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When Robb opened his eyes, the world was dark around him. He thought that it might have been that way for awhile.
Barely, just barely, Robb saw starlight between the foliage over his head. The ground was wet beneath him. Grass tickled his palms, and he curled his fingers, digging them into the soft earth. He felt mud gather beneath his nails, felt the dampness that hung in the air on his face, felt the numb tingling of his feet. All of these things, Robb wondered if he could trust. What did feeling signify? Nothing, Robb decided. Nothing at all. He had felt the twist of Bolton's blade within him, even in death. Even in death...
The Freys, Robb thought, Bolton.
Robb felt the first of the fires within him that told him he was not yet dead. This was true, certain. The physical world meant nothing anymore, not after the feel of a sword through his heart. The rage, however, he embraced, rejoiced in. It felt like a second chance.
He would not waste it.
The bodies of Robb's men had been buried in a shallow mass grave, and he smelled the stench of rotting flesh as they approached. The grave was far from the castle; the Freys must not have wanted to be bothered by the smell, or the scavengers it attracted. They had not bothered to dig it deep enough to stop animals from digging it up again. They hadn't even bothered to bury Grey Wind, whose body rested atop the torn mound.
It seemed that no animal had dared approached his corpse, at least.
The iron crown that had been Robb's was sitting on Grey Wind's fur, placed there as a mockery, Robb knew. When Robb knelt beside the body that had felt at times like an extension of his own, the only damage was the passage of time. He touched Grey Wind's fur, comforted by the feel of rubbing his fingers through it as if it were the finest silk, coarse though it was. When Robb looked into the distance at the Twins standing proudly over the Green Fork, he felt as if the raging fire within him might ravage his soul.
Robb's chest ached with every step he took away from the seat of House Frey. The gaping hole there was covered by bandages, but he felt it as keenly as when he'd first been stabbed. It would never heal, Robb knew. He had seen Beric Dondarion's body after he woke. He knew the cost of life. Robb did not mind to know pain, as long as he could still teach it to others.
Robb did not sleep, did not even close his eyes at night. His fantasies were like dreams, and as he stared into the night sky with his back on the ground, he pictured the Twins ruined and crumbling. He imagined he heard the dying screams of the Freys, unbroken only in death. Sometimes, in his mind's eye, he saw his mother, rising from the water, watching as Robb took their revenge. It was when she disappeared beneath the rushing river again that Robb knew he mustn't fail. Seeing her slip below the surface, even only in his waking dreams, told Robb that she would never know life again. For that, neither would any one of Frey blood. Robb would hunt them down, all of them. No matter how much misery it caused him to push forward each day, he would.
During the day it was the worst. As Robb and his followers traveled through the woods, the light of day made his eyes sting and his head pound. He was tired, so tired, but the fire inside him kept him up, and it was ever fueled by the knowledge that somewhere out there a Frey was laughing, eating, sleeping, living, as neither Robb nor his mother ever would again. Until each Frey had shed their life blood upon his blade, Robb knew he would get no rest.
Walder Frey he would leave for last, and the old man would sit on his throne, hear the howling of the wolves, and he would know Robb was coming for him.
Yes, Robb thought, yes. Every last drop of Frey blood would be spilled, until the Trident ran red with it. Robb closed his eyes and trembled. His throat ached with a thirst he knew no water would quench. Death. Funny how it alone should have such power over his ability to live.
When Robb looked south, he saw Jeyne. He saw her coming up over the nearest crest, saw her standing beneath the shadow of the trees, saw her in the valleys below, as if lowered into the ground in death. Robb was assured by his scouts that there was no news of any harm befalling her; of course, they never heard any news of Jeyne. Still Robb imagined he kept seeing her come for him from the south, where he had left her at Riverrun. And every time her beauty made him struggle for air.
But beauty was nothing compared to revenge.
I'm sorry, Jeyne, he thought. Someday I will find you, and I will rest at your side. But not yet.
Petyr Frey was the first.
Robb and the Brotherhood found him wandering the riverlands with a group of camp followers. The Frey recognized him. When Robb approached with his sword drawn, he fell to his knees, his companions dead around him, and prayed aloud to his gods. Robb liked that, took savage delight in causing the sort of fear that only a god's intervention could quell.
He only regretted having to wipe the blood off his blade afterward. He liked the idea that Frey blood might permanently stain it red, but a rusted sword is a useless one. Robb cleaned it meticulously, comforted by the fact that it would drink again soon.
A caravan holding a Frey woman and her children, on the way south. Robb didn't know where they were going or why. He didn't care. His men told them there were Freys on the move, and Robb went to them without thinking. Thoros disapproved of the killing of children. Robb had, too, once long ago. Some part of him still did, it seemed, and Thoros helped him to make the children's death as painless as death could be, at least. Robb turned the caravan around, with the three bodies of the Freys inside. The horses trotted down the road toward the Twins, and Robb's throat was dry in anticipation of its discovery. Their guards he left dead at the roadside. Their blood was useless to him. It could not heal the burns he got from the fire within him.
Bolton marched north with two thousand Frey blades, but Robb cared not about the swords at his command. Only the three living Freys in his party. The wolves of the riverlands, a pack so large that there were bounties upon it, led Robb to Bolton. They were like camp followers themselves, feasting on the things men left behind. Sometimes on the men themselves, the weak and downtrod. The brothers of Robb's band of men disliked following the wolves, but the wolves did not mind Robb, and he knew they would not be harmed. She never approached, but Robb saw the giant female that led them. It wasn't even her size that told Robb what she was. It was the way she would howl at night, a sound that sung through him.
