Overthrown77

Hello everyone. I wanted to practice my writing and have written a reimagining of some of the Long Night aka Battle of Winterfell of Season 8 Episode 3. I wrote it with some big changes in mind as to how I think it should have transpired to a much more exciting / compelling effect.

I would appreciate any critiques, comments, feedback, etc., in particular about the writing/prose as I would like to improve and find where my weaknesses are and what people respond to negatively/positively.

Thanks in advance!




"A battered seawall of churning bodies spanned the visible horizon. Endless clatter of metal on metal rang out amongst the grunts and ghoulish screams of those too quickly taking leave of this world. Breathing heavily, sword clenched tightly in hand Jaime Lannister fell back behind a wooden buttress to survey the battlefield. The thick clouds roiling above the battle flickered from within by ghostly bolts of cerulean followed by intermittent shocks of fiery orange.
“The dragons, they’re battling!” a voice cried from atop the battlements. Jaime looked up, in awe of what he was seeing. Grotesque shapes danced like ravaged shadows through the gauze of the cloud cover. Otherworldly screams echoed from the sky like the calls of some underwater monstrosity sounding from the ink black depths of the Narrow Sea.
--
Jon Snow clung low and tight onto Rhaegal’s scales as he descended on the darkened shape of Viserion. A hideous screech pierced the night as Viserion canted to the side from the full weight of the blow, desperately extending his tattered wings to right himself. But Rhaegal’s claws dug deep into his side and tore at his fetid flesh. Sensing an opportunity, the Night King unclasped his frozen spear and cocked it back for the fatal throw. Jon locked eyes with him and in that moment his chest tightened like a fist clenched on broken shards of dragonglass. Just then an immense shadow, growing larger in the haze above them, split the clouds in thick oily whorls and crashed onto Viserion’s back. Drogon’s harrowing roar shook Jon to his bones as the dragons tumbled through the blistering air. Drogon’s massive legs twisted Viserion’s body with such force that even the Night King could not hold on and fell helplessly, disappearing into the gray mist below. Jon pulled on Rhaegal, who immediately dove through the clouds after him. Drogon let go of Viserion who tumbled uncontrollably and Daenarys bade Drogon to dive as well.
Emerging from the clouds, Daenarys leaned forward for a better view of the ground. Below her Rhaegal lay injured on his side, writhing his clawed feet and emitting pained shrieks. A shunted Jon Snow was slowly raising himself from the scarred earth. Before him, in the distance was the figure of the Night King walking calmly away, towards the Godswood, his stride confident and purposeful.
Fires burned all around the stricken landscape, long trails of sinewy smoke drifted across blasted mortar and blackened wrecks of wooden battlements that once stood tall and proud, serving generations of noble Starks. Blood in her eyes, Daenerys commanded Drogon onward toward the blue figure of the Night King. But it was too late, Jon Snow had drawn his greatsword Longclaw and with a cry began a decisive final charge at the blue figure disappearing into the mist. Daenerys pulled back at the last moment, her jaw clenched bitterly as Jon was now too close for her to risk dragon fire.
Jon continued his charge, kicking up clumps of raw earth, his dirt spattered face pulled into a grimace. The Night King came to an eerie stop and began to slowly turn towards him. He locked eyes with the charging figure of Jon Snow, his frost-shorn visage inscrutable as ever, as he reached his hand behind him and slowly drew his own sword. The blade was a sickly protrusion of what looked like serrated bone and ice. It appeared immeasurably ancient and unmarked by any known heraldic display. Drogon growled beneath her as Daenerys held her breath and watched the figure of Jon Snow descend upon the apparition who stared back with burning sapphire eyes. Longclaw glinted through the pall as it slowly rose. Daenerys’s heart beat faster and pulled her to turn away but she could not.
