to this frozen, desolate place for a reason? 

Thinking about the people in this hamlet, as well as all the others that must be spread out all across the land, he knew there were plenty of people he could help here. But…

He was a shinobi, in the end, not a ruler or a revolutionary. Even the Sage of Six Paths couldn’t compel him to gather all the people of this land and try to change their ways and give them better lives. 

From his newly acquired memories, he knew how immense the lands beyond the Wall were, and how many hundreds and hundreds of clans and villages and hamlets lay dotted around these forests and hills.  

Sasuke couldn’t not imagine a more wretched existence for himself than trying to lead these free folk, and he wasn’t such a selfless man as to put his own desires to the side like that. 

No, he didn’t think he would be returning here. He needed to travel. Go to different places and meet different people. If the Sage wanted him to help others, Sasuke would, but he would do so on his terms.

Just as he nodded to himself, assured of his decision, he heard a commotion begin outside.

xxx

The commotion grew outside, yelling and shouting along with the sound of rushed footsteps crunching snow. Qhorin, who seemed deep in thought a moment ago with his eyes closed, put his horn down on the ground next to him. 

Behind the cloth partition that divided a section of the tent, Sasuke heard the rustle of fur and clothes as people moved. No doubt, Calle and her daughters had heard the uproar as well.

The children also roused at the noise, rubbing tired eyes while looking around warily. They huddled close to Tilda as she tried to reassure them.

Dacey sat up from her spot near Sasuke’s feet, her hair standing up wildly like a drunkard’s. “What’s going on?” she asked.

The ranger seemed about to answer when a more distinct shout called out Qhorin’s name. Suddenly the man was on his feet and dashing through the flaps of the tent, one hand hovering near the hilt of his sword.

Curious, Sasuke rose as well, and Dacey skittered after him, following the ranger to figure out what had happened. Outside, the wildlings that lived here rushed about like insects when their colony is disturbed. 

Mothers pulled on children, carrying them like sacks of rice toward their tents. The young men of the clan grouped up on one side of the hamlet near a harried-looking man. He seemed to be animatedly recounting something to them.

In short, the peaceful little wildling retreat was in full chaos.

The ranger who had shouted out Qhorin’s name, Bain, if Sasuke recalled right, came barreling toward them from the tree line to their north. Blood streamed down the side of his face from a neat cut above one of his eyes.

Upon hearing the shouting, the other two Night’s Watchmen who were checking up on the horses rushed from the other side of the hamlet to meet up by the clan chief’s tent. 

“Qhorin!” Bain said when he was finally close enough to them. “We gots to leave. We gots to leave now!” He could barely speak straight as he gasped for air.

The tent flap moved as Calle emerged outside, her brows drawn into a frown. “What’s going on?” She looked about in confusion at all the clamor. “Where’s Belk?” Tilda and the other children filtered out after her.

Bain looked at the wildling woman and winced. Still gasping, he only shook his head. 

The woman was no fool, and seeing the bloody state of the ranger, she choked. Her hands went up to her face in horror. Beside her, her daughters Dalla and Val looked up at her with worry in their eyes. They hadn’t understood what the ranger left unsaid. 

Qhorin put a hand on the ranger’s shoulder to calm him. “Tell me what happened, man.”

Bain swallowed, took a deep breath to calm himself, and nodded. “I- I went to make a sweep around the hamlet like you said,” he told them. “Started west and was going north then east when I saw them. Dozens of them, Qhorin, coming over the hill maybe two miles, two and a half miles away.”

His face going angry red, Rodrik pulled his sword out from its sheath. “These wildling fucks betrayed us. They must’ve told one of the bigger clans we were staying here.”

Calle’s children recoiled seeing the weapon, hiding behind their mom. Even the Bear Islanders became agitated with the rage coming off of the man.

Sasuke felt a frown coming to his face. “Put away your blade, fool.”

Rorik sneered. “I don’t follow your commands, pretty boy.” 

“No,” Bain cut in before things could escalate. “I don’t think they betrayed us. Whoever’s coming sent scouts ahead. I didn’t see them until I almost got an arrow to the eye. The clan chief had been close by when I spotted them too, but… he wasn’t so lucky.”