Robb thirsted for Frey blood, the only liquid that could soothe the wounds of the Starks, and sometimes at night when he followed Nymeria and her pack, he thought that maybe she did, too.
Robb's Brotherhood did not even need to kill the scouts when they approached the camp in the dead of night. Nymeria did that for them, and she and her little cousins had muzzles stained red by the time Robb finally entered Boltons camp. The men at the outskirts had died silently, their throats torn by the wolves. The camp was so still, the men sleeping shoulder to shoulder, that Robb thought of his own men in their grave, together in their eternal rest. The guards at the Freys tent died with no more noise than the singing of the arrows loosed by Robb's men. His sword took off Aenys Frey's head before the man awoke.
Hosteen opened his eyes as Robb stood over him. He recognized Robb the way both Petyr and Merrett had, before he killed him. He didn't pray like they had, but rolled, reaching for his sword. Hosteen stood tall, taller than Robb. He lunged forward, driving his sword at Robb's heart. It pierced the bandage over the hollow cavity there, and Robb sliced his throat while the man stared at him in mute confusion.
Fat Walda died in her sleep as well, but her husband at her side would not do the same. Robb was glad.
“My mother sends her regards,” Robb told Bolton before he plunged the blade through his chest. He twisted it, and the snap of bones was more satisfying than Merrett Frey's dying screams had been.
For a moment, Robb thought he heard her voice in his ear, as if his lady mother really did have a message from beyond for Bolton. Yet her words were broken, gravelly, undecipherable. Robb watched the blood puddle in the hole in Bolton's chest. Whatever it was, he was sure he'd gotten the message across.
Robb stood on the banks of the Trident and looked toward the setting sun. Soon, Jeyne, he thought, soon it will be time for me to rest. I will sleep at your side. I will sleep.
The grate beneath the eastern castle of the Twins gave out with enough ease, once Robb's men had battered the stones at its edge. The wolves did not like to swim, but Nymeria braved the waters with him. They started far upstream to avoid being seen, covering their makeshift rafts with rushes to appear as drifting debris in the darkness. The current was strong and swift, and more than once Robb wondered if he wouldn't join his mother beneath the surface. He heard the chorus of howls behind him as he crawled into the dark passages beneath the castle. Walder Frey would hear it, too. And he would hear the screams of his family as Robb made his way through the castle.
The halls of the Twins were red with blood as Robb moved up each floor. Arrows were loosed even before their enemies had rounded the corners, heralded by their ringing footsteps. And every arrow was collected again, to use in the death of another of Frey's men. Many of the women and children Robb found in their bedchambers. The women screamed loudest of all, and the sound made his head throbb. He tried to make their deaths as painless as he could.
When he found Roslin, her belly was swollen with his uncle's child. She cried, and he remembered her tears the night of her wedding.
“I'm afraid I prefer you married to death instead of Edmure,” he told her as he dragged her to the center of her bed chamber, her hair twisted through her fingers. She kicked fruitlessly, and Robb dropped her to the ground. “This is one wedding I intend to make it through, though. Don't worry, it won't hurt.” Robb's sword shattered ribs as it went for her heart. He remembered how muchpain there had been when he died. It was unbecoming to lie, he knew, but Roslin Frey wouldn't have time to think about his intentional fib.
Walder Frey had the hallway to his audience chamber filled with guards. He had heard the screaming, just as Robb wanted. While his men fought for him and Nymeria tore through metal armour and flesh with her teeth, Robb lifted the crown he'd found on Grey Wind with shaky arms. It was cold upon his brow, and he shivered, both at the chill metal and the air on his bare skin. He wore only a cloak upon his shoulders, so that Frey might see the holes that littered Robb's body, sword and arrow wounds made at his command. It was so cold to be undressed like that, it felt as if the flame inside him might gutter out. But there was no other way to go before Walder Frey except as the king of death itself.
When the old man prayed where he was seated upon his throne, it was with such fervor that spittle ran from his chin. His eyes rolled, and he only barely flinched when Robb pressed the tip of his sword into the man's jugular. Frey died without screaming, and Robb couldn't help but feel disappointed. It would have been drowned out by the wolves, anyway, he tried to tell himself in comfort. It didn't matter. The last Frey had died. The last Frey was gone.
Jeyne, Robb thought, Jeyne, I'm coming. He pictured her smiling face, remembered how her chestnut curls felt wound about his fingers.
Nymeria's wet nose touched his hand, and Robb looked into her eyes. Death for life, they seemed to say. Robb had taken his vengeance with Nymeria's help. He had killed Walder Frey at last because her pack had led him to Bolton first, and she had gotten him through the castle. Walder Frey's death is not enough, but it is worth my sister's life, at least. And Nymeria could not find her alone.
“I'm sorry, Jeyne, not yet,” Robb whispered aloud, so quietly it was nearly overpowered by the constant drip of Frey's blood off the tips of his fingers.
When he had repaid his debt, when he reunited Nymeria with his little sister. When Bran and Rickon were avenged. When Sansa had been restored to Winterfell, then Robb would rest. But not yet. It wasn't time for Robb to close his eyes. Not just yet.