They came together like the clash of two bygone ages. A deafening twang pierced the cold night air and a shower of sparks bloomed into a coruscating fountain. Daenerys gasped and drew her eyes downward. When she looked back up, Jon Snow was laying on his back with Longclaw flung beside him. The figure of the Night King swathed in rising swirls of flint-struck smoke stood calmly in lowered guard position. Jon came to and groped for the wolf-head pommel of Longclaw, finally finding it next to him and pulling it close. The Night King relaxed his stance and turned toward Jon with a faint hint of a smirk drawn across his pallid face. Jon rose with a slight limp and trying to walk it off, began circling his opponent.
Drogon let out a bellow while continuing to flap his gargantuan wings. Daenerys shook her head in frustration while pulling on him to rein him in. Jon stopped and raised Longclaw to his chest. He settled his shoulders and lowered his head. The Night King’s face returned to a stare of cold indifference as he lowered himself again into a guard position and tilted his sword forward in a beckoning pose. Suddenly, Jon screamed and lunged forward. Longclaw sang as it swung at the Night King. A series of clashes and ripostes sent a rapid fire clack of metal on ice echoing though the frost, the Night King moving faster than Daenerys ever saw a man move. Lightning parries striking down each of Jon’s slashes followed dizzying footwork. Swords swung and clashed as both figures weaved in and out of impossible positions.
Drogon snarled loudly and circled the fight, each downward flap of his giant wings sending eddies of smoke and ash whirling through the figures that danced below amongst burning pits of debris. Jon grunted and struck out again, but each combination of his strikes were cleanly parried and rebuffed as if prepared for, forcing him back. The Night King pushed forward, swinging forceful thrusts that rang out in terrible clangs upon meeting Longclaw’s Valyrian edge, each push forcing Jon another step back.
With red-rimmed eyes Daenerys watched helplessly as the Night King beat Jon back with a combination of blows, each one more forceful than the last and sending Jon more precariously off balance each time. Jon’s rear boot met the edge of a charred pit and he could back up no more. The Night King struck out with a powerful overhand blow while Jon desperately swung with equal force to counter. The ancestral Valyrian blade met the gnarled bone-ice of its ancient counterpart with a peal that rang through the midnight air like a funeral toll and a cloudburst of scintillating Valyrian shards. A few loose wisps of frosty smoke curled away like skeletal fingers from the shattered edge of Longclaw. The Night King’s eyes narrowed as he stepped forward to deliver a final stroke. Daenerys cried out and Drogon dove towards them, thrashing out with his giant claws. Jon fell backward into a shallow pit while the Night King caught a shearing swipe across his chest, gouging a rift in his obsidian-black armor. Before he could react, Drogon turned and with fire in her voice Daenerys called out, “Dracarys!”
A frightful plume of fire erupted from Drogon’s throat and the Night King was quickly but a dark mote inside an incinerating wall of orange flame. With a taste of choking soot on her tongue, Daenerys anxiously peered forward to watch the flames recede, and the shape of a figure with hands slowly rising at its sides, emerge. Jon had climbed out of the pit with a blackened face, wiped his eyes and witnessed the Night King standing amongst licking flames at his feet, wreathed in a halo of dark smoke convecting from his singed armor, but otherwise unharmed. His arms now raised fully at his sides, heralding the crackling and chattering sounds of the undead stirring all around them. Slowly, they began to rise, first a handful, then dozens – Dothraki, Unsullied, and Northerners who had just freshly fallen in battle.
Jon gulped for air and turned to look for another weapon. Just then the Night King palmed his spear again, and lifted his fore hand to measure out the distance to Drogon. Daenerys pulled on Drogon who uttered a shrill cry and snapped his wings to turn and fly away. Jon grabbed a poleaxe from the ground and started backing away with hopelessness in his eyes as the newly risen soldiers plodded towards him. The Night King watched with a final smirk then turned and continued toward the Godswood.