Sasuke sniffed at the air, trying to pick out the scent of this approaching force. But he felt nothing beyond the scents he could identify around him. Firewood, fresh-fallen snow, and the smell of unwashed people. 

He knew which of the three he liked the least.

Of course, he realized, with the wind blowing from the south, it made sense he wasn’t able to pick their scent. He only managed to smell the Night’s Watch rangers coming because their own scent was getting carried toward him by the wind.

He sucked on his teeth, frustrated. He needed to find a better way to pick out humans around him. 

Naruto told him that the previous wielder of the Rinnegan, Nagato, could feel out chakra through the rain when he still acted in the guise of Pein. But with the humans in this world not possessing chakra, Sasuke would need to get creative.

Rorik spat on the now. “That don’t mean they didn’t turn on us. Only that they turned on themselves.” He looked over the little hamlet. 

There were less than seven men of age in the area, still huddled near one side of the village with a few wildling women now. 

“I say we put them to the sword and be done with it. A few less wildlings in the world ain’t never a bad thing.”

Calle glared at the ranger, and Val and Dalla shivered. Beside Sasuke, Dacey seemed to bristle at the ranger despite her own less than savory opinion of wildlings. 

Qhorin put a stop to it. “Leave it be, Rorik,” he said. “Our horses had enough time to rest. We can outpace the wildlings that are coming for a while before the animals tire. We’ll load the Bear Island children up and run beside them.” He turned to Sasuke. “Hope you got good legs on you, Uchiha, it’ll be a long jog.”

Sasuke smirked. He could probably travel across this entire world faster than the man could run toward the nearest castle in the Wall. If anything, he wasn’t looking forward to the sloth-like pace he would have to keep to accompany them.

Calle suddenly seemed desperate at their words. “No, wait, you can’t leave,” she said. “They’ll kill us all when they find out we broke bread with crows.”

Qhorin paused to think for a moment. “Better make sure they don’t find out, then,” he said.

“They already saw me.” Bain grew pale. “The scouts retreated after they shot at us. He’ll tell them men of the Watch were here.”

Chapter 7

The solution seemed simple enough to Sasuke. If his suspicions were correct, the small army heading their way was Ygon Oldfather’s clan, likely spurred on by the man who he let escape the night before.

He’d seen through Tork’s memories the kind of devastation their clan left behind when another clan or wildling band incurred their wrath. Despite how miserable the lives of the people here were, it was about to get a hundred times worse if Ygon’s men got their hands on them.

So he turned to the lead ranger. “Qhroin, take the children and go,” Sasuke said. “I’ll fight them off and catch up with you later.”

“No!” Dacey grabbed onto his arm. “You promised you would take me home yourself.”

Sasuke shrugged her off. “And I’ll keep it.”

“You can’t keep promises if you’re dead,” she said, stomping on the snowy ground. It made her look younger than she was.

“Better men have tried to kill me, girl.”

Her dark eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him like a puppy begging for him to stay home. 

Sasuke sighed. He really didn’t know how to deal with crying children. Itachi would know what to do, probably. Sasuke himself had been a bit of a spoiled cry baby as a kid, and his brother had gotten used to dealing with his tantrums. 

Until he traumatized him for life, that is.

Before he could give much thought to it, he knelt on the ground so he was closer in height to Dacey, raised a hand, and poked two fingers on the girl’s forehead.

“I’ll be fine,” he told her.

She sniffled. “But there are dozens of them.”

Rising to his feet, Sasuke smirked. “They should’ve brought thousands,” he said. “It would’ve made things more entertaining.”

Around them, Calle and the rangers stared at him as if he’d grown a second head.

Rorik was the first one to speak his mind. “You are mad,” he said, then turned to the other men of the Watch. “Let’s leave the fool already and go. We still have some time before they arrive.” 

Qhorin nodded. “Aye, you’ll do that.” He seemed to stand taller after a moment, squaring his shoulders as if he’d just tossed the dice and now had to contend with the number shown. “As he said, take the children and go. I’ll stay and fight with the Uchiha.”

“What?!” Rorik’s mouth gaped open. “Have you gone mad too? You’re willing to throw your life a way, for what? ‘Cause some wildling bitch asked for help?”

