Maester Walys Flowers rode with the northern host as it wound its way up the kingsroad, the long column disappearing into the mists ahead. Wagons groaned and harness jingled, mixing with the chorus of croaking frogs. Men muttered and spat and stamped through the damp. The Neck had swallowed the road in green and grey, reducing the world to reeds, standing pools, and the occasional half-seen tree twisted up out of black water.
Nasty as the swamp was, Walys preferred it to a battlefield. He preferred almost anything to battlefields.
The maester forced his mind to stay on practical matters during the march. Winterfell needed a proper sept, not merely for Lady Catelyn's comfort but for order, for civilization, for a visible sign that the North need not remain half-wild forever.
He had already sketched the broad arrangement in his mind: a modest nave of proper Vale stone, seven niches rather than full statues at first, a steep roof for snow, and windows placed high to capture the weak winter sun. The sept should not insult the old gods openly—Walys was too prudent for that—but it should stand near enough to the Great Keep that its presence could not be ignored.
He was deciding whether a bell tower would look triumphal or merely proper when he saw the unusual critter.
It sat on a flat stone just beyond the ditch at the roadside, no larger than his palm, a plump golden-yellow thing with a sheen to its skin like oil on water. Walys reined in at once.
A marsh frog, yes—but not just any frog. The pale gold coloring was distinctive to the amoxi frog. He knew the description from a treatise on rare herbal remedies. When properly rendered, the skin could be made into an oil documented to work wonders against infections. The only downside was that the frogs were so rare that some maesters debated whether they existed at all.
"I'll be right back," he called absently to no one in particular, though he doubted the barbarians cared about his wanderings.
He dismounted with more haste than grace, hitched his horse loosely to a low branch, and stepped off the road.
Walys crouched and reached out for the blinking frog.
The thing sprang away just before his fingers closed, landing neatly on another stone a little deeper among the reeds.
Walys frowned.
"It certainly jumps well," he murmured. "Suppose that explains why they are rarely caught."
It was no matter. He walked slowly to the landing spot to avoid frightening the creature.
The frog waited until he was close, then leapt again. Not far. Always just out of reach. Walys told himself this was not unusual. Frogs were skittish. Frogs did not wish to become medicine. There was no mystery in it.
Still, after the fourth leap he became aware that the sounds of the marching host had thinned behind him. The road was no longer visible, only flickers of torchlight could be seen beyond the foggy brush.
The frog landed atop the knobby root of an old cypress tree, paused there like a challenge, and finally, at long last, allowed itself to be caught.
"Ha," Walys said, satisfaction warming him at once.
He held the creature gently but firmly, admiring the slick coolness of it, the metallic sheen of its skin.
Then he straightened and realized he could not see the trail at all. The satisfaction dampened.
The Neck did that. One turned aside for three minutes and found the world rearranged. Walys disliked that very much. Forests weren't nearly so confusing. It being midday, he didn't even know where west was. Not that the sun was visible in this damned fog anyway.
He turned slowly, scanning for a safe path.
That was when he saw the snake.
It was slithering beneath a low bush no more than six feet away, green with black diamonds along its back. He would never have noticed it if not for the movement. The narrow head hovered above the ground like the point of a pen poised over parchment.
Walys' first thought was scholarly delight.
"Fennspitter," he whispered.
A female, based on the mottling. Venomous, yes, but famous above all for the way it could spray poison without a direct bite. Within the citadel it was lumped in with manticores and wyverns, creatures whose physiology was thought to have some magical component. Walys had always argued they were natural. Too many maesters lacked the proper field expertise to know what was possible.
Then his second thought arrived.
Venomous. He went very still. No need to draw attention, the serpent could continue on its way.
At that moment, the amoxi frog let out a large, cheerful croak. The snake came to a halt.
Walys took one careful step back.
The reeds rustled somewhere to his left. Then to his right. Stems whispered together in the wind.
It occurred to Walys then that he had perhaps wandered a bit too far on the trail of discovery.
He cleared his throat, as if to pacify the wildlife. "No need," he muttered. "We are all fine creatures. No need for unpleasantness."
The snake's head tilted curiously in his direction.
Walys turned and sprinted the other way.
He was no spring chicken anymore, and the mud didn't help his speed. Brambles caught on his sleeves. He kept the frog clutched in one hand out of sheer stubbornness. Somewhere behind him reeds rattled with light, sliding movement.
He began to run in a zig-zag. He read once that was the only way to outpace a lizard lion.
Within ten minutes he started panting. His throat was parched. The air in the Neck had a way of turning to soup in the lungs, and he had marched half the day already. He dropped to one knee beside a mossy stump, shrugged his satchel around, and dug for his waterskin.
He couldn't find it, but his hand brushed against something cool and wet.
Walys stopped moving, but something in the bag continued to shift.
Then the fennspitter rose up out of the dark leather inches from his face, coiled among rolled parchment and dried biscuits like some obscene bit of living rope. Its mouth opened—not wide, not like a striking adder, but just enough.
Venom hit him in both eyes.
It was not like being splashed. It was like being branded. Walys screamed.
The satchel dropped. The frog went flying. He fell backward into wet earth clawing at his face, his vision exploding into white pain and hot blackness all at once. His hands only spread it worse. The venom burned like lye and nettles and fire all together, and his eyes slammed shut against their own ruin.
He rolled, choking. Mud and leaf mold filled his mouth. The world had become sound and pain. Reeds rattled. His own voice echoed back at him, thin and ridiculous and terrified.
"Help!" he gasped. "Seven help me!"
The answer came as footsteps. Unhurried, human footsteps.
Someone stopped beside him while he writhed in the muck.
Walys sucked in a ragged breath and forced his hands down from his face, though the pain was no better for it. Shapes swam red-black behind his ruined lids. He could not make anything out.
Then a voice spoke above him, familiar enough to make his gut knot.
"You are not dying," it said. "Not today."
Walys knew that voice, but he couldn't place the name. It was one of the crannogwomen leaders in the host. Such women leading soldiers appalled him, but now was not the time for objections.
"Who are you lass?" Walys croaked. "Please, I need my eyes flushed."
With an amused tone, the voice responded. "Good. You can still think. I am Lady Jyana Fenn."
Hands seized his shoulder and turned him none too gently flat on his back. Something rough but damp pressed briefly to his eyes. It did not help the pain much, but it kept him from rubbing them further raw.
"You are going to answer some questions, Walys Flowers" Lady Fenn said.
Walys tried to speak, but the words dissolved into another cry as the venom flared again.
"Do not waste breath screaming," came the same calm voice. "The snakes don't care, and my people already know where you are.
Walys heard movement then beyond the reeds. More than one person. Soft feet. Quiet breathing. The hidden world of the Neck closing around him with patient competence.
He had a sudden, awful picture of the little golden frog hopping neatly from stone to stone, always just out of reach.
The last coherent thought he had before the darkness took him was that maybe these creatures were not natural after all.
His curiosity had led him right into a trap.
Then blackness rolled over him, cool and deep as marsh water, and he fell into it.