--
In the Godswood, the Night King’s arrival was heralded by a chill breeze that blew over the bodies of Ironborn littering the freshly snow leavened ground. Escorted by White Walkers with frozen stares, the Night King led a solemn procession through the still grove toward the Weirwood tree beside which an expectant Bran awaited in his wheeled chair. Next to Bran, Theon Greyjoy stood breathing heavily, his face cast in shadow but glimming with fresh blood in the darkness, as he clenched his polearm close to his chest. The Night King stopped across the grove from them as his elder lieutenants filled out around him. Theon stepped forward out of the shadow of the great Weirwood tree and abruptly paused when he heard Bran call his name.
“Theon…”
His lips quivered as he turned to look at Bran.
“You’re a good man...” said Bran. “Thank you.”
With tears in his eyes, Theon mustered his remaining courage and faced his opponent, who returned a frigid stare across the falling snows. He brought his polearm forward and without a word began his charge. He crossed the grove and bore down on the Night King with a cry that the Maesters will one day write songs about. But for all his valor, in an instant, with the sharp crackle of wood and a sickly sound, he stood impaled with his own spear in front of the Night King, by a move almost too fast for human eyes. The Night King let go and Theon fell to the ground, blood welling at the corners of his mouth and eyes staring absently upward at the endless branching patterns of the Weirwood tree.
The Night King again proceeded towards Bran who gazed absently away. The Night King crossed the grove and came to a stop before him. Bran slowly drew his eyes upward and met his gaze. Two unhuman coals of burning azure beneath a crown of sharded ice stared back, piercing through the veil of Bran’s crippled body, down to his core. There was an unknowable intelligence glittering and moving beneath those smoldering blue embers, whose wants and needs swam in the murky depths of a jet black river that the Gods themselves could not chart. But Bran could not plead with it; he was resigned to the fate that willed and guided the course of the three eyed raven.
All around him in the grove, the Night King’s White Walker lieutenants stood still as if carved from ice, watching it unfold. The Night King began to slowly raise his right hand toward the hilt of his blade at his back but Bran’s gaze did not waver. Suddenly like a whispered breeze that calmy brushes the boughs of the Weirwood, unburdening them of their powdered carriage, a figure like a hanging shadow appeared in the air behind the Night King, as if frozen in time. Before the dark pools that were Bran’s eyes could widen, a murderous female scream split the night and in a flash, the Night King was spun around and clutching the throat and dagger hand of Arya Stark above him. Before he could appraise the threat with his steely eyes, Arya’s hand loosened and the dagger slowly slipped toward the ground, as her free hand deftly caught it and in one smooth motion drove it into the Night King’s heart. He dropped her and staggered, clutching his chest and howling an inhuman howl that splintered branches and sent drifts of shivered snow falling in cascades around them.
In the grove, wights began to fall as it seemed the Night King’s fell hold on them slipped away. And elsewhere all around Winterfell, the undead wights began to fall one by one to the wide eyed surprise and relief of the remaining defenders. The White Walkers however, tied to their dark lord with a higher order of ancient magic, remained and at the sight of their imperiled king brought to one knee, they rushed toward Arya, seething in a berserk ungodly rage. Arya scrambled back toward Bran and watched as his eyes flashed into milky orbs. Suddenly, a distant crowing grew louder, and before the charging commanders could look up, a flock of ravens darker than the cloaks of the Night’s Watch, descended upon them in a frenzy of gashing swoops that kicked up a whirlwind of snow around them.
While the ravens rended and tore at their targets, the Night King slowly rose and with a dark grimace, pulled the catspaw dagger from his chest. He tossed it aside and his blue-fire eyes flashed as he thrust his hand into the air to command the elements. A gale-force shockwave tore through the grove sending tatters of black feathers, bristles, and snowdrift twisting in a vortex of destruction. Arya clutched Bran and shielded him as best she could as his wheelchair buffeted and listed and even some of the White Walkers were swept off their feet. But they recovered and stood and were joined by their King. Emboldened, they began to walk towards Arya and Bran for the finish, their heavy steps crunching dark carcasses and splayed black wings beneath them.
Just then, somewhere from the battlements adjacent to the Godswood, a woman’s voice cried out, "Zyhys oñoso jehikagon Aeksiot epi, se gis hen syndrorro jemagon.”