Sasuke grimaced too. Qhorin or anyone else joining him wasn’t part of the plan. 

He didn’t really feel like hiding all his powers or some such nonsense. They were as much a part of him as his limbs. He could no more stop breathing than he could stop using his chakra and his abilities forever. He would even go so far as to say there was something addictive to the nature of chakra usage, and especially when used to power his Kekkei Genkai. 

You hadn’t truly seen the world until you had seen it through the Sharingan. Obviously, his were the superior eyes, but he imagined this was much like the Hyuuga would think of their own Byakugan eyes. Once your eye prowess expanded your perception beyond that of regular humans, imagining a whole life without it seemed akin to a death sentence.

But that didn’t mean he wanted to completely destroy someone’s notion of reality in one fell swoop. He was really hoping to have a go at those wildlings alone. He’d deal with them quickly, like a farmer dealing with pests, and be back before the kids could get too down on themselves. 

He was merciful like that. 

Of course, he wasn’t planning on being merciful to the wildlings. He knew what they would do if they reached this village. A quick death would be the height of mercy.

The lead ranger shrugged. “They gave us food and fire, and some men want to kill them for it. Besides, if it’s Ygon’s men that are coming, then they’re coming for us and the children. These people are just in the way. I won’t stand aside.”

That settles that, then, Sasuke thought. It seemed Qhorin would get a reality check sooner rather than later. It didn’t matter much. The world had changed the moment Sasuke’s feet first touched the ground. People would learn he was different one way or another.

And besides, who was he to deny a man when his conviction rang so righteous? If anything, he would be rewarding Qhorin for this honorable act. The man thought he was staying back to sacrifice himself in order to buy the people of the hamlet time to flee. 

Bain nodded to the ranger. “Aye, Qhorin, it’ll be done.” He brought a closed fist to his chest in a salute and left toward the horses, Tilda, Dacey, and the children in tow. Tilda threw him a mournful look over her shoulder, while the Mormont girl refused to look at him again.

Daven, the other black brother who kept mostly to himself, repeated the salute. “For the Watch.”

Qhorin gave him a nod. “For the Watch.” 

Rorik was the last one to leave, snarling and shaking his head as he left his leader behind.

“You should take what you can carry and flee, woman,” Qhorin told Calle.

For a moment, she looked toward the rangers at the edge of the village helping the children up on the horses with something akin to regret. Then she turned back to them. “The clan’s men will fight, I think.”

Sasuke shrugged. “Tell them not to bother.”

“They will not listen to me, now that Belk’s dead.” The woman bit her lips. “We are… I am not well-liked here.” 

His eyebrow rose. What was he supposed to do about that? Make her more likeable? It was clear the woman had something she wanted to say, some secret she wanted to spill. He’d caught that back in the tent when they spoke of the wildling custom of kidnapping women and children.

He wasn’t as dense as Naruto, he could put two and two together. But Sasuke wasn’t in the business of bringing up people’s secrets without them doing so first. Not unless it involved torture or genjutsu.

“So eager to die, Uchiha?” The shadow of a smile came to Qhorin’s mouth. “I wouldn’t say no to a few more men. It would buy us more time.” 

Sasuke scoffed. “We’re not running out of time, ranger,” he said. “The wildlings are. Now let’s get this over with.”

xxx

Qhorin

They watched from atop a small rocky hill as the group of wildlings crossed a stream in the valley below them. Had the water ran deeper or wider, it would’ve been a good spot to make their stand. But the wildlings simply vaulted over it and kept on coming.

It would be on high ground instead, an advantage that could buy them a few precious minutes more.

Qhorin felt a chill spread across his body at that. It had nothing to do with the biting wind that cut at his exposed nose and threw up flurries of snow that gathered on his cheeks.

It was a different kind of cold than the one he always felt when he ranged beyond the Wall. Is it you, Stranger, coming to take me? Qhorin smiled at the thought, though it felt like a brittle thing on his face.

He hadn’t prayed to the Seven in many years. After coming to the Watch as just a child, he felt more at home in front of the carved face on a Weirwood than inside the small sept in Castle Black. 

