A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Eleventh Day of the First Month 294 AC

The fire burns high in the heart of the clearing, the smell of burning pitch filling the air. A brighter blaze perhaps than is needed for the doings of the camp, but you do not begrudge your traveling companions for making it. There are other needs than food and warmth after all, chief among them them safety, a scarce thing in these woods where beasts of rotted flesh hunt and dead men lie in ambush. Yet the fears of Mag Mar and his kin pale in comparison to the girl sharing the other side of the fire with Tyene and Lya. After all, she does not merely suspect what evils lurked in these woods, she knows.

At first the girl, Gilly as she had introduced herself after about two hours with the caravan, had been reticent in speaking to you or indeed to any man. Given what her life had been like until two days ago you can hardly claim to be surprised. There are not many things in this world that still have the power to disgust Bloodraven, but you had heard an unmistakable note of it when he had spoken of Craster 'Crow's Friend'.

The man had apparently once had something of a reputation as a rare wildling willing to deal in peace with the Night's Watch, enough so that Gilly recalls men of the Watch passing through her father's hall. A little less than two years ago the visits had stopped without warning, though according to the girl her father had not seemed overly displeased at the loss of trade and allies. "He spent more and more time out. Hunting he said, but he'd only come back with a kill sometimes..."

"Hunts can fail too. I'd wager he was as poor a hunter as he was everything else," Lya said, obviously trying to cheer up the girl.

It does not work. "He always came back smelling of blood and he always wanted to fuck too." For a moment dead silence falls over your corner of the camp, no one quite certain what to say to that particular admission from a child not quite ten. Gilly does not notice anything amiss, continuing. "Said it was because he hadn't had a women in so long but there was something strange about it, a lot women fell pregnant with child. There were only three hands... er, fifteen women under the moon and eight of them were pregnant at once about six months ago."

You have a sickening feeling about where this is going, but you do not interrupt, letting Gilly tell the tale in her own manner and time.

"Craster he didn't keep the boys, never did, only girls, he'd take 'em out in the woods to freeze or get ate by beasts. We didn't talk 'bout it, tried not to think 'bout it..." A shudder goes down her spine as she instinctively leans closer to the fire, though you doubt it helps much. "Maybe if we had we could've done somethin'." Maybe I could have done something, you hear but no not challenge her on it yet. That sort of misplaced guilt is not easily set aside.

"He wasn't angry when they all turned out to be sons... and a few of us, Nella 'specially, thought... thought..." She makes a sort of pained coughing sound, trying and failing to hold back tears. Tyene wraps an arm around her hesitantly. "We thought he'd changed his mind, that he was gonna keep 'em. He did... until the last one was born. Then he took 'em all into the woods. Should've stopped him then, cracked his head open with a rock."

"You had no way of knowing and by the time you did the deed was done, and unless I am much mistaken Craster was much harder to kill," you point out gently.

Gilly seems to believe you at least enough that her shoulders relax ever so slightly leaning against Tyene. "He came back cold, like he brought a piece of he blizzard with him, like..." her eyes slip to Rina almost against herself.

"I was their puppet before the Old Gods freed me," your friend says simply.

"I think he was killing folk after that, travelers, hunters that sort, I think he made the wights chasing after me after I killed him," the girl continued. "Maybe he'd been killing folk for the Cold Gods too before, Ferny thought so. I broke the stone, broke it with his own blood. " The branches above her sway though the night is calm.

"Do you know of other places Craster might have frequented, other servants of Theirs he might have been in contact with?" you ask.

"None of that. Dangerous to ask questions, specially when I was dreaming of ways to kill him. The others, my sisters, might know more, he'd talk in the furs sometimes when he was drunk. It got harder and harder for him to get drink down. Didn't even think to wonder what was in that last bit of mead..." She shakes her head, dispelling the memory. "You should do talk to Ferny, talk to Nella, they will know more."

It's as close to a request as Gilly is likely to ask, you know, not wanting to place herself any further in your debt, but it is clear she desperately wants someone to go back to Craster's Keep and see what had become of her 'father's' wives and daughters.

What do you do?

[] Send someone to Craster's Keep to ask questions and maybe persuade those remaining there to come south
-[] Write in who to send

[] Do not send anyone, you cannot afford to weaken the caravan's guard

[] Write in

OOC: Gilly has decided to stick close to Tyene so far, probably because for all her strangeness following her lead has a certain familiarity to it as well.