Arya looked up and the slender silhouette of a robed figure with its hands raised forward appeared through the blinding snow. The figure moved towards the edge and caught the orange firelight of the massive fires that raged beyond the Godswood, and even through the distance, Arya identified the entranced face of Melisandre incanting a dark chain of words in High Valyrian, casting and scattering them to the winds above them. Each time the phrases repeated, her voice became more shrill, crying out to R’hllor with more fervor and when Arya looked down she saw the White Walkers slow and come to a stop. Their frost white hair swept in the wind as they stood with glowing lamprey eyes locked absently ahead. Reacting to the quiescence of their footfalls, the Night King slowed and turned to look back at his commanders. Meanwhile, Melisandre’s recitations became faster and more fevered. Arya stood quietly, trying to control her breath, with her hand readying on Needle. “Āeksiō ōños, aōhos ōñoso ilōn jehikās!”
The White Walker at the head of the pack suddenly flickered his eyes. They all began to stir. The Night King’s head tilted imperceptibly to the side. Then, as sudden as a gust of wind, the White Walkers’ eyes widened and they drew their frost-bitten blades and descended on the Night King. With a flash of pale ice, the Night King’s blade was released from its sheath and a storm of shattering bone-ice swords rebounded from each other. The commanders had descended upon their lord and were assailing him with all their dark prowess while he strained to beat back their attacks. Melisandre continued her invocations and the Night King slowly maneuvered his body as he fought in order to turn to a more favorable angle. Building on a combination of immaculate parries, he timed a massive two handed sweeping blow that staggered the front three commanders and sent them reeling into the ones behind them. With the needed space, the Night King quickly drew his spear from his back, brought it up for aim, and released it into the night. It glinted as it caught touches of moonlight in its flight. Arya and Bran’s eyes followed its path and watched as it disappeared into the dark figure of Melisandre with a meaty sound. Her arms dropped, a sudden silence befell the Godswood. She stumbled forward and prostrated one final time for the Lord of Light, over the parapet wall. Not long after the dull thump of her body on the snow silted grass , the White Walkers repossessed themselves and looked to each other, then back at their King. They straightened back to attention and the Night King lifted his chin just slightly in triumph. He turned again to Bran and Arya, his countenance no longer a mystery. There was a quiet fury now surging in him like a current beneath a frozen river.
Bran sat defiantly watching the Night King and his commanders make their final approach. Arya seeing they were surrounded, sheathed Needle and pulled Bran’s chair backwards to in a desperate bid to buy time and distance. But the White Walkers continued to descend on them. A faint jangle of metal rustled in the distance. Arya stopped and listened for the direction of the sound. It grew louder and closer until it sounded like a cart full of swords being wheeled unsteadily into the Godswood. She tried to peer around the jagged shapes outlining rows of leering azure orbs growing larger but could not make out the source of the noise. Suddenly, the tell tale sound of a long sword being pulled from its sheath, followed by several more. The White Walkers came to a stop and turned. Across from them, at the entrance of the Godswood, stood Jaime Lannister, face and golden armor flecked with crimson, left hand holding Widow’s Wail forward, straight and true. Behind him loomed the Hound, and Brienne of Tarth with her squire Podrick at her side. Gendry, Jorah Mormont, Tormund, Greyworm, and others followed and came to a stop beside them. Lastly, Jon Snow ran in, and immediately joined Jaime at the front. The two sides glowered at each other, and Arya quietly wheeled Bran around towards the castle wall side of the Godswood out of harm’s reach.