The northerners called the old gods the gods of stream and forest and stone. Qhorin had drunk from countless streams, slept beneath the canopy of forests more than under any roof, and had felt stone beneath his hand from the Frostfangs to the Antlers. 

Even then, he wouldn’t call himself a believer. 

His hand snaked down to the sword at his side. This he believed. Truth in cold steel. His other hand went up to his black-feathered coat, feeling the coarse wool inside. Another certainty in his life. 

He believed in the Watch more than anything. Believed even that they served the realms of men—all men, even the ones left behind in the hamlet to flee for a chance of survival.

Looking to one side, he counted the wildling’s from Belk’s clan who had chosen to fight. Ten of them. Eight men and two spearwives. Uchiha and himself made twelve. Not great odds against nearly forty warriors coming their way. 

Some of the wildlings were talking themselves up into a rage, smacking their own faces and hollering with abandon. Others were quieter, speaking prayers with closed eyes, fingers curled around the shaft of axes and spears.

Closer to him, a boy who couldn’t be older than sixteen had pissed himself earlier. They could all smell it wafting off of him, and he saw the boy crying tears of both shame and fear. Still, none raised their voice to shame the boy. 

Uchiha himself seemed nonplussed at their dire situation. His sharp black eyes were scanning the terrain around them, no doubt checking for any scouts looking to thin their numbers with bow and arrow. And he did so with the same care one would take to watch a piece of meat cooking over a spit. 

Qhorin would be wiser, perhaps, to pray to whatever gods the Uchiha man followed. They couldn’t be so bad if they made men so fearless in the face of death.

“Never thought I’d die fighting beside a damn crow,” one of the spearwives said.

A wildling by the name of Pek spat on the snow. “Aye, leaves a bad taste in the mouth, eh?” 

Another bellowed a laughter. This one was older, white covering most of his beard. “Men are all men in the face of death, Pek. Free folk or crow. Men or women. Better to die on your feet with an axe in hand than freezing and starving, I say. A good death, this is.” The old man grinned 

One wildling put a hand over the young boy’s shoulder. By their coloring and steep nose, Qhorin guessed it was the boy’s own father. “Steady now, lad. Keep your wits about you and might be they only disarm you and let you live.”

“Bah,” the old man said. “Don’t expect that from Ygon, boy. He’s a right bastard, he is. Let the boy die a good death. Dying a craven will see him in a worse hell than this life.”

After a moment, Qhorin let the chattering wildlings become background noise and his mind snapped into focus. They could hear the coming wildlings clearer now. 

They shouted and beat their weapons on wooden shields wrapped in leather hide as they gathered at the bottom of the hill. The forty or so warriors made a loud racket, taunting and calling out obscenities toward them. 

He couldn’t spot anyone holding a bow, not even in the trees surrounding the hill where the fighting would take place. It would be a straight up brawl, then, Qhorin thought. They hadn’t bothered sending scouts to harass them. Likely because they already knew how few in numbers they were.

“Qhorin,” Uchiha said in a low voice beside him. “It is their custom to burn their dead, no?”

He frowned. “Aye, it is. Why?”

“Wanted to confirm,” he said. “I do not wish to grant them the honor.”

“Honor of what?”

“Death by fire.” The man tilted his head as if contemplating choices. “I will try something else, then. Something new.” His hand went to his other arm then, as if to confirm it was there.

Giving Uchiha a confused look, Qhorin simply sighed. Better to forget it and let strange men be strange. He didn’t want to die contemplating the queer words of a man he met not a day past.

The wildlings at the bottom of the ridge broke into a run uphill. On their end, the men and women stood in a line across a gorge that cut the hill in half at the top. 

Jagged rocks covered in snow and lichen rose on both sides of them. The wildlings would have to come at them head on if they wanted to go through. Qhorin closed his eyes for a brief second, sending prayers to all the gods he’d ever heard.

Then someone shouted, “Fool!” 

His eyes snapped open, only to widen in shock. “Uchiha!” he yelled.

Strolling down from the hilltop, the strange man seemed unconcerned about the wave of hooting warriors closing in on him. Did he wish to die this much? Qhorin should’ve known a man who walked across the lands beyond the Wall in sandals had a death wish.