“Alright you ice *****,” said Hound, and spat on the ground in front of him. The Night King slowly walked to the front of his commanders and a chill wind whistled and sent red leaves tumbling across the court. Jon caught the shadow of Arya slowly moving Bran towards them against the wall. The Night King glimpsed the direction of his eyes and peered over his shoulder. Jon saw him spot Arya and Bran and threw caution to the wind. He hoisted up his new dragonglass Sword and with the last of his energy charged off toward the Night King. Tormund’s eyes lit up, he brought up his sword and with a resounding cry took off after Jon. The rest immediately followed suit and a ferocious wave of northmen heaved towards the Night King and his commanders. They met in the center of the Godswood, beneath the shadow of the great Weirwood tree, crashing against each other, Man versus the Others. A clangor of metal thudding against ice filled the court, a sea of bodies spinning, striking, grunting. Screams and wails and metallic blows filled the court with a fierce clamor. Arya continued to wheel Bran hurriedly against the wall to position the defenders in between her and the Others. She stayed with Bran to the last, Needle ready as always at her side.
Jaime and Brienne, wielding the two halves of Stark’s ancestral blade Ice, fought back to back and protected each other’s flanks. Tormund, Hound, Jorah, and Greyworm formed an impenetrable wall of aggression sending an interchanging array of grunts, screams, and over hand smashes every which way around them. Jon Snow wended through the chaos, deftly striking down and deflecting White Walker blows, in search of the Night King in the fray. He finally found a path to him and quickly made a line towards him as the Night King cut down a northern soldier who had strayed too far forward. Greyworm eyed Jon’s overextension, parried a blow that came his way and quickly maneuvered towards Jon. Two White Walkers positioned themselves in front of their King and struck out at them. Greyworm caught one of their strikes with his spear, and shunted it aside. Jon saw the opening and thrust his sword into the Walker’s chest, shattering him. The second immediately struck out, which Jon caught on his sword while Greyworm nimbly sidestepped to his exposed flank and drove his dragonglass spear point straight through his side, disintegrating him. Elsewhere in the battle, Tormund was ran through by a White Walker sword and sank to his knees, a demonic half smile on his face as blood spumed from his mouth. Jorah, meanwhile, took massive slices from both sides and collapsed to one knee while Brienne and Gendry filled the pocket. The Hound screamed and swung a blow so forceful it stunned both him and the Walker when their swords clashed above them. Brienne saw it and quickly executed a text book down stroke through the Walker’s neck, sending him spilling into shards beneath their feet.
At this point, the White Walkers were whittled down by several bodies and only 7 remained. They regrouped and took position in front of the Night King who fell back behind them, for the first time sensing peril. They stood shoulder to shoulder holding their swords forward ready to rebuff any strikes, now on the defensive. Behind them, the Night King’s eyes went white and while the exhausted heroes circled them slowly, a distant braying interrupted the faceoff. Several of the undead horses steamed into the Godswood and the Night King jumped onto one, followed by several of his generals. The heroes moved in but the remaining four Walkers hissed and lashed out dangerously. Most of the defenders were too exhausted to make chase or muster an overpowering offense. The Night King and his three mounted commanders took off without a word. While the rest of heroes slowly encircled the remaining few, Bran’s eyes flicked white again.
At the edge of the Godswood, the Night King rode hard and fast with his three remaining commanders. Out of no where like a white shadow, Ghost leapt viciously onto the rear White Walker, knocking him and his horse onto their sides and sending him tumbling without his weapon. Ghost came back to his feet and jumped on the Walker, mauling him. Stark men gathering outside the Godswood, immediately shouted and descended upon them with their dragonglass swords and skewered the fallen Walker on the ground.
In the Godswood, the remaining White Walkers were surrounded and systematically cut down. A heap of ice shards was all that remained and Jaime stood over them, breathing deeply while Brienne and Hound glanced at each other then surveyed the court while slowly lowering their swords. A vespertine stillness pervaded the Godswood for the first time that night. Men settled, exhalations were heard all around. Creaking of leather and rustling of swords returned to their sheaths. Drogon shrieked somewhere overhead and a dark shape passed above the Godswood. Stark men came and tended to the wounded and fallen. It was over, Winterfell still stood, and the north had won this battle. But the Night King had escaped with three of his top commanders and there was no way of knowing whether he would regroup and when or where he would return.