He cursed. One less body on their line would weaken them, and it gave him no pleasure to watch a man be butchered in front of him. But instead of waiting to be cut down, or pulling out his own sword, Uchiha knelt on the snow and put both hands to the ground. 

And somehow, above the screaming of the wildlings and the howling wind, Qhorin heard the man quietly utter three words. “Deep Forest Emergence.”

Then the world changed.

xxx

Sasuke

The earth groaned as tree trunks broke through soil and snow to shoot up into the air. Wood spikes emerged out of the ground like swords, all jagged edges and sharp branches that pierced through earth and flesh alike.

Sasuke heard gasps from the people behind him, and soon followed the sharp cries of the wildlings that had been running uphill just a moment ago and now found themselves being speared like campfire meat. 

The warrior closest to him, a towering man with a shaggy dark beard, was the first to die when a tree branch jutted out of the main trunk growing beside him and stabbed him through the heart as easily as if he were made of rice cake. 

He wasn’t even able to fall in his death, and instead rose up into the air as the tree grew taller, the branch getting higher and higher, until his feet left the snowy ground. He remained there suspended three feet off the ground like a scarecrow, eyes wide and unblinking. 

The rest of the near thirty wildlings didn’t fare any better as a small, spiky forest grew around them. Some were luckier as the wooden branches simply grew around them and imprisoned them, others had sticks going through their thighs and arms, their warm blood pouring down to the snow to steam in the cold air.

When it was all done, Sasuke stood up and looked out at his handiwork with a disapproving gaze. The First Hokage had been able to create entire forests of gigantic trees with his version of the jutsu, and despite pouring a significant amount of chakra into it, Sasuke had not been able to replicate it in the way he wanted.

It still worked as intended, of course. The loudest noise that echoed in the hillside was not the rumble of the earth, but the moans and groans of the dying wildlings that had been caught by the trees.

Sasuke scoffed, walking up to the closest tree where the scarecrow wildling hung from. He put a hand on the trunk, trying to feel its sturdiness. His fingers dug easily into the bark, and he didn’t even have to use too much force. 

‘Not even close,’ he thought. His chakra-born trees looked like the diseased cousins of Hashirama’s own creations. 

Not only were they weaker and less dense, but the trees were shorter, its branches smaller, and they were crowned with a smattering of yellow-ish leafs that left much to be desired compared to famous, picture-perfect green leafs of the Leaf Village.

Clicking his tongue, he turned around and started heading back uphill. A symphony of pleading moans and angry curses from the dying or the imprisoned wildlings followed in his wake, but it was nothing he couldn’t ignore. 

Sasuke had done his job. The men and women from the hamlet could deal with the clean up. 

As he approached the line of warriors still rooted on the hill top, one of the women, a spearwife, fell to her knees, her blue eyes shining with a feverish zeal when she looked at him. 

“Are you a god?” she asked, one hand reaching out as if to touch him.

Sasuke ignored her and kept walking.

The youngest wildling boy broke next. “One of the old gods,” he said, and he stumbled and fell on his butt. “One of the old gods just saved us.” 

He looked more scared than anything, and Sasuke thought the boy might have soiled his pants again.

“The old gods are gods of stone and river, fool, they are not men,” the old man said. He spat on the snow and gave Sasuke a suspicious glare as he passed them by.  

“Aye, but they’re gods of the trees too, ye see?” the boy’s father said. “Who else but a god could raise trees from bare ground?”

“Maybe he’s a Child of the Forest,” another whispered, but by then Sasuke was quickly moving away.

After a few seconds, he heard footsteps running up behind him, and he didn’t have to turn to know that Qhorin was cautiously coming up behind him, keeping a safe distance away from him.

“Uchiha,” the man said, his rough voice came out in a kind of calm whisper, as if Sasuke was a wild animal he was afraid would turn around to bite him. 

Sasuke stopped and swivelled his head to look at him with a raised eyebrow. Qhorin swallowed, but seemed to gather his courage after a breath. 

“What you did back there…” he trailed off. “What are you?”

He turned back and continued to walk toward the hamlet. 

“Someone who doesn’t need to answer questions.”